Stéphane Lavertu, Foreword by: Aaron Churchill Chad L. Aldis

We learn two main things about the program:

  • First, charter schools spent the supplemental funds in the classroom, most notably to boost teacher pay. As noted earlier, teacher salaries in charter schools have historically lagged. However, with the additional QCSSF dollars, qualifying charters were able to raise teacher pay by an impressive $8,276 per year on average. This allowed schools to retain more of their instructional staff, as indicated by a reduction in the number of first-year teachers as a percentage of their overall teaching staffs.
  • Second, students attending qualifying schools made greater academic progress in math and reading than their counterparts attending non-QCSSF charters. Based on an analysis of the state’s value-added scores—a measure of pupil academic growth on state assessments—Dr. Lavertu’s most conservative estimates indicate that the supplemental dollars led to additional annual learning that is equivalent to twelve and fourteen extra days in math and reading, respectively. In addition to these achievement effects, he also finds that QCSSF reduced chronic absenteeism by 5.5 percentage points.