Dear Hillary: Get Your Facts Straight About Charter Schools

Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, released a statement in response Secretary Hillary Clinton’s comments about charter schools at a South Carolina townhall meeting on November 7. From the statement:

“We appreciate Secretary Clinton’s decades-long support for charter public schools. In fact, charter schools have had strong bipartisan support since the Clinton administration. That being said, we do take issue with Secretary Clinton’s overgeneralizing of charter schools not serving these so-called “hardest-to-teach” students, particularly when the facts are so strong to the contrary. 

• There is no difference in the percentage of English Language Learner (ELL) students served between charter and non-charter public schools.
• 37% of charter schools have at least 75% of their students in poverty as compared to 23% of non-charter schools.
• Nationally, in the 2013-14 school year, charter schools served a higher-percentage of low-income students (57%) – than district-run schools (52%) - and have better outcomes.
• 2015 NAEP scores show that in Los Angeles, there was dramatically better student performance in charter schools than with district-run schools. Proficiency rates were triple that of non-charter schools. Los Angeles charter schools demographics are 75% low-income students and 85% of student have minority status.
• In New York City, charter public schools do a better job of retaining students with disabilities than their non-charter public school counterparts. Specifically, 53% of charter school kindergarteners with disabilities were still in the same schools 4 years later, compared with 49% of non-charter schools.

The National Alliance welcomes a dialogue about our nation’s public education system, the role that charter public schools play in improving public education, and providing parents with quality public school options.”