<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/education/17charter.html?hp>

Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: August 17, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - The first national comparison of test scores
among children in charter schools and regular public schools shows
charter school students often doing worse than comparable students in
regular public schools.

The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department
released without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of
the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.

The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing
about half a year behind students in other public schools in both
reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth
graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math,
against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in
math, at traditional public schools.

Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor
neighborhoods, the researchers also compared urban charters to
traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in
both settings, and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as
well. In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than
their counterparts in regular public schools.

Charters are expected to grow exponentially under the new federal
education law, No Child Left Behind, which holds out conversion to
charter schools as one solution for chronically failing traditional
schools.

"The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester E. Finn Jr., a
supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, who was among those who asked the administration to do the
comparison.

Mr. Finn, an assistant secretary of education in the Reagan
administration, said the quality of charter schools across the country
varied widely, and he predicted that the results would make those
overseeing charters demand more in the way of performance.

"A little more tough love is needed for these schools," Mr. Finn said.
"Somebody needs to be watching over their shoulders."

Mr. Finn and other backers of charter schools contended, however, that
the findings should be considered as "baseline data," and could
reflect the predominance of children in these schools who turned to
charters after having had severe problems at their neighborhood
schools.

The results, based on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational
Progress, commonly known as the nation's report card, were unearthed
from online data by researchers at the American Federation of
Teachers, which provided them to The New York Times. The organization
has historically supported charter schools but has produced research
in recent years raising doubts about the expansion of charter schools.

Charters are self-governing public schools, often run by private
companies, which operate outside the authority of local school boards,
and have greater flexibility than traditional public schools in areas
of policy, hiring and teaching techniques.

Federal officials said they did not intend to hide the performance of
charter schools, and denied any political motivation for failing to
publicly disclose that the data were available. "I guess that was poor
publicity on our part," said Robert Lerner, the federal commissioner
for education statistics. Mr. Lerner said further analysis was needed
to put the data in its proper context.

But others were skeptical, saying the results proved that such schools
were not a cure-all. "There's just a huge distance between the sunny
claims of the charter school advocates and the reality," said Bella
Rosenberg, an special assistant to the president of the American
Federation of Teachers. "There's a very strong accountability issue
here."

Of the nation's 88,000 public schools, 3,000 are charters, educating
more than 600,000 students. But their ranks are expected to grow as No
Child Left Behind identifies thousands of schools for possible closing
because of poor test scores.

Once hailed as a kind of free-market solution offering parents an
escape from moribund public schools, elements of the charter school
movement have prompted growing concern in recent years. Around the
country, more than 80 charter schools were forced to close, largely
because of questionable financial dealings and poor performance, said
Luis Huerta, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College. In
California, the state's largest charter school operator has just
announced the closing of at least 60 campuses, The Los Angeles Times
reported on Monday, stranding 10,000 children just weeks before the
start of the school yea