Charter students
lag behind, tests show

Students in regular schools are
performing better, data reveals

WASHINGTON >> The first national comparison of test scores from charter schools and regular public schools shows charter school students often doing worse than comparable children in regular public schools.

The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released without public announcement, deals a blow to supporters of the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.

The data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress show fourth-graders attending charter schools performing about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth-graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.

In Hawaii, 27 of the state 285 public schools are charter schools, many of them small schools based on Hawaiian culture. Data released for the recent NAEP tests in Hawaii do not break down the scores for charter vs. regular public schools.

Robert Hillier, NAEP state coordinator, said yesterday that not enough charter school students in Hawaii took the 2003 NAEP test to allow for valid comparisons between students in regular public schools and charters here.

About 3,000 Hawaii students in different grades took the test, and just 30 to 50 charter school students participated in any one test here, he said.

"Our charter school population on NAEP in 2003 was about 1 to 1.5 percent, and this is too small to make any generalizations," he said.

Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor neighborhoods, researchers also compared urban charters to traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in both settings and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as well.

In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools.

"The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester Finn Jr., a supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, who was among those who asked the administration to do the comparison.

"A little more tough love is needed for these schools," said Finn, a former assistant secretary of education in the Reagan administration. "Somebody needs to be watching over their shoulders."

The results were unearthed from online data by researchers at the American Federation of Teachers, which has historically supported charter schools but has produced research in recent years raising doubts about the expansion of charter schools.

Charters are self-governing public schools, sometimes run by private companies, which operate outside the authority of local school boards and have greater flexibility than traditional public schools in areas of policy, hiring and teaching techniques.

Amy Stuart Wells, a sociology professor at Columbia University Teachers College, called the new data "really, really important."

"It confirms what a lot of people who study charter schools have been worried about," she said. "There is a lack of accountability. They're really uneven in terms of quality."

Some charter school supporters argue, however, that some of the benefits of their style of teaching might not be reflected in nationwide tests.

"Yes, we do have to be accountable for our performance," said Steve Hirakami, executive director of the Hawaii Department of Education's charter school office. "But you have to look at what some charter schools are doing for some of the children who normally wouldn't attend school and drop out.

"The charter school is their last resort. ... The kids are showing up, and it's a start in the right direction."