Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) – Margaret (Macke) Raymond, distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and director of Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), has released a new report with her colleagues that documents the substantial gains in learning growth among K–12 students attending charter schools.
For As a Matter of Fact: The National Charter School Study III 2023, CREDO researchers measured student achievement data between 2014 and 2019 across 29 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City. The data set—representing 81 percent of tested public school students—is one of the largest assembled and evaluated to date on this topic. Further, performance of each of the more than 1,853,000 charter school students studied were matched individually with students of identical traits and aligned prior test scores who enrolled in traditional public schools that the charter school student would otherwise have attended. The same methodology was employed in the first two studies (in 2009 and 2013) in this series.
This third study found that among tens of thousands of students enrolled in charter schools nationwide, the typical pupil achieved an additional 16 days of growth in reading and six days in math in a 180-day school year beyond the gains of their public school peers.
“The performance of district schools over the equivalent period of this study is fundamentally flat,” Raymond said in an interview from Austin, Texas, where she was attending the National Charter School Conference this week. “During this period, resources were dramatically increasing year over year.”
The study notes that the performance of charter school students who are Black and Hispanic was particularly strong in the 2014–19 period. In comparison to their peers attending traditional public schools, Black students grew an additional 29 days in math and 35 days in reading learning. For Hispanics, this number was 19 and 30 days, respectively. For students in these categories living in poverty, the growth was even higher.
The growth in learning among charter school students during this period represents a stark difference from what was captured in the first CREDO study in 2009. In that data set, captured in 16 states between 2006 and 2008, CREDO researchers found that students had 17 fewer days of learning in math and six fewer days in reading during each school year when compared to their public school counterparts.
The new report underscores that against a backdrop of flat performance of the nation’s K–12 students, the trend for pupils attending charters is positive and the effects are large. In the interview with Raymond, she explained that although this report doesn’t “get under the hood” to diagnose practices that define charter school success, the researchers’ analysis points to a number of explanatory factors.
“We see that the flexibility that they are given under legislation enables charter schools to innovate and efficiently allocate resources to achieve better results for children,” Raymond explained. “The second half of the bargain is that charters face serious scrutiny by the governing body to which they are accountable when their contract period ends. This is an incentive for charters to continually improve.”
The researchers noted that the real surprise of the third study was the more than one thousand charter schools that busted achievement gaps between minority and lower-income students and their White and more affluent counterparts.
Many of the learning gains and “gap busting” achievement revealed in this study occurred in charter management organizations (CMOs), which oversee networks of charter schools and their staffing and resources. The researchers conclude in their analysis that CMOs demonstrate the ability to replicate their success to scale and change thousands of students’ lives.
At the end of the interview, Raymond reflected on her experience at the Austin conference, where she presented the study.
“Part of the conversation [at the conference] was how children can achieve similar successes to those revealed in our study,” said Raymond. “There is an active discussion on having that happen. I hold the view of whether you teach at a district school or a charter school, you are a public servant and should learn and apply lessons of what high-performing schools are doing to achieve positive learning outcomes.”
“At the end of the day, we want great schools for our kids.”
Click here to read the entire report.
