Boston's Charter & Pilot Schools Show Significant Increases in Achievment

Results from a new study from the Boston Foundation Forum compared Boston's Charter, Pilot and traditional Public schools in student achievement on standardized tests. The results show promising increases in charter schools when compared to public, as well as Boston's "pilot schools".

"Whether using the randomized lotteries or statistical controls for measured background characteristics, the authors generally find large positive effects for Charter Schools, at both the middle school and high school levels. Among key findings of the report: the impact of charter schools was particularly dramatic in middle school math. The effect of a single year spent in a charter school was equivalent to half of the black-white achievement gap. Performance in English Language Arts also significantly increased for charter middle school students, though less dramatically. Charter students also showed stronger
performance scores in high school, in English Language Arts, math, writing topic development, and writing composition. Students in pilot high schools also made measurable progress."

We need to support research that gives us insight into the tangible outcomes of children attending nontraditional public schools versus traditional public schools. Unfortunately the study was conducted only to see if student achievement increased, not to understand how and why. The Boston Foundation Forum is recommending to the state to do a study as to why Charter and Pilot schools increased student achievement, which definitely is a step in the right direction. It is not enough to show the improvement; in order to emulate what is working we must understand what these schools are doing in the building and in the community to support higher learning.