NYC charters better than traditional schools? Probably, yes

by David Safier

A study  from a Stanford researcher a few months ago claimed students at New York City's charters outperformed the equivalent students at traditional district schools. Another Stanford research group questioned the methodology and did its own study. It ended up coming up with similar results.

If 2 reputable studies come to similar conclusions using different methods, that gives the conclusions quite a bit of credibility.

This is potentially good news. If someone has figured out how to do charters right, in this case, New York City, other states and localities should see if the successes can be duplicated. Unfortunately, that's not often the case. Education, especially good education, is a fragile organism which doesn't transport easily. And it's hard to say whether the charters are a genuine success story, or if they're made to look good in comparison to a terrible NYC public school system.

This is no reason for charter school boosters to crow, "See, I told you so. Charters beat district schools every time!" It ain't so. In most states, an earlier Stanford study had charters either slightly ahead or slightly behind district schools on their test scores — and, unfortunately, tests are a crude measuring device that leave out a multitude of educational outcomes, so they hardly tell the whole story.

Still, this is a reason to hope a different perspective on education, done right, can yield positive results. And especially with the lowest achieving students, positive results are something we need more of.