No Excuses charter school model
No Excuses charter schools focus heavily on reading and math achievement, enforce high behavioral expectations through a formal discipline system, and substantially increase instruction time relative to traditional public schools (TPS) (Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013, Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Dobbie 2013). Teachers receive more feedback about their teaching than peers in other schools and regularly use data from student assessments to modify instruction; school days and school years are often longer than those in TPS (Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Dobbie 2013). No Excuses schools often offer intense tutoring, especially for students with remedial needs (Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Dobbie 2013, Fryer RG. Injecting charter schools best practices into traditional public schools: Evidence from field experiments. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129(3):1355-1407.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Fryer 2014). As with other charter schools, No Excuses schools use public finances and are not subject to many of the regulations that govern TPS such as staffing, curriculum, and budgeting requirements (Mathematica-Clark 2011).
Expected Beneficial Outcomes (Rated)
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Increased academic achievement
Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes
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Increased college enrollment
Evidence of Effectiveness
There is strong evidence that charter schools that follow the No Excuses model increase students’ academic achievement (Krowka 2017, Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Cheng 2017, NBER-Chabrier 2016, Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013, Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Dobbie 2013); achievement gains are large and meaningful (Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Cheng 2017). Academic gains appear strongest for black and Hispanic students, students from families with low incomes, and students who enter the school with low achievement scores (Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013).
No Excuses schools increase students’ reading and math achievement more than traditional public schools (TPS) (Krowka 2017, Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Cheng 2017, Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Dobbie 2013, Abdulkadiroglu 2011, Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013), and more than many other charter school models (Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Cheng 2017, Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013); gains are largest in math achievement (Krowka 2017, Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Cheng 2017, NBER-Chabrier 2016). Gains for students in No Excuses charter schools relative to TPS peers increase for up to three years, then tend to stabilize (Krowka 2017). No Excuses schools can also increase students’ scores on high school exit exams and college entrance exams, and increase likelihood of college enrollment, compared to students who do not win admittance lotteries for No Excuses schools (Angrist JD, Cohodes SR, Dynarski SM, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Stand and deliver: Effects of Boston's charter high schools on college preparation, entry, and choice. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 2013: Working Paper 19275.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)NBER-Angrist 2013). Even when admitted at the high school level, attending a No Excuses school has a positive effect on college matriculation, quality, and persistence (Davis M, Heller B. 'No Excuses' charter schools and college enrollment: New evidence from a high school network in Chicago. Education Finance and Policy. 2017;(November):1-57.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Davis 2017).
A Houston-based study indicates that when low performing traditional public schools restructure to follow No Excuses principles, students can increase math achievement, especially when offered intense tutoring (Fryer RG. Injecting charter schools best practices into traditional public schools: Evidence from field experiments. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129(3):1355-1407.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Fryer 2014, NBER-Chabrier 2016).
Although attending No Excuses charter schools increases students’ test scores and college enrollment, current studies suggest only a small, statistically insignificant increase on earnings later in life (NBER-Dobbie 2016).
Per pupil expenditures vary by school. In a Boston-based study, expenditures by No Excuses charter schools were similar to those of traditional public schools (Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Angrist 2013). In a Houston-based study, reforming low performing traditional public schools to incorporate No Excuses principles increased cost by $1800 per pupil, mainly due to the lengthened school day and the cost of intense tutoring for some students (Fryer 2012).
Additional research is needed to determine whether the No Excuses model could be effectively scaled to additional schools and which elements of the model are most crucial to success (Fryer RG. Injecting charter schools best practices into traditional public schools: Evidence from field experiments. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129(3):1355-1407.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Fryer 2014). An examination of an effort to scale up the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) model No Excuses school suggests gains in student academic achievement can be maintained with program expansion (Mathematica-Tuttle 2015).
Impact on Disparities
Likely to decrease disparities
Implementation Examples
Charter schools that follow the No Excuses model are often established in low income, urban areas (NBER-Chabrier 2016). Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools (Mathematica-Booker 2014), the Promise Academy in the Harlem Children’s Zone (Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. The medium-term impacts of high-achieving charter schools on non-test score outcomes. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); 2013.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)NBER-Dobbie 2013), and SEED (Curto VE, Fryer Jr. RG. The potential of urban boarding schools for the poor: Evidence from SEED. Journal of Labor Economics. 2014;32(1):65-93.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Curto 2014) are examples of schools following the No Excuses model. SEED schools, located in Baltimore and Washington DC, board students five days a week and teach non-academic content such as nutrition and social skills (Curto VE, Fryer Jr. RG. The potential of urban boarding schools for the poor: Evidence from SEED. Journal of Labor Economics. 2014;32(1):65-93.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)Curto 2014).
Implementation Resources
Citations - Evidence
* Journal subscription may be required for access.
Abdulkadiroglu 2011 - Abdulkadiroglu A, Angrist JD, Dynarski SM, Kane TJ, Pathak PA. Accountability and flexibility in public schools: Evidence from Boston’s charters and pilots. Quaterly Journal of Economics. 2011;126(2):699–748.
Dobbie 2013* - Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. Getting beneath the veil of effective schools: Evidence from New York City. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 2013;5(4):28–60.
Angrist 2013* - Angrist JD, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Explaining charter school effectiveness. American Economic Journal. 2013;5(4):1-27.
NBER-Angrist 2013* - Angrist JD, Cohodes SR, Dynarski SM, Pathak PA, Walters CR. Stand and deliver: Effects of Boston's charter high schools on college preparation, entry, and choice. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 2013: Working Paper 19275.
Fryer 2012 - Fryer R Jr. Learning from the successes and failures of charter schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution; 2012: Discussion Paper.
Fryer 2014* - Fryer RG. Injecting charter schools best practices into traditional public schools: Evidence from field experiments. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129(3):1355-1407.
Mathematica-Tuttle 2015 - Tuttle CC, Gleason P, Knechtel V, et al. Understanding the effect of KIPP as it scales: Volume 1, impacts on achievement and other outcomes. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research (MPR), KIPP Foundation; 2015.
Krowka 2017 - Krowka S, Hadd A, Marx R. 'No Excuses' charter schools for increasing math and literacy achievement in primary and secondary education. Campbell Systematic Reviews. 2017;13(August).
Cheng 2017* - Cheng A, Hitt C, Kisida B, Mills JN. 'No Excuses' charter schools: A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on student achievement. Journal of School Choice. 2017;11(2):209-238.
NBER-Dobbie 2016 - Dobbie W, Fryer RG. Charter schools and labor market outcomes. National Bureau of Economic Research. 2016.
NBER-Chabrier 2016 - Chabrier J, Gill B, Gleason P, Furgeson J, Clark C. What can we learn from charter school lotteries? Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2016;30(3):57-84.
Davis 2017* - Davis M, Heller B. 'No Excuses' charter schools and college enrollment: New evidence from a high school network in Chicago. Education Finance and Policy. 2017;(November):1-57.
Citations - Implementation Examples
* Journal subscription may be required for access.
NBER-Dobbie 2013* - Dobbie W, Fryer Jr. RG. The medium-term impacts of high-achieving charter schools on non-test score outcomes. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); 2013.
Mathematica-Booker 2014 - Booker K, Gill B, Sass T, Zimmer R. Charter high schools’ effects on long-term attainment and earnings. Mathematica Policy Research (MPR); 2014.
Curto 2014* - Curto VE, Fryer Jr. RG. The potential of urban boarding schools for the poor: Evidence from SEED. Journal of Labor Economics. 2014;32(1):65-93.
NBER-Chabrier 2016 - Chabrier J, Gill B, Gleason P, Furgeson J, Clark C. What can we learn from charter school lotteries? Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2016;30(3):57-84.
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