Charter Schools: What's It All About?

Over the last several years we have been hearing a lot about charter schools and many of you have asked us about them so we want to answer the following questions for you:

What are charter schools and what are they all about?

What is the difference between charter schools, private schools, and public schools?

Are charter schools working?

What are charter schools and what are they all about?

Charter schools are publicly funded, independently operated schools that are allowed to operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools in exchange for increased accountability. In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to pass a charter school law. Today, 42 states and the District of Columbia have similar laws. 

Charter schools are part of the state public education system and receive public funding through the Basic Education Program. Charter schools are opened after reaching an agreement with the local school district. Test scores and performance results from charter school students count toward the results of the school district they are a part of.

Charter schools are able to improve learning for all students and help close the achievement gap by encouraging the use of innovative teaching methods, providing greater decision making authority to schools and teachers in exchange for greater responsibility and student performance, creating new professional opportunities for teachers, and affording parents meaningful, substantial opportunities to participate in the education of their children.

What is the difference between charter schools, private schools, and public schools?

Charter schools do not charge tuition. They are free for students in their school districts to attend.

Public school students are each allotted an amount of funding through the Basic Education Program. When these students go to a public charter school, this funding follows each student to their new school. Charter schools demonstrate efficiency in utilizing these funds as, in addition to standard costs of operating a school, charter schools in Tennessee are not granted facilities or funding for facilities as traditional public schools are, and spend an average of 20 percent of their budgets on facilities. When a student leaves a traditional public school, the funds they take with them do also leave that school, but through budgeting with a long-term outlook, school systems can focus on funding quality educations for all students as opposed to funding long-standing infrastructures.

While charter schools must follow too many of the laws and regulations that govern traditional district public schools, they are freed from the bureaucracy that often diverts a school’s energy and resources away from the mission of the school. As a result, charter school leaders can focus all of their efforts on settling and reaching high academic standards for their students.

Are charter schools working?

That is, are students in charter schools learning as much or more than their counterparts in district-run schools? 

Charter elementary and middle schools, on average, outperform their district-run counterparts in math. For reading, the overall effect sizes for attending a charter school are positive and about the same size as reported in the 2011 paper, but the effect sizes are no longer statistically significant.

At the high school level, there is no overall significant effect (either positive or negative) of charter schools, suggesting that charter high schools, on average, serve their students about as well as their district-run counterparts.

KIPP schools appear to have a particularly positive effect on both math and reading achievement.

So we are all for Charter schools and I say if you find one that works for you and meets the need of your child enroll them in one today.

Nashville Learning Center

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