Three new studies show strong gains in test scores for children enrolled in U.S. charter schools with some of the biggest improvements among the lowest-performing students. Charter schools are run by parents, teachers or other groups and are usually freed of the bureaucratic regulations that hamper traditional public schools.
While their popularity with parents has long been recognised, only now is their academic superiority over other public schools being documented.
The first of the studies measured achievement at Advantage Schools a private Boston-based firm that manages 15 inner-city charters in seven states and the District of Columbia.
In the second study, the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute found that in both reading and math, two to three consecutive years in a charter school had a greater positive impact on test scores than two to three years in a traditional public school.
Western Michigan University researchers found that Pennsylvania charters posted gains on state assessments of more than 100 points in just two years outgaining their host school districts by 86 points over the same period.
Researchers say students from a sample of charter schools also gained on commercially-available tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the SAT.
Source: Tamara Henry, “Score Goes Up for Charters,” USA Today, March 28, 2001.
For text http://www.usatoday.com/life/2001-03-28-school-charter.htm
For Goldwater Institute study
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/pdf/032001cmbe.pdf
For more on Charter Schools http://www.ncpa.org/pi/edu/edu3.html#c
