District-Charter Collaboration Grant Implementation: Findings from Interviews and Site Visits
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District-Charter Collaboration Grant Implementation: Findings from Interviews and Site Visits

Published: Aug 31, 2015
Publisher: Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research
Human Services Education School Choice and Charters
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Full Publication
Associated Project

Evaluation of the District-Charter Collaboration Grants

Time frame: 2013-2016

Prepared for:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Authors

Moira McCullough

Luke Heinkel

Betsy Keating

Key Findings

Key Findings:

  • School co-locations or partnerships, intensive programs for aspiring leaders, and shared preparation for implementing Common Core standards have been among the most promising avenues for cross-sector collaboration to date.
  • Teachers interviewed in all sectors are receptive to collaboration on average, but the proportion of teachers that grantee districts have involved in collaboration grant activities has been limited across each district. Continued rollout of activities to a wider percentage of teachers is one avenue to increase opportunities for collaboration.
  • Leaders—at the city, central office, and school levels—are perceived to play a key role in promoting collaboration. Escalated conversation and action around cross-sector collaboration will depend on explicit support from these leaders.
  • Limited time—especially school staff time—has been a crucial obstacle impeding cross-sector collaboration. The Gates Foundation and grantee districts might consider devoting resources to identifying specific opportunities to overcome time constraints, whether by offering collaborative opportunities in the summer months, incorporating them into existing professional development days, or otherwise.

Mathematica has been studying the implementation of Bill & Melinda Gates–funded district-charter collaboration grants since July 2013. In this report, we examine the grantees’ activities from December 2012 through winter 2013–2014, focusing on the direct participants in the collaborations. The main goal of the analysis was to understand whether and how collaboration—and the sharing of effective practices, in particular—was occurring on a small scale. Collecting and analyzing data from semistructured interviews with central office administrators and school principals, teacher focus groups, and observations, Mathematica found that several activities implemented in multiple sites show promise in spreading effective practices across schools and staff, but overall progress in increasing collaboration has been limited.

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