Chicago's Charters Producing Results
8 May 2008
So, RAND’s got a new study out on charter high schools in Chicago.
There is lots of interesting stuff here, and I definitely encourage folks to take aread.
The big highlight from the study is that the average eighth-grade charter student in Chicago that goes to high school in a multi-grade charter high school (those serving students in grades 7-12, 6-12 or K-12) outperforms the average traditional school 8th-grader by:
- approximately half a point in composite ACT score (for which the median score for the students included in the analysis is 16)
- 7 percentage points in the probability of graduating form high school, and
- 11 percentage points in the likelihood of enrolling in college.
Like so many other intriguing studies, this one proposes a number of great new questions for researchers to explore, but the one I’m most interested in is why multi-grade charter high schools appear to improve graduation rates. I sure have a guess, and it’s a simple one.
Middle school isn’t easy and puberty’s no fun. But, those charter schools that start with a 6th grade class and add a grade a year (with the initial class of students moving up to the new grade) are able to work with students within the same high-expectations culture for seven years. Plus, by the time the first class graduates, the school has had time to get its legs under it. And we know from numerous studies that the longer a charter is open, the better it performs.
A final note: the study also looked at the old saw that charters “cream students.” Again, as in so many other studies, the authors
found that charters were not “skimming the cream”, or taking the best students.
Kudos to Chicago’s charters for doing what it takes to get their students graduated from high school and enrolled in college. They are changing their city’s and the nation’s expectations for all public schools.
BG
