A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research has provided even more evidence that charter schools can boost students' academic potential when compared to typical public schools.
The paper, which studied a sample of students enrolled in 15 urban and nine nonurban charter schools in Massachusetts, found that students enrolled in the charter schools were significantly more likely to enroll in and graduate from a four-year college than their noncharter peers. What's more, those enrolled in urban charters saw a significant bump in their test scores. Nonurban charter students, however, saw a small decline in their scores—though not in their college attendance rate.
