Charter school performance

The last time I looked at charter school academic performance rigorously was perhaps ten years ago.  The findings at that time were that charter schools did not increase academic outcomes all that much over their standard public school brethren but that they did engender much more support among parents.  

This morning I see a recent report which suggests that in New York, things have changed.

From NYC charter school students outscore public school peers on state English, math exams by Carl Campanile.  

New York City charter school students outscored their public school peers on the state’s standardized reading and math exams for grades 3-8 last academic year, a new analysis reveals.

The gap was particularly glaring among black and Hispanic students, with those at charters scoring leaps beyond their counterparts in public schools, according to the study.

“These are startlingly large gaps that demand further investigation,” the non-profit New York City Charter School Center said in its analysis.

Overall, charter school students scored 7 percentage points higher on the English Language Arts (ELA) exam, with 59% passing versus 52% at schools run by the city Department of Education.

On the math exam, charter kids overall scored 13 percentage points higher — a 63% pass rate compared to 50% at public schools.

Black charter school students outperformed their district counterparts by 19 percentage points — 59% vs. 40% — on the ELA and by 27 percentage points on the math exam, 61% vs. 34%.

Hispanic charter school kids outperformed their public school peers by 16 percentage points (55% vs. 39%) in English and by 25 percentage points (61% vs. 36%) in math.

In New York City, charter schools serve about 15% of the students.  

If accurate, these are dramatic higher results for charter schools.  

The fact that the analysis is from an NGO which advocates for charter schools invites caution, but its New York where the system is large, contentious, and there tends to be a lot of oversight.  Perhaps they are real results in which case, I wonder if it is true nationwide.