Research on charter schools generally shows these innovative public schools boost achievement. Critics aren’t convinced. Charter students might excel, they counter, but such success is preprogrammed before school even starts.
Here’s a look at their logic: Parents who seek out charter schools are highly invested and involved, and these familial qualities — not educational factors intrinsic to the schools — produce student achievement. This argument has obvious ramifications for the charter movement’s growth: If these schools have a negligible impact on academic outcomes, who needs more of them?
The city of Boston just might. In a new report sure to confound critics, Boston charter school students outperformed their traditional school peers, even when the students had parents who were similarly engaged. The study’s Harvard and MIT researchers, commissioned by the Boston Foundation, did conduct standard observational comparisons of all of Boston’s traditional, charter, and pilot schools (public alternatives created by the teachers’ union and school district). But they also addressed concerns over family bias, following the performance of two groups of equally matched kids who all sought entrance to high-demand charter and pilot schools via an admissions lottery.
Lottery winners who enrolled in charter or pilot schools constituted one group. Students who lost the lottery and remained in traditional public schools made up a comparison group. In terms of family background, though, this was one homogeneous bunch. “At the time of admission, the only difference between applicants who were offered admission and those who were not was a coin flip,” affirmed lead researcher Thomas Kane in a press release.
But what a coin flip it was: Charter students’ achievement rose in every category compared to their traditional school counterparts. Middle school math performance was particularly impressive: Just one year in a charter school increased student achievement by the equivalent of 19 percentage points — a finding deemed “nothing short of remarkable” by Boston Foundation President Paul Grogan. Moreover, charters produced higher test scores in both lottery-based and observational comparisons. Pilot school results were mixed and inconclusive.
The Boston research augments earlier lottery-based studies from economist Caroline Hoxby showing New York City and Chicago charter schools bolstered student performance. Taken together, these data will undoubtedly catalyze charter expansion efforts: Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois all restrict the number of charter schools operating statewide.
Such findings have implications for North Carolina’s charter movement as well. Why?
Statewide, charter school demand greatly exceeds supply. Here as elsewhere, high-demand charters with more applicants than spots must conduct annual lotteries each spring to determine enrollment. A recent Carolina Journal survey found at least 57 of the state’s 97 charter schools had 2008-09 wait lists. At five schools, wait lists topped 1,000 students.
Some schools, though, have struggled academically. Others have mismanaged their finances. But the charter system provides for these contingencies. Unlike traditional public schools, chronically underperforming or troubled charter schools are shut down. State tallies indicate 38 charter schools have closed since 1997. Several more may follow.
Overall, though, North Carolina’s charter movement is flourishing. Yet we cannot replicate charters’ achievements. Our 100-school charter cap arbitrarily limits growth. Supportive state lawmakers have sought repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to repeal the cap. They are trying again this 2009 session.
Let’s hope they prevail this time. Currently, thousands of students across the state await the outcome of crowded charter lotteries. Charters are reforming public education and helping kids achieve.
Why would anyone want to cap that kind of success?
Kristen Blair is a North Carolina Education Alliance fellow.