Ewing Marion Kauffman Charter School¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 8 claims (8 for) · 6 studies (5 causal, 1 qualitative), q2–q3 · 0 of 6 report an effect size · 7 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The Ewing Marion Kauffman School is "a public charter school that serves students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri". The evaluation examined its impacts on achievement, attendance, and suspensions, and described its hallmarks and operations through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and classroom observations to explore possible mechanisms for its effects, informing the literature on school effectiveness.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Serves students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri, as described in the evaluation
• Serves students in Kansas City, Missouri as a public, tuition-free charter school

Constraints¶

• Impact estimates rely on a matched comparison group of similar students in other Kansas City district and charter schools

Target Learners¶

• students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri
• Students in grades 5 through 11, predominantly low-income and black or Hispanic

Target Learning Goals¶

• student achievement growth in mathematics, reading, and science
• Achievement growth in mathematics, English language arts, and science; college and career readiness as measured by ACT scores

Claims¶

• The Kauffman School's hallmarks are largely being implemented faithfully [+W]
• The Kauffman School had positive, statistically significant impacts on student achievement growth in mathematics, reading, and science across 2011-2012 through 2013-2014 [+M]
• Key stakeholders believe the Kauffman School's methods positively influence students' behavior, attitudes, and performance [+W]
• The Kauffman School produced positive, statistically significant, and educationally meaningful impacts on student achievement growth in mathematics, English language arts, and science in each of its first five years, beyond the growth of students in other Kansas City public schools [+W]
• The Kauffman School has higher ACT scores than the Kansas City high school average, but its impact on ACT scores could not be calculated [+W]
• During its first seven years, the Kauffman School had substantial positive impacts on student achievement growth in mathematics, English language arts, and science beyond growth in other Kansas City public schools [+M]
• The Kauffman School produced substantial positive impacts on student achievement growth in mathematics, English language arts, and science over its first six years [+W]
• The Kauffman School's achievement impacts are higher than the average impacts found in studies of other charter schools [+M]

Related Elements¶

• Ewing Marion Kauffman School: a tuition-free charter school serving Kansas City students in grades 5-10
• Ewing Marion Kauffman charter school in Kansas City, founded by the Kauffman Foundation
• Ewing Marion Kauffman Charter School Evaluation (Mathematica, 2011-2024)

Examples¶

• Use a matched comparison group design with qualitative mechanism exploration to evaluate charter school impacts
• Evaluate charter school impacts by matching students to demographically and academically similar comparison students

Key Sources¶

• Matthew Johnson, Cleo Jacobs Johnson, Scott Richman, Alicia Demers, Claudia Gentile, Eric Lindquist. (2016). The Educational and Behavioral Impacts of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Charter School. Mathematica Policy Research, Working Paper 43. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/the-educational-and-behavioral-impacts-of-the-ewing-marion-kauffman-charter-school
• Matthew Johnson, Alicia Demers. (2019). Ewing Marion Kauffman School Year 7 Impacts. Oakland, CA: Mathematica. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/ewing-marion-kauffman-school-year-7-impacts