Academies, charter and free schools: do new school types deliver better outcomes?

Abstract

School reforms featuring the introduction of new types of schools have occurred in the education systems of a number of countries. The most well-known of these new school types to be recently introduced are charter schools in the United States, free schools in Sweden and academy schools in England. We review the evidence on the impact of the introduction of these new schools on pupil outcomes and present new evidence for the case of England, whose introduction of academy schools has been one of the most radical changes in the school landscape over the past decade. The analysis of academies, charter and free schools concludes that, in certain settings, they can improve pupil performance.

Unexpected school reform: Academisation of primary schools in England

“…5 These were about 200 secondary schools, most of which were converted to academies because they were underperforming. As discussed in Eyles et al (2016a), the characteristics of predecessor schools were very different to schools that became academies from 2010 onwards (from which time there was also a massive expansion in the number of secondary academies, with over a thousand schools converting within a short period). The earlier programme very much focused on disadvantaged inner city schools, serving very deprived communities.…”

“…As Michael Gove, the Minister then responsible, put it schools have been 'given the freedom and the power to take control of their own destiny'. 1 Although academies have been around as a school improvement policy for underperforming secondary schools since 2002 (and studied by Eyles and Machin, 2015, and Eyles at al., 2016a, 2016b, the programme was radically altered and expanded following the election of the new government in May 2010. It became a structure to which all schools were invited to aspire.…”

Autonomous Schools and Strategic Pupil Exclusion

“…The new policy regime resulted in a remarkable increase in the number of academies in England; by January 2015, 2,075 secondary schools were academy schools, constituting 61% of secondary schools in England. In line with the new legislation, and unlike the pre-2010 academies, these were generally high performing schools enrolling advantaged pupils, and only few of these (531, including the 203 pre-2010 academies) signed up a sponsor prior to conversion (Eyles et al, 2016a). Table 3 shows results from permanent exclusion logistic regressions in year 11 by school type.…”

“…Key contributions to the literature on the English academies studied here are Eyles and Machin (forthcoming), Eyles et al (2016a) and Eyles et al (2016b) 8 . These studies focus on the first (i.e., pre-2010) batch of academies, and they study the impact of the academy conversion on pupil intake, pupil performance at the end of secondary school and post-secondary school outcomes.…”

“…Academy enrolment raises the probability of completing a Bachelor degree by the age of 21, and this effect too appears greater for academies in London (Eyles et al, 2016b). Eyles et al (2016a) show that academy enrolment raises the chances to remain in school at the end of compulsory schooling, it has longer run effects by raising the probability of entering higher education in the four years after completion of KS4 exams, and it increases the likelihood to enrol in a Bachelor's degree in a non-Russell group university.…”