NEW YORK CITY CHARTER SCHOOL CENTER ANALYSIS OF 2015-16 TEST SCORES FINDS WIDENING GAPS IN CHARTER-DISTRICT STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Achievement Gap Continues to Grow As Charter Students of Color and Students from Low-Income Families Out-Perform District Peers
New York – The New York City Charter School Center (“Charter Center”) today released its in-depth analysis of New York State’s 2015-16 Math and ELA assessment results for NYC charter schools. Click here to view the interactive presentation which enables users to filter the visualizations using different dimensions, including year and grade, and to highlight specific schools or community school districts. Some key findings from the Charter Center’s analysis include:
Charters outperform the district in both ELA and Math: 43.0% vs. 38.0% in ELA (+5 points) and 48.7% vs. 36.4% in Math (+12.3 points).
Charters had the largest gains between 2014-15 and 2015-16: +4.5 points in Math and +13.5 points in ELA (district at +1.2 points in Math and +7.6 points in ELA).
92% of NYC’s charter sector is comprised of African-American and Hispanic students. Charter students of color continue to outperform the district by wide margins:
In communities with some of the highest proportions of low-income families and students of color (including the South Bronx, Harlem, Canarsie, East New York, Bed-Stuy, etc.), charter students continue to outperform their district peers:
Of the top 20 ELA scorers in the city: 7 are charters; all but two of the remaining 13 are screened district schools. Included among the charters are Success schools, FLACS II and South Bronx Classical II. Of the top 20 Math scorers in the city: 10 are charters and all but 1 of the 10 DOE schools are screened schools.
Please attribute the following quote to James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center:
“Just yesterday a poll found that more than half of New York City parents would send their children to a public charter school. The state test results this year are one reason why. Not only are more children passing the tests already, but year after year, charter schools, as measured by the state tests, are improving far faster than the district. This is especially true of African-American and Latino students whose proficiency rates skyrocket in the charter sector. It’s time for Albany to lift the cap, and for the city to fully partner with charter schools. We can’t and won’t accept anything less.”
