The Korea Local Administration Review

Carter schools in Florida have been the best practice of sustainable education system in terms of innovative learning and academic achievement with accountability. However, little is known charter school growth, namely student population change by enrollment growth, so the primary concern of this study is how the charter schools have sustained growth and what causes their growth in Florida. This study uses panel data analysis with 37 school districts that have operated more than 5 years. In doing so, we examined diverse parts of charter school including school and student, school district, and school community which are recognized as important fields through previous studies. The result shows that all three parts are important and each part needs to be paid attention to study charter school growth. First, in school and student category, free reduced lunch eligible and class size are important to explain charter school growth. Second, school district category has one significant variable, expenditure for FTE which is related to financial capacity of charter school. Third, school community category has one significant variable, school-aged children in poverty. As for the implication of this study, first, educational welfare support from government and school class environment are more important than educational performance or instructional support. Second, role of school district as a financial distributor or provider greatly influences sustainable charter school growth in that charter school exclusively counts on funding from school district for school management. Third, economic background of family and government welfare resources are important factors related sustainable growth.

□ Keywords: Charter School, School Growth, Panel Data Analysis