The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools yesterday released new numbers showing there are now nearly 3 million students attending more than 6,700 charter schools nationwide.
The statistical sheet breaks out numbers for individual states, and two things jump out looking at the numbers for Florida.
First, the report estimates there are 275,000 students enrolled in Florida charter schools, the largest increase of any state for the 2014-15 school year. That number is an estimate, though, and the latest statistics from the state Department of Education suggest the estimate is high.
Florida charters enroll slightly more than 250,000 students in the current school year, according to preliminary results from the department’s fall enrollment survey. The final numbers may look different, but it’s unlikely charters’ enrollment growth would more than double from what the current figures show.
The alliance’s methodology (on page 4) helps explain what’s going on. Its estimates are based on historical growth trends, but this year, Florida’s charter school growth appears to have slowed.
Second, as shuttered charter schools are coming under greater scrutiny, the alliance’s new numbers shed some light on the national picture.
Florida saw 28 charter schools close over the past year. That’s about 4.5 percent of the total number of schools operating during the 2013-14 school year. Ohio (6.8 percent) and Wisconsin (9 percent) fared worse, but many states with significant charter sectors, including Colorado, Michigan and New York, fared better.
As policymakers in Florida look to improve the quality of charter schools and stem the tide of unwanted closures, the report provides some perspective:
The National Alliance promotes meeting the demand for high-quality school options and encouraging well-planned school openings, as well as authorizers setting and enforcing high performance standards. The failure to meet these standards must conclude with school closure to ensure that the sector is providing the best options to families.
In other words, if a charter school opens and fails to meet academic standards, a closure might make sense. However, if an unqualified charter opens, flounders and winds up shutting down mid-year, displacing its students, that’s a different story. Florida lawmakers are looking to address this issue by, among other things, increasing school boards’ ability to scrutinize charter operators’ track records when they apply to open new schools.
