Doctoral Academy Fellow to Speak at Pennsylvania Charter School Hearing

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Anna Jacob Egalite

Anna Jacob Egalite, a Doctoral Academy Fellow in the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas, will give testimony Feb. 7 before a Pennsylvania Department of Education panel about a charter school that wants to amend its charter.

Egalite surveyed parents and students of Achievement House Cyber Charter Schools and will provide information at the hearing to help officials determine how to rule on the request to expand the school’s charter to include elementary grades. Egalite worked with Robert Maranto, who holds the Twenty-First Century Chair in Leadership, and Dennis Beck, assistant professor of educational technology, to conduct almost 500 surveys for three main reasons.

“First, we wanted to generate a demographic profile of the families to share with the school so that they could better understand who they are serving,” Egalite said. “The second area we looked at was reasons for choosing this particular school. The third area we looked at was satisfaction with particular features of this school, in particular how various features compare with the students’ previous school.”

The British Journal of Educational Technology is reviewing the survey data for possible publication.