Archived Information

Characteristics of Charter Schools

Exhibit 5--Charter School Enrollment, 1995-96¹³

We would like to put this finding into perspective by comparing charter schools to other public schools, but finding an accurate basis for comparison is difficult. For example, if the distribution of the enrollment of charter schools were simply compared to that of other public schools in the nation, the comparison might be misleading for a simple reason: Only ten states had charter schools in operation as of the end of 1995, and these states do not represent all states. Therefore, comparing charter schools to a national base might result in false conclusions.

Alternatively, we could compare charter schools in the ten states to public schools in these states. This basis is more appropriate, though caution must still be exercised. The states differ in their number of schools and students, with California having the largest number of public schools and students--and coincidentally the largest number of and the most students in charter schools. Therefore, a ten-state comparison will reflect California more than other states. We can adjust a ten-state combined figure by weighting the contribution that each state makes to the sum of all charter school or all public school population, thus creating an artificial ten-state population. This procedure also raises issues, since the weighting may be done in a number of ways and no one weighting scheme can fully reflect the data.

The most accurate approach is to compare charter schools within a state to other public schools in the same state. A state-by-state comparison also has limitations because the number of charter schools in any state is quite small compared to the number of the state's public schools. For this heuristic purpose, we have chosen for some characteristics discussed in this chapter to provide the reader with two complimentary approaches: (1) a general comparison across states in which the average for all charter schools across the ten states is compared to the average for all public schools across the ten states weighted in one of several ways depending on the nature of the data,¹⁴ and (2) a state-by state comparison of proportions or averages of all charter schools in each state with similar proportions or averages of all public schools in each respective state.

Specifically, Exhibit 6 contrasts charter school enrollments with the enrollment of students in all public schools in the ten states that had operational charter schools by January 1, 1996. It shows the percentage of all charter schools within student enrollment categories compared to the percentage of all public schools within the same categories. The percentages for the charter schools and the ten-state enrollments are computed in the same way. We summed up the number of charter schools (or all public schools) across all the ten states; sorted every charter (or public school) into one of the school size categories and summed up the number of schools within each category; and divided the latter sum by the former sum (and multiplied by 100) to obtain the percentage of charter schools and all public schools in each size category.¹⁵

Given this explanation, we can now draw a comparison from the data displayed in Exhibit 6. The exhibit shows that a higher proportion of charter schools are small schools compared to public schools in the ten-state base. About 16 percent of public schools in the ten charter school states have fewer than 200 students, whereas the corresponding figure for charter schools is about 62 percent.¹⁶

Exhibit 6--Enrollment in Charter Schools, 1995-96 and All Public Schools in Ten Charter School States, 1993-94¹⁸

Grade levels. Charter schools often so not fit the traditional elementary, middle, and high school pattern (see Exhibit 7). Charter schools were much more likely to span grades K-12 (11.7 percent of charter schools compared to 1.2 percent of all public schools in the ten charter states.) Charter schools were also more likely to combine elementary and middle school grades or to combine middle and high school grades. Only 52 percent of charter schools fit the traditional grade-level configuration of elementary, middle, or high schools, compared to 83 percent of all public schools in the ten charter states. A much larger percentage of all public schools in the ten charter states are elementary schools--about 52 percent, contrasted with about 29 percent of the charter schools.

Exhibit 7 -- Comparison of Grade Level Distribution for Charter Schools, 1995-96 and All Public Schools in Ten Charter States ¹⁹, 1993-94

The relationship between school size and grade level for charter schools and for all schools in the ten states with charter laws is shown in Exhibit 8.¹⁷ At every level of schooling, charter schools are smaller than all public schools in the ten charter states.

Exhibit 8 -- School Size and Grade Levels for Charter Schools, 1995-96 and All Public Schools in Ten Charter States, 1993-94²⁰

The difference is most striking at the secondary level with 12 percent of charter schools enrolling more than 600 students in contrast to all public schools in the ten charter states with 47 percent enrolling more than 600 students. Also, while nearly 60 percent of the charter elementary schools enroll fewer than 200 students, only about 12 percent of all public schools in the ten charter states enroll fewer than 200 students.²¹

Exhibit 9--Percentage of Newly Created and Pre-existing Charter Schools, 1995-96

Newly created vs. pre-existing charter schools. Almost 60 percent of charter schools are newly created (Exhibit 9 displays the proportions of newly created and pre-existing charter schools) . Of the pre-existing schools, about one-quarter were private schools that converted to charter status. The proportion of new and pre-existing schools in a state is partly determined by the terms of the charter legislation, as Exhibit 10 shows. All charter schools in Georgia, Hawaii, and New Mexico were pre-existing public schools; the charter legislation in these states provide only for the conversion of existing schools to charter status. More than one-half of the charter schools in California, Michigan, and Wisconsin were pre-existing schools that converted to charter status. In contrast, only 15 percent of the Massachusetts charter schools and 14 percent of the Colorado charter schools were pre-existing schools.

Exhibit 10 -- State by State Comparison of the Percentage of Newly Created and Pre-existing Charter Schools, 1995-96

The terms of the charter legislation also may determine the proportion of public versus private conversion schools in a state. Several states, including Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan, allow for the conversion of private schools to charter status. Of the 98 pre-existing charter schools, approximately one-fourth (25 schools) were private schools before they converted to charter status. Michigan with fourteen and Arizona with eight previously private schools, had the highest number of pre-existing private schools that converted to charter status. Though California has the largest number of pre-existing schools, none were private schools prior to converting because California legislation prohibits private school conversion.

Not surprisingly, the size of the school is strongly associated with its status prior to becoming a charter school. Almost three-fourths of the schools that were newly created as charter schools are small, with fewer than 200 students. Of the pre-existing schools that converted to charter status, about half are schools with fewer than 200 students. Exhibit 11 shows that charter schools with fewer than a hundred students are more likely to be newly created schools than pre-existing schools that converted to charter status; in contrast, the larger charter schools are more likely to be pre-existing schools. As we shall see throughout this report, pre-existing schools are different from newly created charter schools in many ways.²²

Exhibit 11--Enrollment of Newly Created and Pre-existing Charter Schools, 1995-96

[III. Charter Schools and Their Students]

[The Students]