Charter Schools Now Outperform Traditional Public Schools, Sweeping Study Finds (edweek.com)

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To read more of Libby Stanford's article, please click here, Charter Schools Now Outperform Traditional Public Schools, Sweeping Study Finds (edweek.org)

Charter schools have evolved over the course of two decades, and their students now show greater academic gains than their peers in traditional public schools, according to a new report from a group of researchers who have studied the evolution of charters since 2000.

The study, which examined student performance in 6,200 charter schools from 2014 to 2019, marks a turning point in the understanding of charter school performance. It’s the third study of its kind from researchers at the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, or CREDO, after the center’s earlier studies found that charter school students performed either worse than or about the same as their peers in traditional public schools.

From 2014 to 2019, charter school students gained, on average, the equivalent of 16 days of learning in reading and six days in math over their peers in traditional public schools. Eighty-three percent of charter school students performed the same as or better than their peers in reading, and 75 percent performed the same as or better in math, according to the study, which includes data from 29 states, New York City, and the District of Columbia.