Charter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida

Top Cited Papers
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
I utilize longitudinal data covering all public school students in Florida to study the performance of charter schools and their competitive impact on traditional public schools. Controlling for student-level fixed effects I find achievement initially is lower in charters. However, by their second year of operation new charter schools reach a par with the average traditional public school in reading. By their fourth year of operation they are even with the average traditional public school in mathematics achievement as well. Among charters, those targeting special education students demonstrate lower student achievement while charter schools managed by for-profit entities peform no differently on average than charters run by non-profits. Controlling for pre-existing traditional public school quality, competition from charter schools is associated with improved math and reading scores in nearby traditional public schools.