Charter school officials discount U.S. report

Fourth-graders in traditional public schools are scoring higher in math than their charter school counterparts, according to a national report released Tuesday. But Utah charter leaders say the report means little since no Utah charters were counted in the data.

The study was an analysis of 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores comparing the academic achievement of students in charter schools with that of their peers in regular public schools.

According to the analysis, fourth-graders attending traditional schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading and an average of 5.8 points better in math than students in charter schools.

However, reading scores at charter schools in central cities serving mostly minority students were comparable to scores at traditional schools.

The national report does not break out state-by-state results. Rather, it looks at 2003 test results for 150 charter schools and 6,764 regular public schools nationwide, and its comparison uses special methods to control for demographics.

But for Utah, NAEP does not report charter school test scores in 2003 or 2005 on its online NAEP Data Explorer. So it's hard to say whether the general trend repeats itself in Utah.

"If you don't break out all the charters, how can you measure that, and the fact that Utah's charters weren't broken out in my opinion is proof that that is not a 100 percent accurate study," said Marlies Burns, education specialist for the state charter office. "More information would need to be gleaned or at least equitable information."

State Charter Board President Scott Smith said it is difficult to make equitable comparisons between charter schools and traditional schools.

Charter schools are free public schools often started by parents that sometimes target a specific demographic. For instance, some schools in Utah are crafted to help students who are not doing well in the traditional school system.

So for an equitable comparison, measuring improvement would be more telling than looking at test scores, Smith said.

Leaders from the National Center for Educational Statistics who reported the study caution against reading too much into the analysis.

"This was a pilot study and not meant to be definitive," said Mark Schneider, commissioner of the NCES. "What does this report say to a parent? Not much, frankly." Still, he said the report provides solid data for researchers to do more studies.

"My advice to parents based on the report is: Shop around carefully," Schneider said.

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Contributing: The Associated Press

E-mail: terickson@desnews.com; jtcook@desnews