D.C. has the nation’s fourth-highest concentration of charter school students
The District now has the nation’s fourth-highest concentration of charter school students, behind New Orleans, Detroit and Flint, Mich., according to anew report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Three years ago, only New Orleans — where Hurricane Katrina had destroyed the traditional public school system, and where more than nine in 10 children now attend charters — had a greater percentage of students in charter schools than D.C.
But as enrollment in the District’s traditional school system has grown in the past several years, the city’s charter school market share in the city has stayed relatively flat. The District’s charter school share was 44 percent in both 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, and raw enrollment data for the current school year suggests that it isn’t changing.
That flatlining comes after a period of rapid growth: Nine years ago, just 25 percent of D.C. schoolchildren were in charters, which are funded with taxpayer dollars but are run by independent nonprofits.
Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, called the city “one of the best examples of a thriving charter public school environment” in the nation.
Elsewhere, particularly in cities where traditional public school systems are struggling, charter school market share is growing more quickly.
In Flint, Mich., for example, the percent of children in charter schools jumped from 44 to 47 between 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. In Kansas City, Mo., it increased from 37 percent to 41 percent; in Philadelphia, from 30 percent to 33 percent.
It’s part of a longer-term nationwide trend, in which fast-growing charter schools are taking on a significant portion of the students in individual D.C. has the nation’s fourth-highest concentration of charter school students - The Washington Post:
