MIT Blueprint Labs is pleased to announce that the Charter School Research Collaborative awarded funds to six charter school research projects earlier this week. Two full research projects, three pilot studies, and one proposal development project will delve into California charters’ long-term effects, charter school funding laws, a randomized controlled trial testing charter admissions policies, and more. One pilot study will build a novel dataset that tracks authorizers’ performance framework metrics over time. The Collaborative’s second request for proposals received many strong applications covering a wide variety of topics and regions. We are thrilled to support these seven policy-relevant, rigorous projects.
In 2025, Blueprint will continue to advance actionable charter school research by supporting research-practice partnerships and running two new requests for proposals (RFPs). The first of the Collaborative’s 2025 RFPs opened just last week, with letters of inquiry due on February 5, 2025. Blueprint aims to fund policy-relevant studies aligned with our research agenda that examine the long-term and non-test score outcomes of attending charter schools, effective charter school practices, charters’ impacts on students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, and more. Grants range from $10,000 to $250,000.
Blueprint also hosts quarterly matchmaking sessions to provide charter school researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with the opportunity to develop new research partnerships. Over the last year, over 100 charter stakeholders have attended matchmaking events, resulting in over 70 matches.
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