Although charter schools represent a growing segment of the public education landscape, they enrolled fewer than 8 percent of public school students nationwide in the 2023–24 school year. As a result, most students experience charter schools indirectly, through the competitive effects charters exert on those who remain in traditional public schools (TPS). Updating and extending the literature on these competitive effects is therefore important from a policy perspective, particularly as the charter sector matures and expands. It is also critical to understand how charter-induced competition compares with—and interacts with—other school choice mechanisms, such as voucher programs, as an increasing number of states adopt multiple choice options simultaneously.
Using a rich dataset that links student-level school records with birth records and employing three complementary identification strategies, David N. Figlio, Cassandra M. D. Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik examine how increased access to charter schools in twelve Florida districts affects students who remain in TPS. Across specifications, they find that competition generated by the entry of new charter schools leads to improvements in reading achievement, though not in mathematics. In their preferred model, the opening of one additional charter school within a five-mile radius of a TPS is associated with a statistically significant increase in reading test scores equivalent to 0.35 percent of a standard deviation. The authors also find that charter competition reduces student absenteeism in TPS.
While the estimated effects are modest, they are meaningful and comparable in magnitude to the competitive impacts observed following the introduction of Florida’s voucher program.
- Working Paper: https://www.nber.org/papers/w3...