What are Charter Schools? (continued)

How large is the Charter School Movement?

The first charter school legislation was established in Minnesota in 1991. Since then, political support to increase school choice and empower local school districts has aided the charter school movement. Charter schools have grown rapidly over the past decade. However, most individual charter schools remain small and have class sizes smaller than traditional public schools. About 55% of all students in charter schools are in grades K-8 (SRI International, 2002). The following chart illustrates the rapid growth of charter schools.

Table 1: Charter School Growth

Sources: Center for Education Reform. [http://www.edreform.org]. RPP International. (1997) A Study of Charter Schools: First-Year Report. [http://www.ed.gov/pubs/charter/index.html]. RPP International. (2000) The State of Charter Schools, 2000: National Study of Charter Schools. Fourth-Year Report. [http://www.ed.gov/pubs/charter/index.html]. SRI International. (2002). A decade of Public Charter Schools: Evaluation of the Public Charter Schools Program. [http://www.sri.com/policy/cep/choice/yr2.pdf]

Available evidence on student achievement in charter schools shows a mixed pattern of results. However, no evidence has convincingly demonstrated that charter schools offer superior results to traditional public schools.

Where can I find out more about charter schools?

Charter School information located on the NCSPE website can be found at http://www.ncspe.org/inforead.php?mysub=2

Books reviewing charter schools have been published by:

Gill, Brian et al. 2001. Rhetoric Versus Reality: What We Know and What We Need to Know about Vouchers and Charter Schools. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1118/

Miron, Gary and Christopher Nelson. 2002. What’s Public about Charter Schools: Lessons Learned about Choice and Accountability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Zimmer, Ron and Richard Buddin et al. 2003. Charter School Operations and Performance: Evidence from California. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MRI700/.

For an interesting article on charter schools see:

Sugarman, S. 2002. “Charter school funding issues.” http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n34.html

For additional information from internet resources see:

The US department of Education sponsored website on charter schools at: http://www.uscharterschools.org

The Center for Education Reform– a strong advocate for charter schools– at: http://www.edreform.com