New Report Finds Florida Charter School Students Consistently Outperform Their Peers in Traditional Public Schools

Tallahassee, Fla., March 25, 2019 – Today, the Florida Department of Education released its annual charter school performance report, which highlighted students in charter schools outperformed their peers in traditional schools in nearly every category.

Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said, “There is simply no denying that choice works, particularly for minority and low-income students. These results represent hundreds of thousands of Florida families who were empowered to make the best education decisions for their children and are reaping the benefits. Governor DeSantis has made bold choice-related proposals leading into the 2019 Legislative Session, and this report provides further evidence that they are right for Florida.”

Using 2017-18 school year data, Student Achievement in Florida’s Charter Schools: A Comparison of the Performance of Charter School Students with Traditional Public School Students compared achievement, learning gains and achievement gaps across a variety of subgroups and grade levels. The statutorily mandated report is based on more than 4.2 million test scores and makes 195 comparisons of academic success between students attending charter schools and students attending traditional public schools.

Highlights of the report include:

• In 63 of the 77 (82%) comparisons, students enrolled in charter schools demonstrated higher rates of grade level performance than their peers in traditional public school.
• The report concluded that the achievement gap was lower for charter school students in 19 of 22 (86%) comparisons. The achievement gap component included English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.
• When comparing learning gains, the percentage of students making learning gains was higher in charter schools in 88 of the 96 (91.7%) comparisons.
• In comparisons of achievement and learning gains, African-American students in charter schools performed better than African-American students in district-managed schools in 89% of the comparisons.
• In comparisons of achievement and learning gains, Hispanic students in charter schools performed better than Hispanic students in district-managed schools in 93% of the comparisons.
• In comparisons of achievement and learning gains, students eligible for free/reduced lunch in charter schools performed better than students eligible for free/reduced lunch in district-managed schools in 93% of the comparisons.
• For 2017-18 school grades, 47% of graded charter schools earned an “A” compared to 28% of graded traditional schools.

New Report Finds Florida Charter School Students Consistently Outperform Their Peers in Traditional Public Schools