In the midst of short-term and mostly small-scale snapshots measuring charter quality, this new Mathematica study brings a more panoramic portrait. Using longitudinal data, the authors sought to determine whether charter-school enrollment is indeed related to student success. As studies based on student test scores have yielded contradictory results,, this one employed other metrics: high-school graduation rates, college entrance and persistence, and students’ eventual earnings in adulthood. The authors gathered information on students in Florida and Chicago from 1998 to 2009, zeroing in on two subgroups: eighth-grade charter students who attended a charter high school and their peers who did not. The study found statistically significant results across all measurements. The students who remained in a charter high school were seven to eleven percentage points more likely to receive a diploma. They were also ten points likelier to attend college, and in Florida there was a significant positive difference (thirteen points) in the number who persisted through two years of college. Regardless of whether their charter education helped them get into college, charter students also had higher earnings by age twenty-five. The researchers contend that charter schools endow students with practical skills that allow them to succeed in college and the job market, long after they’ve left the charter environment. Let’s hear it for multiple metrics!
Kevin Booker, Brian Gill, Tim Sass, and Ron Zimmer, Charter High Schools’ Effects on Long-Term Attainment and Earnings (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, January 2014.)
