The Brief
Get Up To SpeedIn the 25 years since Minnesota passed the first charter school law, these publically funded but privately operated schools have become a highly sought-after alternative to traditional public education, particularly for underserved students in urban areas. Between 2004 and 2014 alone, charter school enrollment increased from less than 1 million to 2.5 million students. Many charter schools boast of high test scores, strict academic expectations, and high graduation rates, and for some, their growth is evidence of their success. But have these schools lived up to their promise? Opponents argue that charters, which are subject to fewer regulations and less oversight, lack accountability, take much-needed resources from public schools, and pick and choose their student body. Are charter schools overrated?
View Debate PageGary Miron
- Professor, College of Education, Western Michigan University
A growing body of research as well as state and federal evaluations conducted by independent researchers continue to find that charter schools are not achieving the goals that were once envisioned for them.
Charter schools nationally serve far fewer students with disabilities—8 to 10 percent of their students on average—than district schools, which serve 13.1 percent.
Miron reviews a report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which purports to “separate fact from fiction” about charter schools.
This research brief details some of the prominent ways that individuals, companies, and organizations secure financial gain and generate profit by controlling and running charter schools.
Julian Vasquez Heilig
- Professor, Sacramento State & Founding Board Member, Network for Public Education
Julian Vasquez Heilig addresses the issue of educational injustice, especially for students living in poverty, in the context of top-down education reforms.
Julian Vasquez Heilig discusses NAACP opposition to charter schools and the incoming Trump administration’s policies on education.
In this article, we compare the enrollment of high-need special populations in charter schools with non-charter public schools at the state, district, and local level
At separate conventions this summer, the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter Movement—the nation’s oldest and the youngest civil rights organizations—passed resolutions critical of charter schools and the privatization of education. We may have reached a watershed moment for market-based school choice.
Julian Vasquez Heilig joins the Rick Smith Show to discuss school choice research and recent development in the civil rights community calling for a moratorium on charter schools.
Julian Vasquez Heilig joins Southern Arizona talk show host John C. Scott to talk about the implications of the confirmation of Besty Devos as US Secretary of Education on K-12 and higher education.
Jeanne Allen
- Founder & CEO, The Center for Education Reform
Articles on charter schools published by CER.
Of course, now that charter schools are turning 21-years-old, it’s only logical that they are maturing into young adulthood. In areas where charter schools are well-known and high-performing, an annual waiting list has become common, each year longer than the last.
Many people know the old adage, often attributed to Churchill, that the two things one best not see being made are law and sausage. Indeed when it comes to education policy there is no better truism.
Center for Education Reform Senior Fellow and President-Emeritus Jeanne Allen on Governor Charlie Barker's bid to lift charter school caps.
At this year’s national charter school conference, school choice warrior Howard Fuller argued that we must partner with anyone who is aligned on helping kids. Like him, I am never ambivalent or silent when the truth about education reform is at stake.
In Massachusetts, hundreds of anti-charter forces working to prevent the more than 32,000 students on waiting lists to achieve their dreams cackled over social media all night and day about the parody, trying to intimidate voters who might otherwise want to vote to lift their charter cap.
It's time to set the record straight about one of the pioneers and most successful charter school movements in the nation.
For the charter sector, progress has come at a price.
Gerard Robinson
- Resident Fellow, AEI & Former Florida Commissioner of Education
As educators across the country work to improve educational opportunities and results for Black students, they have an emerging tool at their disposal: public charter schools.
Last Friday’s 6-3 decision by the Washington Supreme Court that declared unconstitutional a charter school law — one approved by 1.5 million voters — is an existential threat to the parental choice movement in the Evergreen State and across the nation. Here is why.
Gerard Robinson joins PodcastED to discuss the NAACP’s opposition to charter schools.
Breathtaking results from yet another study, and the announcement that three prominent Boston lawyers plan to mount a constitutional challenge to Massachusetts' charter public school cap, have reignited the seemingly endless debate about charter schools' place in the Commonwealth's education marketplace.
Showering public schools with funds has been a costly failure. Why not try something new?
Listen at 01:23:50 to hear Resident Fellow Gerard Robinson.
Today, the role of public charter schools in the nation's largest school district is an example of a house divided.
Background
Overview of charter schools in the United States.
Frequently asked questions about public charter schools.
This e-book is a collection of articles published in Education Week over the past 25 years, marking some of the more notable moments in charter school history.
For
School reformers keep talking about charter schools as if they were the answer to public education’s problems, when there is a great deal of evidence that shows big problems with the charter sector.
And while charter schools encompass a broad range of teaching styles—some follow the Montessori model or have an ethnocentric focus, for example—many in urban areas follow a "no excuses" philosophy.
Charters were supposed to be laboratories for innovation. Instead, they are stunningly opaque.
Against
The venerable civil-rights group may sell out poor black children.
Charter School Data
This report provides an updated and expanded view of charter school performance in the United States.
Through our valued data sharing partnerships with state education agencies across the country, CREDO has a unique opportunity to look at the urban landscape of charter schooling.
Enrollment statistics for public charter schools in the United States
