The Nation’s Charter Report Card: A New Ranking of States by Charter Student Performance

Abstract

Five groups rank state charter school environments according to their laws, regulations, funding, and other characteristics, but none rank states by charter student performances on a national test. We rank states by demographically adjusted math and reading performances of charter students in 4th and 8th grade for the period 2009 to 2019 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. State positions correlate (0.33) with standings for all public-school students. Overall charter standings correlate with subgroup rankings: Black (0.92), Hispanic (0.77), lower-income (0.95), lower-education (0.92), urban (0.97), non-urban (0.74). Nonprofit schools in networks outperform for-profit and stand-alone schools.