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Abstract
ABSTRACTThis purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the North Carolina charter schools. The variables were chosen based on the researcher's inference from literature reviews discussing common factors from qualitative charter school studies. The indicators were used to determine if charter schools could be categorized as effective or ineffective were: (1) attendance rates, (2) short suspensions, (3) student teacher ratio, (4) teacher quality, (5) Reading NCE, and (6) Math NCE scores. Charter schools were determined to be effective, if they were "1" standard deviation point above average for Reading NCE and Math NCE scores. Charter schools were determined to be ineffective, if they were "1" standard deviation point below average for Reading NCE and Math NCE scores. The data collected for this study was ex-post facto data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's (NCDPI) website using the academic school year 2008-09. The data was coded and entered into SPSS creating a quantitative output to be analyzed and interpreted. The quantitative output determined that there were a total of 12 ineffective charter schools and 10 effective charter schoolsThe results indicated that no charter schools in North Carolina were affiliated with a traditional school district. Also, the dependent variables, attendance rate and teacher quality were determined to be statistically significant in determining the effectiveness of a charter school in North Carolina. The other variables were determined to be insignificant in determining the effectiveness of charter schools in North Carolina.