Results

Early Promise

Evidence on the growth and outcomes of this relatively new movement has started to come in. The U.S. Department of Education's First Year Report, part of a four-year national study on charters, is based on interviews of 225 charter schools in 10 states (1997). Charters tend to be small (fewer than 200 students) and represent primarily new schools, though some schools had converted to charter status. Charter schools often tend to exist in urban locations, rather than rural. This study found enormous variation among states. Charter schools tended to be somewhat more racially diverse, and to enroll slightly fewer students with special needs and limited-English-proficient students than the average schools in their state. The most common reasons for founding charters were to pursue an educational vision and gain autonomy.

"Charter schools are havens for children who had bad educational experiences elsewhere," according to a Hudson Institute survey of students, teachers, and parents from fifty charters in ten states. More than 60 percent of the parents said charter schools are better than their children's previous schools in terms of teaching quality, individual attention from teachers, curriculum, discipline, parent involvement, and academic standards. Most teachers reported feeling empowered and professionally fulfilled.

Recent Findings

A report issued by a pro-charter school group, released in July 2005, looks at twenty-six studies that make some attempt to look at change over time in charter school student or school performance. Twelve of these find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools; four find charter schools’ gains higher in certain significant categories of schools, such as elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students; six find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools; and, four find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind. The study also looks at whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age (e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges). Of these, five of seven studies find that as charter schools mature, they improve. The other two find no significant differences between older and younger charter schools.

In August 2005, a national report of charter school finance found that across 16 states and the District of Columbia—which collectively enroll 84 percent of the nation’s one million charter school students—charter schools receive about 22 percent less in per-pupil public funding, or $1,800, than the district schools that surround them. For a typical charter school of 250 students, that amounts to about $450,000 per year. The funding gap is wider in most of twenty-seven urban school districts studied, where it amounts to $2,200 per student. In cities like San Diego and Atlanta, charters receive 40% less than traditional public schools. The fiscal inequity is most severe in South Carolina, California, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Missouri. The primary driver of the district-charter funding gap is charter schools’ lack of access to local and capital funding.

On August 16, 2004, the Department of Education released the first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress of 2003. These results, from a study of 6000 4th grade pupils in 2003, were reported, most prominently by the New York Times, as showing that charter school students perform worse in both mathematics and reading than comparable students in regular public schools. However, Rod Paige, the U.S. Secretary of Education, issued a statement contesting the conclusions which the New York Times drew in its article.

These results were the most comprehensive so far, studying such factors as race, neighborhood, and income. The study shows that charter school students scored lower than traditional public school students in virtually all categories. A number of prominent research experts called into question the usefulness of the findings and the largely un rigorous media coverage they received.

At a December 2004 workshop held by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to discuss the findings of the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) pilot study on charter schools, government officials urged charter opponents and proponents alike to use caution in making "sweeping" conclusions from the NAEP report. NAGB Chairman Darvin Winick called attention to what he called the "fine print" of the study - that is, "one snapshot in time cannot determine the achievement of students."

A study by the Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby also released in December 2004 that included 99 percent of all elementary charter school students found that they performed favorably in both math and reading compared to similar students in nearby conventional public schools, and that the longer the charter school had been in operation, the more favorably its students compared.

On August 22, 2006, the U.S. Department of Education released a report which found that students in charter schools performed several points worse than students in traditional public schools in both reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Critics of the study argue that its demographic controls are highly unreliable, as percentage of students receiving free lunches does not correlate well to poverty levels, and some charter schools don't offer free lunches at all, skewing their apparent demographics towards higher income levels than actually occur.

Other Problems

Nearly all charter schools face implementation obstacles, but newly created schools are most vulnerable. Some charter advocates claim that new charters tend to be plagued by resource limitations, particularly inadequate startup funds. Yet charter schools also attract large amounts of interest and money from private foundations such as the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Broad Foundation.

Although charter advocates recommend the schools control all per-pupil funds, charter advocates claim that their schools rarely receive as much funding as other public schools. But in reality, this is not necessarily the case in the complex world of school funding. Charter schools in California were guaranteed a set amount of district funding that in some districts amounted to $800 per student per year more than non-charter (traditional public schools) received until a new law was passed that took effect in fall 2006. Charter advocates claim that their schools generally lack access to funding for facilities and special program funds distributed on a district basis. Sometimes private businesses and foundations, such as the Ameritech Corporation in Michigan and the Annenburg Fund in California, provide support. Congress and the President allocated $80 million to support charter-school activities in fiscal year 1998, up from $51 million in 1997.

Charters sometimes face opposition from local boards, state education agencies, and unions. Many educators are concerned that charter schools might siphon off badly needed funds for regular schools, as well as students. In addition, public-school advocates assert that charter schools are designed to compete with public schools in a destructive and harmful manner rather than work in harmony with them. The American Federation of Teachers urges that charter schools adopt high standards, hire only certified teachers, and maintain teachers' collective-bargaining rights. Also, some charters feel they face unwieldy regulatory barriers.

According to Bierlein and Bateman, the odds are stacked against charter schools. Charter-school critics dispute this. There may be too few strong-law states to make a significant difference. Educators who are motivated enough to create and manage charter schools could easily be burnt out by a process that demands increased accountability while providing little professional assistance.