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While skirmishes will continue, the success for the charter school movement is irreversible.  Where there were no charter schools until 1992, there are now over 4,000 enrolling more than one million students.  Furthermore, the number of successful schools continue to grow, and they would increase even faster if there weren't caps on their numbers in some states, such as 100 in New York, a political rather than educational decision.

Consider the following:

In Baltimore the strongest deterrent to people moving into the city and the best antidote, according to school board member Anirban Basu, is for the city and school system to expand the number of charter schools by streamlining its review process and to actively seek out new or potential charter schools.

In Indianapolis, where Mayor Bart Peterson is the nation's only mayor who can authorize charter schools, those schools enroll 3,800 students.  Their test scores are not only  improving more rapidly than those of students in the city's conventional schools but some are doing so at a better rate than other schools in the state.

In St. Louis new charter school students are not only arriving by the busload but by cars from around the county as middle-class parents seek to enroll their students in successful inner-city charter schools. Robin Lake, director of the National Charter School Research Project, and a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle,  notes that this is not unique to St. Louis.  She says high-achieving charter schools in inner cities start attracting middle-class families.  Not only that, these students bring their own tendency toward higher test scores and this helps students around them do better.  Furthermore, middle class parents contribute time and money and otherwise help these charter schools improve.

In Massachusetts more charter school students scored at the proficient or advanced level on state tests than did students in conventional schools.   The same is reported to be true for African-American students in Michigan charter schools when compared to students in conventional public schools.  In California charter school students averaged gains of 28 points on statewide assessments compared with only 20 points at regular schools.  Florida has similar results.

Nor are these selective results.  A Harvard University study found charter school students outscore students in nearby neighborhood schools, an "apples-to-apples" comparison of similar students.

In several cities charter school students are beginning to constitute a sizeable percentage of all students. Leading the pack is Washington, D.C. where 65 charter schools enroll more than one-quarter of all students and these students score ten points higher in math and 6 points higher in reading than the rest of the District's students.

A special case is emerging in New Orleans where hurricane Katrina last year destroyed the public school system as well as much of the city.  As the education process is recovering, with much lower school enrollments due to the much lower total city population, most of the returning students are now in charter schools, the first major school district where this is true.  Its too early to judge even tentative results but the fact that more students and their parents are interested in charter rather than conventional schools makes a significant early statement.

Not that all is perfect, but asking how good are charter schools might be compared to the old joke where the reply to the question "How's your wife?" is "Compared to what?"  Charter schools compare very well to conventional schools, and other standards.  It is said that 90% of new businesses in the private economy fail within five years.  It may well be that 90% of charter schools are still operating after five years.

A significant number have lengthy waiting lists, for both students and staff.  And while attention is given to public school complaints that they lose students to charter schools, because the latter are of higher quality, it has been less obvious that charter schools, especially in urban areas such as St. Louis, are also attracting students from private and parochial schools because, while the latter may be quality schools as well, the charter schools are free.

The public school establishment cannot defeat charter schools.  They will survive only if they learn from their examples..

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"Efforts to preserve the school as it exists today are futile, in my opinion." Sydney Harris, syndicated columnist, p. 30,  The Patriot, Harrisburg, PA, Friday, Jan. 12, 1973

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Copyright 2006 David W. Kirkpatrick
108 Highland Court,
Douglassville, Pennsylvania 19518-9240
Phone: (610) 689-0633