Caroline Hoxby?s latest Commentary on charter school achievement in the Wall Street Journal is just a raison d?etre for bringing up an important point that recent charter school cheerleading in North Carolina has so far avoided. North Carolina?s charter schools uniquely lag the nation, or even report negative academic results in every major study of charter schools? effects on student achievement. Only Texas comes close to NC?s poor official record in this regard.

The studies are published by numerous sources: the National Bureau of Economic Research, (several), the Goldwater Institute, the Manhattan Institute, Harvard University (several), the Swedish Economic Policy Review (with comment, the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, and the American Federation of Teachers.

This is not an exhaustive list of charter school effects studies, but a list of fairly recent works, and a sizeable body of research. It represents both advocates and antagonists of charter schools. *Read the real reports, not just the executive summaries, which are overly vague and often misleading. This is particularly true of the Rupp (NBER) paper.

In general, these investigations ask one or both of the following questions:1) Does the existence of charter schools in proximity to traditional public schools alter the performance of the traditional schools (proximity and performance defined within the study)? and/or 2)
Do charter students either perform better, or make more progress in a given time period than students in traditional public schools (performance defined)?
These two questions?the competition question and the productivity question?are the hinge on which most debates surrounding charter schools swing. But even in studies that showed mildly positive or mixed results, North Carolina didn’t meet the bar. Caroline Hoxby, if anything an advocate of charter schools, makes special note of North Carolina?s poor record in her WSJ commentary, I am guessing, so as not to allow one state?s negative results to blemish the entire charter movement.

What should we as policy analysts do? The answer is to pay attention to these results; definitely not ignore them. The research represents too much data from too many well-respected analysts to dismiss as irrelevant or politically biased. That doesn’t mean accept it outright.
On the other hand, unthinking charter ballyhoo disrespects the many charter owners and operators in the state whose resources have been poured into producing measurable improvements in student achievement. Rather than gloss over negative reports about NC, we should use them as an opportunity to obtain information about how, where, and why some charter schools perform better than others?here and in other states.
We have barely begun the charter self-examination process in NC, and though some studies are underway, the field of critics is widening rapidly. If North Carolina charter advocates cannot produce some convincing answers to these reports, there will be no parade to attend.