Changes in the Performance of Students in Charter and District Sectors of U.S. Education: An Analysis of Nationwide Trends

This descriptive study by M. Danish Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson compares the trends in average student performance for traditional public school students and charter school students. The authors compare the two sectors’ performance from 2005 to 2017 on a national test with a sample representative of each state’s public school student population. They find that charter school students underperformed traditional public school students in 2005 in both math and reading, but by 2017 this gap had largely closed. The authors attribute this to improvement in test scores in both sectors from 2005 to 2017; however, test scores at charter schools improved more rapidly. The student groups that experienced the largest gains were Black students, students from the lowest income quartile, and students attending schools in the northeastern region of the United States.