Setting the record straight on charter school study

As I wrote last week, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University – not the Center for Education Reform – evaluated charter school performance in 15 states and the District of Columbia – not just D.C. After all, the title of the report is “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States”. (Yes, North Carolina was one of the states included in the study.)

Researchers found that charter school students in poverty do better in reading in North Carolina than their TPS [traditional public school] peers, black charter school students do worse in math in North Carolina than their TPS peers, and on all other measures, North Carolina charter schools had results that were no different than the gains for traditional school peers.

Why? The charter school cap. The researchers wrote,

Our results show that, in general, the presence of caps puts significant downward pressure on student results. Per year, states with charter caps experience about .03 standard deviation lower growth than states where no cap exists. Where the supply of charters approaches 90 percent of the cap, that effect is magnified to .04 standard deviations each year.

By the way, those of us who want parental options cite the performance (and cost) of charter, private, and public schools in Washington, D.C. as compelling evidence that the D.C. voucher program – not just charter schools – should be expanded.

Besides, Barack Obama and Arne Duncan want to increase the number of charter schools. Does that mean that they want to “dismantle public education altogether”?

Update: In a recent issue of Time, Arne said,

I’m a big fan of choice and competition, and in our country, historically, wealthy families have had a lot of options as to where to send their children. And families that didn’t come from a lot of money had one option ? and usually that option wasn’t a good one. The more options available, the more we give parents a chance to figure out what the best learning environment is for their child. ? You need to give those charter operators great autonomy ? to really free them from the education bureaucracy.

Shazam!