A new report by the National Alliance For Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) finds that Black and Hispanic students are the fastest-growing population of students attending charter schools.
NAPCS says these two groups make up more than half of the new enrollment of over 300,000 students since 2019.
“It’s simple: parents are seeking better options for their kids,” says NAPCS.
Debbie Veney, the senior VP of communications with NAPCS, helped co-author of the report. Veney says Hispanic and Black families are massive consumers of charter schools.
One of the important analyses the report showed was charter schools enrolled nearly 10 times the number of new students compared to traditional public school districts in the year before.
“Since 2019, charter schools gained more than 300,000 new students while district public schools lost around 1.5 million students at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public schools haven’t rebounded in the past few years,” says NAPCS.
Veney says there are several reasons why the charter school system has been seen as a boom compared to public schools.
The flexibility and control charters have versus the public schools. Charter schools can “site-based hiring and firing.” Veney says this isn’t allowed in the public school because of the unions.
Charters vs Public Schools
Veney says research about school satisfaction is tends to be low among low income Black and Hispanic parents because of the lack of education choices in their community.
“Most of those polled and asked about public education well say it’s pretty good, but Black and Hispanic parents being polled will actually say my school isn’t very good and we need better options,” said Veney.
On grades, a Stanford University study found that topics in reading and math, students attending charter schools exceeded those attending public schools.
NAPCS and other charter school groups say one of the uphill battles they face is dealing with the local school unions, that lobby local school districts to oppose the expansion of school choice and prohibit them from getting government grants.
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