Charter School Research Paper

Words: 1953
Pages: 8

In 1997, there were 700 charter schools across 29 states enrolling 170,000 students (Finn 48-52). Today, there are over 1.6 million students in more than 6,000 charter schools across 40 states (Jha 52). These schools initially began as an experiment and no one thought they would be as big as they are today. While providing an alternative school for students who don’t necessarily fit the traditional public school educational mold, charters give students in low-income families the opportunity to go to a school providing services that they could benefit from, for free. Through the growth of charter schools throughout the nation and the high demand as well, charter schools have made a large amount of progress since their beginning in 1992. In …show more content…
In the beginning years, capital funding was almost non-existent and by 1995 there was almost no hope for charter schools, “so long as barriers like these remain in place, charter schools will remain a modest educational sideshow rather than a widely accessible alternative” (Finn 48-52). As charter schools continue to pop up all across the nation, there are increasingly more parents enrolling their students into their local charter schools rather than traditional public schools. Although critics may claim that charter school gains come at the expense of traditional public schools, that is not true. Public schools in the charter- rich areas of New York City actually moved up in the rankings due to the competition with the local charter schools. (Moskowitz A.11). With all of the progress made from 1992 to today, charter schools have shown the critics that they are here to …show more content…
There are many different charter school organizations that have many different charter schools around the country and even around the world. IDEA charter schools have had a large amount of success with their students. They operate 36 charter schools in Texas alone and serve more than 20,000 students. IDEA charter schools have sent 99% of their students that graduate from their schools to college in the past seven years that they have been up and running (Jha 55). Another story of charter school success comes from a charter school in New York. Nicholas Simmons shared his story with the world about what he had learned teaching his students in the charter school he works in. Compared to the students he teaches to students in the traditional public schools in his state, the students in his charter school are scoring extraordinarily better on tests than the students in traditional public schools. In 2013, 89% of Nicholas Simmons’ seventh graders and 83% of sixth graders passed the state math exam and more than half scored at the highest level. On the other hand, only 29% of all sixth grade students in all traditional public schools around New York passed the state math exam (Simmons A.11). New York is a very popular place for charter schools to be located, as there are many low-income areas in New York. Charter