A new research summary from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found that the research on charter school performance over the past four years has been largely positive.
The report examined 14 different studies from 2010 to 2013—11 regional studies and three national studies—and found that all but one showed charter school students outperforming their regular public school peers.
The one study that had differing results found that in Utah, based on longitudinal student data from 2004 to 2009, charter school students performed slightly worse compared to their regular public school counterparts. The researchers attributed this to "low effectiveness and high student mobility of newly-established charter schools."
The NAPCS metastudy included research from universities, including Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, as well as Mathematica Policy Research, and other organizations. Only studies with longitudinal student data and robust research methods were included in the metastudy.
There are currently about 2.3 million students being served by charter schools today in the United States.