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Edgemoor Quarterly Report - Winter 2008
Charter School Achievement: What We Know, 4
th
Edition, October 2007





Charter School Achievement: What We Know
4th Edition, October 2007

Executive Summary
To provide a full and fair picture of how charter schools are actually performing, the National
Alliance for Public Charter Schools commissioned in July 2005 an extensive review of the
available research on charter school achievement. The review is updated periodically, and this
fourth edition incorporates new studies published in the past year. The report now includes 70
comparative analyses of charter school and traditional public school performance, including a
study-by-study look at central findings and methodological strengths and weaknesses.

All of these studies fall into one of two categories: 1) snapshot pictures of one or more points in
time; or 2) longer-term measures of change over time. In addition, they all meet four basic
criteria for rigor and relevance: they are recent (2001 or later), compare charter vs. traditional
public school performance, use serious (though often flawed) analytical methods, and examine
some significant segment of the charter sector.

Key Findings
Here are the key findings of the 70 studies:

Study Quality: The quality of available research varies widely.
The stronger studies typically offer information about how much value charter schools are
contributing to their students; study an adequate number of students and schools to be
meaningful; use sound comparisons when assessing relative performance of traditional public
schools vs. charter schools; and disaggregate analysis to show how well different kinds of
students and schools are doing. Many of the studies fall short on one or more of these standards.

Snapshots: The results are mixed and of limited use.
Of the 70 studies, 30 look only at a snapshot of performance at one or more points in time.
Twelve show charter schools generally underperforming traditional public schools. The other 18
show comparable, mixed or generally positive results for charter schools. These studies,
however, fail to examine how much progress students and schools are making over time, and
they are thus of limited use in drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of charter schools.

Charter School Achievement: What We Know, 4
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Edition, October 2007

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Change Over Time: The results, while far from conclusive, are encouraging.
The other 40 studies make some attempt to look at change over time in student or school
performance. Nineteen actually follow individual students over time, the ideal way to examine
change. The rest use other methods, such as looking at changes in school-wide or grade-wide
performance. Of these 40 studies:

Twenty-one find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public
schools
Ten find charter schools gains higher in certain significant categories of schools, such as
elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students
Five find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools
Four find that charter schools overall gains lagged behind

Fourteen studies examine whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age
(e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges). Of these, 10 find that as charter schools mature, they
improve. Three find no significant differences between older and younger charter schools. One
finds that older charter schools perform less well.

Recommendations
A number of conclusions about the state of charter school research and how to improve it
emerge from this review:

1. We need better research about how well students in charter schools are performing.
2. We need more and better research about why some charter schools perform so much
better than other charter and non-charter schools.
3. We need much more attention focused on evaluating chartering as a policy. Knowing
how well charter school students on average are performing does not answer the most
important questions policymakers have about where to go with their charter policies.
4. Charter schooling represents an experiment worth continuing and refining to improve
quality further over time.





Charter School Achievement: What We Know, 4
th
Edition, October 2007

3

Charter School Achievement: What We Know
Contributors: Bryan C. Hassel, Michelle Godard Terrell, Ashley Kain and Todd Ziebarth
4
th
Edition, October 2007

Accountability is a cornerstone of the charter school idea. In return for autonomy over key
aspects of school operations, charter schools agree to be held accountable for results to have
their performance measured and to face the consequences if they fail to live up to expectations.
As public schools, all charter schools participate in state assessment programs. They administer
tests to all of their students, report the results, receive labels, and become subject to whatever
sanctions arise from inadequate performance. The No Child Left Behind Act makes clear that
charter schools, like all public schools, must make Adequate Yearly Progress, or else.

As a result, more and more data have become available over time about how well individual
charter schools are doing when it comes to student achievement on standardized assessments.
1

Along with more data has come a raft of academic studies, state evaluations, and other efforts to
answer the question How well are charter schools doing? The charter sector has been subject
to an unprecedented level of scrutiny and transparency related to school performance. Just as
individual schools are to be held accountable for results, the very idea of charter schools is being
asked to prove itself, as well it should.

Reviewing all of these emerging studies of achievement in charter schools, however, is enough
to make ones head spin. As studies accumulate, each with its own unique methodological take
on the basic question, contradictory findings proliferate. In fall 2004, for example, we were
treated to two nationwide analyses of charter school achievement, one purporting to show that
charter schools outperformed district schools, and one purporting to show the reverse. And these
two were just the latest in an increasingly rapid volley of studies that show charter schools to be
working well, or not.

At some level, mixed results are inevitable. The charter sector is host to a vast diversity of
schools, utilizing all manner of educational and organizational approaches. The charter is but a
shell, into which the operators place an instructional and management program. Asking about the
quality of charter schools as a group is a bit like asking about the quality of new restaurants
or American cars any overall generalization will mask the great diversity within.

In short, there is really no simple answer to the question how are charter schools doing? At any
point in time, some will be doing well, and some poorly. What we really want to know is how
well chartering, as a policy, is working for a state. Is it producing new and better schools? How
are the schools being chartered different from district schools? Are good charter schools
expanding and being copied, while poor schools close or stagnate? Is the quality of chartering
getting better over time? Is the presence of chartering inducing non-charter public schools to
improve?
2


In light of that set of questions, comparing the test scores of charter vs. district public schools
cannot provide all of the answers. But it can shed some light on important issues of performance
Charter School Achievement: What We Know, 4
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Edition, October 2007

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and progress by the students enrolled in this new form of public school. This report aims to help
those interested in charter schools make sense of the dizzying array of studies about charter
achievement in two ways:

Setting out some criteria that observers can use to judge how sound a particular studys
comparison of charter vs. district schools is; and

Summarizing and providing commentary on many of the most recent comparative
analyses of charter and district achievement. This summary includes an overview of some
trends and patterns that appear across studies, as well as a study-by-study look at central
findings and methodological strengths and weaknesses.

What Makes a Good Study of Achievement in Charter Schools?
Research methodology is a highly complex field, and this report does not endeavor to touch on
all the intricacies of method that might arise in a study of charter achievement. Instead, it
outlines a set of high-level, essential cri