Charters Not Outperforming Nation’s Traditional Public Schools but Improving report says-

Dry Dock Construction at Sinatra Park, Hoboken NJ- June 2013

The question that many people seem to want to know, especially in the educational policy arena, is whether charter schools provide more effective instruction or student outcomes than traditional public school education. While the debate is likely to go on for sometime, a new report out of Stanford University will likely shed some useful information on this important topic. It is important to realize that this is a "big data" study and comparing charters vs traditional schools on a statewide and national basis and not on an individual basis. Any individual school can be better or worse than any other individual or type of schools. However, when we look in the aggregate, trends and general assumptions can be made with more confidence. -Dr. Petrosino 

The nation’s public charter schools are growing more effective but most do not produce better academic results when compared with traditional public schools, according to a report released Tuesday. 

For Full Report click HERE. 

For Executive Summary click HERE. 

Researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes looked at test data from charter schools in 26 states and the District and found that 25 percent of charters outperformed traditional public schools in reading while 29 percent of charters delivered stronger results in math. That marked an improvement over a similar 2009 study by the same research team.

But 56 percent of the charters produced no significant difference in reading and 19 percent had worse results than traditional public schools. In math, 40 percent produced no significant difference and 31 percent were significantly worse than regular public schools.

Greater numbers of minority and poor students with academic deficits are attending public charter schools now than in 2009, said Margaret Raymond, director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes. That would seem to contradict a widely repeated criticism that charters attract motivated families while public schools are left to absorb the most challenged students, she said.

The study found that poor children, particularly African Americans and Hispanics, made the greatest gains in charters while children who are not poor — no matter their race — gained nothing or even performed worse than their counterparts in traditional public schools. Hispanic students who are English language learners also made gains in reading and math in charter schools.

The report was also discussed in the New York Times, and Huffington Post, among other media outlets.  

Full article can be accessed by clicking HERE.