Charter schools, run independently of the traditional public school system, are able to tailor their programs to community needs and have become a rallying cry for the education reform movement. According to the Stanford study,

As of 2009, more than 4,700 charter schools enroll over 1.4 million children in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The ranks of charters grow by hundreds each year. Even so, more than 365,000 names linger on charter school wait lists. After more than fifteen years, there is no doubt that both supply and demand in the charter sector are strong. In some ways, however, charter schools are just beginning to come into their own…[and there is] every expectation that they will continue to figure prominently in national educational strategy in the months and years to come.

Unfortunately for this adolescent movement, the study shows that independence alone does not improve student performance. In fact, "37% [of charter schools] deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools." Roughly half showed no differential in performance. Only 17% of charter schools delivered superior results when compared to traditional public schools.

But these are general statistics for a data set that varies widely, and the researchers note many encouraging findings, like the fact that "charter students in elementary and middle school grades have significantly higher rates of learning than their peers in traditional public schools," and it is only in high school or multi-level schools that students lag. The study also finds that charter schools perform better than public schools when it comes to teaching students in poverty.

In the end, this report card won't get the charter school movement onto the honor roll, but the study will indeed help the movement "come into its own" by improving accountability. Acumen Fund would approve.