According to the GradNation campaign, 44 percent of all public charter high schools have graduation rates of 85 percent or higher.
“As the evidence continues to mount that charter high schools are overrepresented among the top high schools in the country, we’re pleased to see that they are also having their greatest impact in underserved communities,” Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a press release.
Nationwide, the average graduation rate in public charter schools was 70 percent, compared to 85 percent in traditional public schools. Those results, however, are misleading due to GradNation’s methodology. In many cases, GradNation included alternative schools for “at-risk” students in its definition of regular charter schools.
A press release from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools gives the example of Five Keys Charter School in San Francisco, which is inside a county jail. Clearly, the school focuses on a nontraditional, challenging group of students. Yet it’s one of many alternative charter schools that GradNation classifies as a regular charter school.
Even comparing the average public school to the average public charter school is difficult, since charter schools are often concentrated in areas where traditional public schools are failing students. A study from Stanford showed that charter schools give urban, low-income minority students the equivalent of 44 extra days of learning in reading and 59 extra days in math.
That study is widely viewed as the most robust, apples-to-apples comparison of urban charter schools to public schools. The GradNation report doesn’t appear to compare urban charters to urban public schools. Keep in mind, more than half of charter schools are urban.
Many charter schools boast 100 percent graduation rates. For example, BASIS Oro Valley and BASIS Tucson North, both in Arizona, graduate 100 percent of their students in four years. Despite the high graduation rate, Washington Post rankings consider the schools the first and fifth most challenging high schools in the country. Detroit Edison Public School Academy, a school I reported on in March, also boasts a 100 percent graduation rate on its website.
That doesn’t mean every charter school is perfect, of course, and the charter community knows it. “There is a segment of charter schools identified in this report, along with too many virtual charter schools, that are failing to graduate many of their students,” Rees said. “This is cause for concern, and the National Alliance will be working with state policymakers to ensure that the right policies are in place to hold these schools accountable and allow better options to take their place.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
