More children attend charter schools in Los Angeles – 151,310 - than in any other district in the country. Post-Katrina New Orleans remains the district with the highest percentage – 93% - of students in charter schools. And the number of charter school students in New York City has quadrupled since 2008, but they make up just 8% of the total number of children enrolled in public schools.
Those are some of the latest figures from this month’s National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ 10thannual report on the growth of charter schools. The report finds that enrollment in charter schools has grown by 62% in the past five years and 6% of the total number of students enrolled in public schools nationwide attend charters. That’s more than 2.9 million students in 43 states and the District of Columbia
The report cites “a successful track record of meeting students’ specific needs” as the reason why parental demand for charter public schools is at an all-time high.
Shavar Jeffries, the new national president of Democrats for Education Reform, came down hard on Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton this month when she backtracked on her previous support of charters by claiming they don’t take, or try to unload, “the hardest to teach” students. Clinton has the endorsement of the main teachers’ unions, which generally oppose charters as siphons of money away from traditional public schools.
Jeffries, writing in the Huffington Post, said that in many towns, charters “are the primary bastions of hope for families of color seeking educational opportunities for their children.” As the National Alliance report points out, more than half of the students in the Detroit public schools attend a charter, as do nearly half of the students in Washington, D.C., and a third in Philadelphia.
“An anti-charter school stance tells communities of color throughout our country that the narrow interests of the status quo are more important than the educational interests of millions of children,” added Jeffries, a founding board president of TEAM Academy Charter School in Newark, N.J.
Despite pressure from parents and legislators to join the movement, seven states continue to ban charters. They are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia and Vermont. Alabama left that list when it passed a charter school law earlier this year. The Center for Education Reform compiles the numbers as part of its yearly Parent Power Index. An interactive map displays all the different types of school choice that are available around the country.
Indiana tops the index and gains the title “reformiest” in the union. Last year, 3.3% of the more than 1 million students there attended charter schools. The Parent Power Index gives Indiana an A, the only state to earn that grade. Some of the reasons they cite include pro-reform Governor Mitch Daniels and
- A road-tested charter school law that offers parents a variety of options;
- A statewide program that allows parents to choose private schools for their children;
- Digital learning opportunities; and
- Teacher-quality measures that allow for greater transparency.
Montana, with a score of zero and an F rating, comes out last in the Parent Power Index. There is hope. The state passed a tax-credit scholarship program this year but it’s so new that it hasn’t been fully evaluated.
