2 weeks Ago
Colorado long has been a national leader in advancing public education options for families stymied by failing neighborhood schools. In some cases, even entire school districts have performed so abysmally that parents have been desperate for a way out — and have found it through Colorado’s broad menu of choices. Households can opt their kids into better-performing neighborhood schools; better-performing districts; online learning; homeschooling, and, of course, wildly popular charter schools.
As of the 2022-23 academic year, 268 public charter schools were serving more than 137,000 students across Colorado. That’s over 15% of total public school enrollment. In advance of a proposal on this fall’s statewide ballot that would secure the right to such educational choices in Colorado’s constitution, the Common Sense Institute has issued a new report analyzing the efficacy of the most often-utilized of school-choice options, charter schools.
“The charter sector overall has outperformed district-run schools, has produced higher college matriculation rates, and has narrowed gaps between more affluent, white students and low-income students and students of color,” the Common Sense report found. “In addition, charter school students tend to fare better in their postsecondary achievement as well.” In other words, if voters embrace Amendment 80 this November, they will be bolstering a charter-school system that his given Colorado kids a leg up on learning and on life.
Despite the enormous popularity of charter schools and other forms of school choice among Coloradans — regardless of their race and ethnicity, socio-economic status or political allegiance — there remains special-interest opposition. And it carries clout at the State Capitol. Just this past spring, legislation that had the backing of the state teachers unions and other behind-the-scenes power players would have dealt a death of a thousand cuts to charter schools.
Supporters of school choice, including Gov. Jared Polis, were able to stop the bill, but it served as a reminder that school choice opponents lurk. Hence, Amendment 80, which aims to shore up charters and other kinds of school choice once and for all.
While the Common Sense analysis takes no stand on the ballot proposal, its authors appear mindful the public debate over the proposal will be fraught with the potential for misinformation. “As Colorado citizens prepare to vote on such a substantive change to the state’s constitution concerning education, facts are more important than ever,” write institute fellows Rasheed Garza Archuleta, Cole Anderson and Jason Gaulden. “This report uses Colorado Department of Education data to provide highlights of charter school performance in Colorado.
” Those highlights are impressive — and make a strong case not only for protecting the right to charter schools but in fact for opening more of them. Among the findings: The academic performance of charter school students last year as measured by the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, standardized test — the state’s official K-12 assessment — was higher than those of non-charter school students at every grade level in both English and math assessments in grades three through eight. This has generally been true in previous years as well.
Charter school students who graduated in 2016 obtained a postsecondary credential like a college diploma at a rate of 41.8% compared to non-charters’ 32.8%.
Students of color have represented a larger percentage of charter enrollment than of non-charter enrollment every academic year since 2015-16. As on every ballot issue, the public would do well to arm itself with the facts in assessing pro-school choice Amendment 80. Kudos to Common Sense for once again helping make those facts available for discerning voters.
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