Competition within the market for publicly-funded education: An investigation of the impacts of charter schools on the academic achievement of elementary students attending both charter and traditional public schools within the Chicago Public Schools syst

Market-based educational reforms trace roots to the mid twentieth century, given birth by economists such as Charles Tiebout and Milton Friedman. The free market notions central to the market-based philosophy are currently manifested in the school choice movement, specifically charter schools. One principle upon which charter school advocates argue for expansion is based on the theory that competition from these privately-operated, publicly-funded educational entities inspires all schools to operate more efficiently and produce better outputs. Measured by standardized exams, some research indicates that competition will lead to higher academic achievement. This study sought to determine if a statistically significant relationship existed between competition expressly the Herfindahl Index, and Illinois Standards Achievement test scores.;This study's methodology combined geographic information systems mapping and hierarchical linear models. For the period 2002-2005 within Chicago public elementary schools, the results of this study did not suggest any meaningful relationship between competition and Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) scores. However, the study did uncover several noteworthy findings related to the superiority of charter school performance. First, the results of the study indicated no significant difference in the mean starting ISAT scores for all schools included. This finding dismisses the notion that charters only accept students with superior aptitude, a.k.a. "creaming." The results also signaled that charter school students have test scores that both grew more rapidly and finished higher than their traditional public school peers. Thus it appears that charter schools produced higher performing students.