Analysis

Stanford Study: Ohio Charters Continue to Have Mostly Negative Impact on Students

Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) today released the results of a study of Ohio charter schools that found that on the whole, Ohio charters continue to do worse than their traditional school counterparts, with only slight, negligible improvements over time. The results mirror the data found on KnowYourCharter.com – the state’s first large compendium of charter and school district performance data

The CREDO study was funded in part by the Fordham Institute.

We took a look at the study and here are the major takeaways from the research.

  • The average Ohio charter student loses the equivalent of 14 days of learning in reading and 36 days of learning in math compared with their counterparts in traditional schools.
  • Among the big 8 urban districts, only in Cleveland do charter school students outperform their district counterparts.
  • Students in urban charters see bigger gains than their traditional public school peers across the state.
  • Charters do a very poor job of educating children in rural areas and small towns. Charter students in small towns lose 173 days of learning in Math and 108 days in reading — almost an entire school year.
  • Middle school is the one age cohort where charter schools outperform traditional schools. Charter high schools do much worse.
  • African-American students in poverty do better in reading and math in charters than in traditional schools, although that appears to be driven primarily by Cleveland and Columbus.
  • Over 40 percent of Ohio charter schools are in urgent need of improvement. They show smaller student academic gains each year and their overall achievement levels are below the average for the state.
  • Charter students attending a management-run school appear to achieve considerably less academic growth than those attending a single-standing charter.

Of the 68 statistically significant areas of study looking at math and reading performance across different variables, charters had a positive impact 18% of the time, but a negative impact the other 82%.