| Charter schools are growing at a rapid pace have significantly more flexibility in their allocation of resources in comparison to their traditional public school counterparts in California. Because of this, it is important to study how successful charter schools, with this increased flexibility, are utilizing their resources to achieve high results with their students in a time of fiscal constraint. There is a plethora of data and research on effective school practices to improve student achievement, but a dearth of research on the effective allocation of resources at charter schools. The purpose of this study is to analyze how four high performing charter schools, with high percentages of socioeconomically disadvantaged students in Los Angeles, California, are implementing school improvement strategies and utilizing resources at their school site to impact student achievement. The Evidenced-Based Model, (Odden & Picus, 2008) along with Odden and Archibald's (2009) Ten Strategies for Doubling Student Performance were used as a lens in this study to compare resource allocation as well as school improvement strategies to best support student achievement at the schools. This study will describe each schools' instructional vision and improvement strategy, how resources are utilized to implement their instructional improvement plan, how the current fiscal crisis is affecting their allocation of resources, and how actual resource patterns are aligned with the Evidence Based Model (Odden & Picus, 2008). |
