A 2021 Look at Charter Schools
In 2001, LWV Chicago’s position on charter schools concluded that:
Advantages largely outweigh disadvantages.
Charters have a mandate to share innovations.
Charters offer increased parental choice and involvement.
Since 2001, much more research has been done, primarily in Chicago. In 2014, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Medill Data Project at Northwestern University compared charter and traditional schools and found that charters did no better than the traditional public schools. In that same year, LWVIL and LWV Chicago decided to study charter schools. This study asked members if the League should continue to endorse parts of the 2001 position on charters. The results of the study reaffirmed findings from the 2011 study:
Advantages largely outweigh disadvantages. Research studies have found wide ranges of student performance in both charter and public schools.
Charters are an area of opportunity for sharing innovations. While some charters claim to be using innovations, educators can find traditional public schools using the same techniques.
The 2011 study also found that charters provided an area of opportunity and increased parental choice. However, there is a question whether parents of at-risk students have the option to enroll their children in charters.
Today, the League’s position holds that rich educational opportunities for students in every part of the city can be the stepping stone to a more equitable distribution of resources in our hyper-segregated city. The League supports:
The development and maintenance of high-quality and inclusive schools that meet the diverse needs of children across the city.
The existence of neighborhood schools over efforts towards privatization and market-based competition.
Financial transparency from school administrations.
Facilities, programs, and policies that address readiness for employment in the digital and information age.
The Daytime Education Committee began to look at charter schools to see how they compare to the traditional schools. In that effort, we selected a high school and an elementary school in four charter networks and a traditional high school and elementary school in the same neighborhood. We made a decision not to include selective high schools.
We collected data from 2014 and 2019 from both elementary schools and high schools. Included in that information was attendance, parent income level, reading and math attainment and growth. At the high schools, we also looked at the growth of students from the SAT and PSAT tests.
After reviewing our findings, we contacted the Chicago Public Schools department of Quality Measurement & Research to answer our questions about how they rate schools, what data they consider important, and how the pandemic affected testing. In 2019, approximately 90% of the students took the mandatory tests.
Although we are a small committee, the data we collected did give us a snapshot of both the charter schools and traditional schools. One thing we noticed was that, although charter schools are scoring higher than traditional schools, they have not continued to show improvement. The traditional schools have continued to show improvement and are now close to the charters in test scores.