The most authoritative of controlled studies showed that 37 percent of US charter schools have worse student
outcomes than traditional public schools, less than 50 percent are on a par with them, and only 17 percent provide a superior education for their students.
Not exact matches
In other words, even though the average charter has a zero or negative impact on test scores, there are more charters with very large positive or very large negative test - score impacts
than there are
traditional public schools with such extreme
outcomes.
Recent large - scale research at Stanford University's Center for Research on Education
Outcomes (CREDO) also finds that KIPP teaching is highly effective, with individual students learning far more
than their statistical «twins» at
traditional public schools.
Overall, we conclude that LAUSD Alliance charter high
schools provide better
outcomes at lower costs
than comparable LAUSD
traditional operated
public schools in the same area.
For supporters and opponents alike, the first question concerns performance: are the academic
outcomes of students attending charter
schools higher or lower
than those in the
traditional public sector?
We can conclude from this data that an effective charter
school operator can better learning
outcomes at lower cost
than traditional public schools serving a similar population.
In fact, like most charter
schools, even those in
public - private partnerships, receive on average 30 % less per pupil
than their
traditional school peers whose management has no accountability or incentive to improve student
outcomes.
A independent national study released this year by the Center for Research on Education
Outcomes shows charter
school students have greater learning gains in reading
than their peers in
traditional public schools.
A 2011 report (PDF) by Stanford's Center for Research on Education
Outcomes (CREDO), using a different methodology, indicated students in Pennsylvania's online charter
schools «have significantly smaller gains in reading and math
than those of their
traditional public school peers.»
A 2015 study on urban charter
schools by the Center for Research on Education
Outcomes at Stanford University found that D.C. charter students are learning the equivalent of 96 more days in math and 70 more days in reading
than their peers in
traditional public schools.
The most recent charter
school study, from Stanford University's Center for Research on Education
Outcomes (CREDO), finds that academic growth among Boston charter
school students is more
than four times that of their
traditional public school peers in English and more
than six times greater in math.
The fraud - prevention mechanisms work exactly the same for
traditional public schools as for charters - neither the safeguards nor the
outcomes are unique to charters - why charters are being singled out here belies a different motivation
than more accurately representing the challenges of fraud prevention in the
public school SECTOR.
The most careful, comprehensive study of virtual charter
schools, from Stanford's Center for Research on Education
Outcomes, found that virtual charter students achieved the equivalent of 180 fewer days of learning in math and 72 fewer days of learning in reading
than students in
traditional public schools.