Imagine that – researchers put the theory to the test!

The “theory,” parroted by charter antagonists ad nauseam, is that charter schools force low-income and low-performing students to leave, presumably to raise test scores and avoid the added expense.

So, Ron Zimmer of Vanderbilt University and Cassandra Guarino of Indiana University examined data from unidentified urban school districts that have high concentrations of charter schools.  They concluded that there is “no empirical evidence to support the notion of push-out.”  Like any school, charter students come and go.  But the charter school exit rates, particularly for low-performing children, are not significantly higher than their public school counterparts.

Professors Zimmer and Guarino just published their results in the September 2013 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.