Oregon charter schools underperform, serve too few poor and minority students, study says
Oregon's charter school movement is on life support, ranking worst among 18 states where at least 2 percent of students attend charter schools, a report by a pro-charter school group says.
One of the biggest problems: Oregon's nearly 30,000 charter school students made less progress in reading and much less in math than students in traditional public schools from 2008 to 2011, the report found.
Oregon's 100-plus charter schools also serve a more heavily white and much more heavily middle-class population than other public schools, it said. Charter schools by their nature strive to reach students poorly served by traditional schools, so charter schools ideally should serve more minority and low-income students than regular public schools, the study's authors said.
The study, by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, recommends that Oregon policymakers do more to encourage school boards to close poor-performing charters. Over several years, an average of just 2 percent of charter schools closed per year, the study said.
Results suggest more charters should have closed, the report said. From 2008 to 2011, the average charter school student in Oregon made 22 days less progress in reading and 50 days less progress in math than the average student in a regular public school.
The report also said recommended that the state look into why charters are serving so few low-income and minority students.
Kaaren Heikes, long a champion of charter schools in Oregon and a founder and board member of Portland charter Kairos PDX, said she agrees with the report's authors that Oregon should do more to put poor-performing charter schools out of business.
"We don't want charters just for charters," she said. "We want good ones."
But Heikes questioned the accuracy of some statistics in the report. More than 10 percent of charter schools are online schools that don't serve lunch, so they don't check students' eligibility for free- and reduced-price lunches – the factor the report's authors used to determine how many low-income students a charter school enrolls.
She conceded that the state's decision not to cover transportation costs for charter schools, even though the state picks up most of the tab to bus students to and from regular public schools, makes it harder for charters to attract low-income students.
Some of Oregon's charter schools came into existence expressly to do a better job of serving students of color, Heikes said. Those include SEI Academy, Siletz Valley Early College Academy, Four Rivers Charter School, Nixya'awii Community School and her school, Kairos PDX.
But in a state in which 63 percent of public school students are white, many charter schools are more than 80 percent white. They include Bethany ChartOregon charter schools underperform, serve too few poor and minority students, study says | OregonLive.com:
