Charter Schools v. Conventional Schools

The RMN runs an analysis of the CSAP scores for both charter schools and conventional schools. From the lead, you would think that charter schools weren't working:

A popular cure for ailing schools could be, at best, a placebo.

In the article, the difference between charters and conventional schools seems negligible:

Proficiency rates at charters and noncharters differed by less than 4 percentage points on eight of the 15 tests examined.

On the seven remaining tests, charters did better in seventh-grade reading, writing and math and sixth-grade writing. Conventional schools did better on eighth-grade writing and fifth- and eighth-grade math.

What this says is that in 8 areas of the CSAPs, it's a draw. In 3 areas, the conventional schools win. In 4 areas, the charters win.

I suspect that the small sampling size of the charters lends itself to statistical skews.

But the most telling fact is this one:

Wyatt Edison (a charter school) is just two blocks from Cole and serves a similar population.

Wyatt Edison outscored Cole by an average of 26 percentage points on each of 10 CSAP tests taken this year by middle school students. Scores improved this year at Wyatt Edison on six of those 10 tests.


Apples to apples - Wyatt Edison serves the same population and outscored Cole by an average of 26 points! But you wouldn't know it from the headline.