Ten years ago, I took part in a series of debates on school choice opposite Paul Cillo of the Public Assets Institute and Bill Mathis of the National Education Policy Center and the Vermont State Board of Education. I was for school choice; they were opposed.
At the time, Mathis used the then-latest and second installment of the Stanford CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes) study on charter schools, which he called “the gold standard,” to argue school choice options led to statistically insignificant differences in student outcomes, and so we should not adopt them.
I countered that what CREDO II (2013) showed is that independent charter schools do at least as good a job as their public school counterparts but for significantly less money. If nothing else, better ROI for taxpayers! But even then, there was something else. Though the 2013 study did show negligible differences in outcomes overall, it also showed that certain subsets of students – Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners – performed better in charter schools than their peers in public schools.
Addressing such learning gaps long experienced by these categories of students in Vermont was, at the time, a primary problem we needed to focus on solving. (Unfortunately, it still is, though we have added more problems to the list.) Expanding school choice options would have been a solution benefiting these children without harming others.
But now that the 2023 CREDO III study is out, I can’t help but wonder if Bill Mathis is still touting it as “the gold standard” because ten years later, it shows conclusively that access to educational opportunities outside the traditional public schools (TPS) absolutely, undeniably lead to overall better student outcomes – especially for those afore-mentioned groups that have been traditionally underserved by the public school system.
Here are some highlights from the 160-page report:
The majority of charter schools provide better year-to-year outcomes for students compared to their traditional public-school options. Most of these schools perform better to such a degree that the difference is statistically significant. The results stand up to deeper investigation. Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent TPS. They move Black and Hispanic students and students in poverty ahead in their learning faster than if they enrolled in their local TPS. They are more successful than the local public school alternatives across most grade spans and community settings. These results show that charter schools use their flexibility to be responsive to the local needs of their communities. (p.13)
Moreover, the longer a student remained in a charter school, the better that student’s outcomes become. And, like the students, the longer a charter school exists the more it adapts and improves to provide better educational opportunities.
The research also eviscerates the false argument that independent charter schools either actively “cherry pick” or passively benefit from the self-selecting of more talented or better prepared students. As noted by CREDO, if the cherry-picking theory were correct, the students switching to charter schools would start out at a higher level of achievement than their TPS peers. “In multiple analyses, we do not see significant evidence of an undue advantage to charter schools. In fact, we find the opposite is true: charter schools enroll students who are disproportionately lower achieving than the students in their former TPS (p. 26).”
As for Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners:
Perhaps the most revealing finding of our study is that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities for their students and moved their achievement ahead of their respective state’s average performance. We refer to these schools as “gap-busting” charter schools. They provide strong empirical proof that high-quality, high-equality education is possible anywhere. (p.12)
This should be inspiring stuff!
But these gold-standard findings come at a time when the Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature are going all out to eliminate such choice-based opportunities for our kids where they exist, rather than strengthen and expand them. Multiple bills this past session were introduced to curb or eliminate funding for Vermont’s tuitioning system, which allows families in districts with no public school to choose the best public or independent school that meets their child’s needs with money following the child.
Although Vermont doesn’t have charter schools, our approved independent schools perform a similar function. They are independently operated but receive public funding on a per-student basis. Like charter schools, they are more flexible in their abilities to define their mission, adopt and adapt curriculum, and hire and fire teachers. And because their students can withdraw – along with their money – if the school fails to perform, they are far more accountable to the customer for their results.
This combination of flexibility to adapt paired with incentives to perform is the dynamic behind the quick, vast improvement CREDO found in charter school outcomes over just the past decade. It is the dynamic we should be – needs to be — building more into our publicly funded education system.
Why? Because over this same past decade, Vermont’s traditional public schools have seen the opposite results: a steady decline in student outcomes with persistent and worsening learning gaps for low-income and minority students. Behavioral problems and mental health issues are on the rise, as is the cost of the system as a whole. The system isn’t broken. The system doesn’t work at least for a lot of students who deserve better.
So, the results are in. Giving students a variety of mission-driven options to meet their educational needs provides better outcomes and greater equity for less money. Are there more improvements that need to be made? Always! But, as the research shows, those improvements will come faster outside the traditional public school model. All we need now is a majority of state representatives and senators willing to put children and taxpayers before the special interests desperately trying to hold onto their lucrative status as a state-run monopoly.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank
