School Choice Helps Close Performance Gap For Low-Income Students, Study Finds

Cities with robust charter school programs have drastically lowered the performance gap between low-income students and their peers, a study published in October found.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) found that student performance rose in every city with a majority of low-income students when 33% or more are enrolled in charter schools, according to the report. Non-white students make up a large percentage of those benefiting from school choice policies.

“Our report belies the oft-heard but unfounded criticism that charters somehow drain legacy schools of the ‘best’ students and resources, to the detriment of those left behind,” PPI wrote. “Evidently, the growth of enrollment in charter schools creates a positive competitive dynamic with the traditional district schools, which have to up their game to attract parents and students.”

Between the 2010-2011 and 2022-2023 school years, the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers was narrowed by 42% in Camden, New Jersey, where 68% of students were enrolled in charter schools by 2023, according to the report. Low-income student performance rose by over 20% in Camden from 2011 to 2023 as the percentage of students attending charter schools increased.

Within the same time frame, the gap in Washington, D.C., closed by 38%, with 45% of students enrolled in charter schools, the report found. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the gap closed by 23%, with 58% of students attending charter schools.

Nonwhite students are among the biggest beneficiaries of school choice, making up 70% of charter school students despite only comprising about half of the district in the cities surveyed, according to the report.

Democrats often oppose school choice programs, particularly school vouchers, with Pennsylvania lawmakers referring to them as “schemes” and have attempted to strip away their funding. More than a third of Philadelphia students are enrolled in charter schools, which helped cut the city’s achievement gap for low-income students by 18%, according to the report.

“hese findings may provide a clear policy prescription for improving outcomes in low-income urban communities that have long struggled with school improvement and substandard student achievement,” the report concluded.

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