California Charter Schools Keeping Up, Showing Strongest Gains in Urban Areas; Charters in Large Districts and Los Angeles Showing Greatest Gains.

LOS ANGELES -- California's public charter schools are showing stronger student achievement gains compared to their non-charter public school counterparts, according to an analysis of the state's accountability system released today by the California Charter Schools Association. Also, one in four California charter schools showed significantly high growth rates (50 points or more) on the state's accountability system compared to one in 10 non-charter public schools.

As with recent trends, charter schools on an aggregate basis scored slightly lower than their non-charter counterparts, but charter schools' strongest gains are being demonstrated in urban areas, where student achievement has traditionally lagged state averages. In addition, a higher percentage of charter schools met their federal performance targets (AYP) under No Child Left Behind.

Leading these gains were the 63 charter schools in Los Angeles Unified that had at least two years of data on the state's Academic Performance Index (API). According to the analysis, the average growth gain for a charter school in Los Angeles was 29.9 points, compared to 20.6 points for the non-charter public schools. In addition, charter schools in Los Angeles outperformed their non-charter counterparts by 39 points (719 points to 679 points respectively).

"These results show that charter schools are taking in the most under-served kids and are effectively getting them back on the path to academic success," said Caprice Young, CEO and President of the California Charter Schools Association. "California's charter schools are demonstrating a significant value-add for the students that benefit from attending them. We need to continue looking at why these schools are successful and share these successes so that students in the broader public school system can benefit from them as well."

"At the View Park Preparatory Charter High School, we take in kids that are performing significantly below their grade levels due to the fact that they have never been challenged to believe that they can succeed," said Michael Piscal, founder of the three high-performing View Park Prep charter schools in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles, with 97 percent African American students and a combined waiting list of over 5,000 children. "Students at View Park Prep succeed because they are given high expectations and told that through hard work, they can achieve. All kids from our community can go to the top colleges and universities in the nation if we give them high expectations and provide the right educational environment."

According to the analysis, which looked at API scores and growth gains from 2004 to 2005, California charter schools on average improved their API score by 30.0 points, compared to 20.4 points for non-charter public schools. Also, 57.0 percent of charter schools met their federal AYP targets under No Child Left Behind, compared to 55.8 percent of non-charter schools.

In addition to Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified was another major urban area to see its charter schools demonstrate higher growth rates than non-charters (27.3 points to 24.6 points, respectively) as well as outperform its non-charter public schools altogether (658 to 652 points). Charter schools in Sacramento City, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified, while still slightly lower than non-charters, had higher growth rates than their respective non-charter schools.

About the California Charter Schools Association

The California Charter Schools Association is the membership and professional organization serving approximately 570 public charter schools serving close to 200,000 charter school students in the State of California. The Association's mission is to increase student achievement by strengthening and expanding public charter schools throughout California.