Off the top of their head, most education experts would probably guess that public charter school students are suspended more often than students from traditional public schools. Much of that has to do with the “no-excuses” disciplinary policies in many charter schools. But a new study from the conservative American Enterprise Institute shows that charter schools suspend students less often than neighboring traditional public schools.

The study compared charter schools with the five traditional public schools geographically closest to them. It found that a majority of charter schools had a suspension rate within 5 percentage points of their neighboring traditional public schools. Almost one-third of charters had a somewhat or substantially lower suspension rate, while roughly one-sixth of charters had a somewhat or substantially higher suspension rate.