When Cities Embrace Charter Schools, Achievement Gaps Shrink

Cities with high charter school enrollment have consistently improved achievement for low-income students, a new report from center-left think tank the Progressive Policy Institute found. Contrary to choice-skeptical talking points, charter schools breed innovation and push local public schools to improve as well, according to the report.

“The data analyzed in this study are conclusive: All 10 U.S. cities with 33% or higher enrollment in public charter and charter-like schools…uniformly narrowed gaps in academic outcomes between low-income students and all students statewide over the past decade,” the report, published this month, reads. “The data further suggest that this gapclosure effect increases as local charter enrollment share increases.”

The report looked at the handful of American cities where at least one-third of students are enrolled in charter schools. Since a majority of children living in major cities are low-income, researchers had fertile ground to examine whether high charter enrollment correlated with improved academic performance for low-income students.

The report found that for every city studied—including cities like Camden, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.—the achievement gap between low-income city students and the average state performance shrank between the 2010-2011 school year and the 2022-2023 school year. For Camden, a city once-regarded as having some of the worst schools in the country, their achievement gap closed by 21.2 points—a 42 percent reduction.

Notably, it wasn’t only charter school students that benefited. 

“Over the last decade, cities that have aggressively expanded high-quality public school choices available to students have seen a true rising tide: Low-income students across these cities—whether they attend a public charter or district-operated school—have started to catch up to statewide student performance levels,” the report reads. “Cities where low-income students have made the most progress appear to have done so, at least in part, because charter schools prompted traditional districts to change things for the better.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that new competition drives traditional public schools to improve their offerings and become more attractive to prospective parents. When families have the ability to choose how their child is educated—even if just between a typical public school and a publicly-funded charter school—everyone is better off, especially the students.

“As such, these findings may provide a clear policy prescription for improving outcomes in low-income urban communities that have long struggled with school improvement and substandard student achievement,” says the report.”Places where politics makes it possible to grow charter school enrollment should certainly consider doing that, so that both traditional district students and public charter students are afforded at least the opportunity to begin to catch up to their statewide peers.”

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