Charter schools are the answer? Um . . . what is the question?

by David Safier

I keep hearing people say charter schools are better because they're . . . better. And because they don't have to cater to unions. And because they don't have so much bureaucracy. And . . . look at BASIS. Look at BASIS again. Look at BASIS again. BASIS, BASIS, BASIS.

The problem is, there's no substantive data showing charters are better than district schools. There's no data saying they're worse either.

Here's a story out of Detroit, pretty much a failing city with failing schools. Surely charters will be able to do better for Detroit's children than all those terrible old failing district schools, right?

Not so much.

According to an analysis of recent test data, charters are either keeping up with district schools or doing a little worse.

Of 25 charters in Detroit or nearby, only six had higher math or science proficiency scores than Detroit Public Schools' average on the most recent Michigan Merit Exam, with most of the others doing worse than the district.

More charters did poorer in reading and writing as well; only in social studies did more charters surpass rather than trail DPS.

To be fair, this doesn't look like a very thorough analysis. I don't see evidence the number crunchers did the necessary work to compare similar students in charter and district schools.

But these results conform to other studies conducted by the Bush administration and, more recently, by Stanford University. Some charters are better than district schools, some are worse, but taken as a whole, it's pretty much a wash.

Districts around the country are jumping on the bandwagon and having charters take over failing schools. But if you're looking for evidence this will help, well, keep looking.