The Center for Education Reform
November 2003
This new release from the Center for Education Reform reports on progress by 24 states' charter schools. With information organized by state, it allows readers to glimpse the charter schools' progress, while also providing a stage for comparing charter schools' characteristics and performance from state to state. It's more anecdotal than analytic, and perhaps selective in its focus on good news, but some of its findings are fascinating. For example, 17 of Arizona's 25 highest-performing elementary and middle schools in 2003 were charters. Kansas City's 26 charter schools, which serve a population that is 90 percent minority and 75 percent low income, managed to produce a 93 percent increase in the number of students achieving at "near proficiency" on their state exam in 1999. While this report provides sufficient evidence of the merits of charter schools in "the 24 states that offer good data," it doesn't provide much information about the problems that have plagued some charter schools and doesn't provide much of a blueprint for helping the struggling schools to achieve the successes highlighted herein. But it supplies an extensive bibliography that may help those looking for more specific information about how charters have fared. To check it out for yourself, go to http://www.edreform.com/_upload/CSTRecordSuccess2003.pdf.
