As Seen in the Wall Street Journal: Using the Ohio Proficiency Test to Analyze the Academic Achievement of Charter Schools
Charter schools in Ohio have been subjected to harsh criticism for their academic performance in recent months. Such criticism, however, has been based on inappropriate and overly simplistic analyses that do not take into account the unique nature and student populations that charter schools serve. Using Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) data from 2002 to 2004, this study advances our understanding of Ohio charter
school performance by:
Applying a rigorous quantitative analysis, controllingfor confounding influences such as family income, poverty, and building characteristics, to assess charter and publicschool performance;
Examining the improvement in student achievement rather than comparing absolute pass rates; and
The first stage of the analysis examined changes in passagerates while controlling for demographic variables such as income, poverty and race, revealing:
The second stage of the analysis considered demographic characteristics as well as school characteristics such as spending on teachers and administration. This analysis revealed that:Charter schools made greater gains on the OPT than the traditional, government-run schools on five subsections of the Ohio Proficiency Test: 4th grade Citizenship, Math, Reading, and Writing, and 6th grade Writing.
There were no statistically significant differences between traditional and charter schools on five other tests: 4th grade Science and 6th grade Citizenship, Math, Reading, and Science.
Charter schools made greater gains in the percentage of their students passing the OPT than the government run schools on five subsections of the Ohio Proficiency Test: 4th grade Citizenship, Math, and reading plus 6th grade Math and Reading.
No statistically significant difference between charterschools and traditional public schools existed for three other tests: 4th grade writing, 4th grade science and 6th grade Writing.
As with the first model, in all cases charter schools performed as well or better than traditional public schools
The results show another important trend that portends well for Ohio's public schools. Except for 4th grade citizenship tests, traditional schools are showing robust gains on the OPT tests and their PIS scores. Thus it would appear that charter schools are also creating competition that spurs improvement in the traditional schools.
Matthew Carr is the Education Policy Director at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions.
Samuel R. Staley, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the Buckeye Institute and Director of Urban and Land Use Policy at Reason Foundation in Los Angeles.
