The New Charter School Study

Macke Raymond, the lead author* for CREDO's new study of charter school performance, emphasized on yesterday's conference call about the report the importance of the word "variability" when discussing the study's results. And there is a lot--among schools, among states, and among the students. In the end, the study (as most good research does) raises more questions than it answers.

The top-line result from the study, and the one most likely to get press attention, is that charter schools are not performing as well as equivalent traditional public schools--17 percent of the charter schools outperformed their traditional public school equivalents, 46 percent were indistinquishable, and a disturbing 37 percent performed significantly worse. That result isn't great for charter advocates - 15 years into charter schooling and one would hope that aggregate analysis of charter school performance would at least be on-par with traditional public schools, if not slightly better.

But that one result doesn't really tell the story of charter school performance--instead, it is that key word "variability" that starts to get at what is happening.

Charter elementary and middle schools actually performed better than their traditional public school peers overall, while high schools and multi-grade schools did worse. Black and Hispanic students showed significantly lower gains than their matched traditional public school students. But low-income and English Language Learner students posted larger gains than their traditional public school peers.

And then there is the variation among states. The report examined results from 16 states and found that in math, for example, 5 states showed higher gains among charter school students: Illinois (Chicago), Colorado (Denver), Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas. In 9 other states, charter school students performed worse, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

The CREDO researchers also drew some conclusions about state charter school policy from this variation in state results. They looked at state caps on the number of charter schools, the availability of multiple school authorizers, and whether the state has an appeals process for new charter proposals. Both the presence of caps and availability of multiple authorizers were associated with lower charter school performance, while an appeals process was associated with higher performance. The results for multiple authorizers is surprising and runs counter to the thinking of many organizations, including Education Sector. Perhaps 'multiple authorizers' isn't the best way to frame a state's policy--instead the difference is likely in how well authorizers are held accountable for their work and whether the state has statewide, professional authorizers that are able to focus sufficient resources and attention to the job of monitoring school quality.

In the end, this report is a good discussion starter. Why would charter schools in Louisiana show significantly positive growth while charter schools in Texas show significantly negative growth? Why would charter schools serving elementary and middle grades separately do better than traditional public schools, while charter schools serving those grades under one roof do worse? And what is it about charter schools that is beneficial to low-income and English Language Learner students, but isn't for Black and Hispanic students?

I'm looking forward to the next report, which promises to dive into some of these questions. In the meantime, the policy recommendations from this first report underscores that the current shift in discussions of charter school policy, from a focus on the quantity of charter schools to emphasizing the quality of those schools, is precisely where the charter school movement needs to go.

* And ES board Vice-Chair