The 10 Cities With the Most Charter Schools—And How They’re Actually Performing

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How Are Charter Schools Performing in Your Community?

The demand for charter schools is at an all-time high. Currently more than 2 million students attend the privately run, publicly funded schools and 610,000 more are on waiting lists.

As the school choice movement grows, so has the need for accountability. Recently, the National Center of Charter School Authorizers (NCCSA) launched the ‘One Million Lives’ campaign with the hope of reaching more children through effective charter schools.

The key word here is “effective.” The NCCSA said in a press release: “While a great many public charter schools are among their states’ best performers and are paving the way for educational innovation across the U.S., too many are failing to provide a quality education.”

NCCSA President and CEO Greg Richmond explained, “If charters are going to succeed in helping improve public education, accountability must go from being rhetoric to reality.”

This campaign is particularly important as we look at the communities where charter school growth has become the most rapid. A report by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools identifies the school districts that have the highest percentage of public school students enrolled in charters. Click through the gallery to see which districts have the most charters and to learn whether the kids are benefiting from attending charters instead of district public schools.

(Photo: Getty Images)

7. Dayton Public Schools (Ohio), 26 percent

Although 26 percent of Dayton students attend charter schools, these students are not faring much better than their district school peers. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute analyzed the Ohio Department of Education’s recently released school report card:

Anywhere from one-third to over one-half of DPS students failed Ohio’s standardized exam, depending on the grade and subject. In Dayton’s charter schools, the failure rate was slightly less, but still no less troubling. By sixth grade, many Dayton students are well on the pathway toward adult illiteracy: 39 percent of DPS students and 27 percent of Dayton charter students failed to pass the sixth grade reading exam (i.e., scored below “proficient”). Math test scores are even worse than reading.

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers found that between 900 and 1300 of the approximately 6,000 charters in America (1 in 5) are performing in the lowest 15 percent of schools in their state. According to the NACSA press release, “While some states may have imperfect measuring sticks, too many schools are not achieving the goals promised in their charters.”

NCCSA president and CEO Greg Richmond said that if authorizers have the ability to close failing schools and replace them with twice as many excellent ones, more than one million students will have access to a quality public education. “Charter schools are not the only solution in public education, but we didn’t start the charter school movement in order to create more underperforming schools,” he said.

(Photo: Thomas Barwick)

7. Albany City School District (New York), 26 percent

There are 2,838 students enrolled in charters in Albany, New York. An examination of student proficiency in 2008-2009 showed that students attending charters in the city outperformed district school children in five out of six tested grade levels.

(Photo: Duane Rieder)

6. Cleveland Metropolitan School District (Ohio), 28 percent

There are 15,886 children who attend charter schools in Cleveland. The Ohio Department of Education released a school report card for 2011-2012. According to Cleveland.com, there was good and bad news about the state’s charters.

The good: Four charter schools in Ohio were rated Excellent with Distinction and two of them are in Cleveland. They are Citizens Academy and the Intergenerational School. There were 26 charters rated as Excellent and 55 rated as Effective in Ohio.

The bad: 55 were on Academic Watch and 66 were Academic Emergency schools.

(Photo: Getty Images)

5. St. Louis Public Schools (Missouri), 31 percent

Tied for fifth place with Gary, Indiana, 31 percent of students in St. Louis attend charter schools. Last month, charter schools in the city were thrust into the spotlight. Following years of financial trouble and management issues, six charters operated by Imagine Schools Inc. were closed. The closures cost the district $250,000 and displaced thousands of students.

(Photo: Getty Images)

5. Gary Community School Corporation (Indiana), 31 percent

Gary, Indiana has 22 public schools that are closed due to budget restraints and a decline in enrollment. Left vacant, 11 of the schools were put up for sale in 2010. These school closures have opened the door to charters. Currently, there are more charter high schools in Gary than traditional schools.

CBS News reports that each year nearly 500 students choose charters over public schools. Because of the switch, more than four million dollars in state aid is lost. The Superintendent of Gary Community School Corporation said, “When you look at our elementary schools we’re out performing charters.”

According to CBS, “The superintendent points to state test scores which show the top performing K-6 school was a public school, McCullough with 79.5% of the students passing. Compare that to the Charter’s top performing school, Gary lighthouse, which had only 48.4% passing.”

(Photo: Michael Hitoshi)

4. Flint City School District (Michigan), 33 percent

Ranked fourth, 33 percent of kids in Flint attend charter schools. Like other cities on the list, there are effective charters and those seen as subpar. Since charters came to Michigan in 1994, 50 have been shut down.

Currently, there are 276 charters operating in Michigan, and last year the state removed the cap on charter schools. Just this school year, 31 opened their doors in the state and three in Flint. The state charter association president Dan Quisenberry said the new charters are all about innovation:

"There’s a high school in Detroit that’s located at a hospital, giving students a head start on a career in the medical field. There’s a language-immersion school in Farmington Hills where children will be learning Chinese in kindergarten. There are blended-learning schools in Lansing and Grand Rapids that will look and feel like small colleges, offering a mix of online and classroom learning."

(Photo: Michael Eudenback)

3. Kansas City, Missouri School District (Missouri), 37 percent

In Kansas City, according to KCTV, not all charters are meeting state performance standards. Last year, only five out of 21 charters in Kansas City met all of the performance standards. The school director of DeLaSalle Academy, a charter school that didn’t meet any of the 14 requirements, spoke with KCTV. The director informed the reporter that “they are an alternative school and many of the students are faced with challenges, reading at a fifth-grade level or below entering into the school, yet they are graded the same as those offering college-level curriculum.”

(Photo: MCT via Getty Images)

2. District of Columbia Public Schools, 41 percent

During the 2010-2011 school year, Washington, D.C. ranked dead last for graduation rates. Only 59 percent of students graduated.

According to The Washington Post, “The city’s 123 traditional schools have shown more overall growth on standardized tests over the past six years, but charters posted higher scores on the 2012 D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System. Their four-year graduation rate (80 percent) is 20 points higher than that of traditional D.C. high schools.”

(Photo: The Washington Post)

2. Detroit Public Schools (Michigan), 41 percent

In several Detroit neighborhoods, charter schools are top performers. Some of the standout schools include the Detroit Service Learning Academy and the Detroit Merit Charter Academy.

As the NCCSA’s One Million Lives initiative suggests, there are also charters that are not performing as well as they should. According to the Excellent Schools Detroit 2012 School Report Card, for example, only 7.5 percent of middle school students at the Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse of Detroit met or exceeded standards in math from 2009-2011.

(Photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

1. New Orleans Public Schools (Louisiana), 76 percent

After Hurricane Katrina, the public got a glimpse into New Orleans’ troubled education system. What followed was a push to start from scratch with charter schools. Today, 76 percent of kids in New Orleans attend charters. In 2011-2012, there were 66 charter schools open in the city.

According to the NAPCS report, “charters are the highest performing sector of public schools in the city…and are approaching Louisiana state average achievement.”

(Photo: Getty Images)

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