“Boston Preparatory’s sterling academic record is not unique among its Boston charter school peers. Many charter schools in Boston (about a dozen middle schools and a dozen high schools in all) produce good test scores. And to be sure, highly motivated charter school students could succeed in any academic setting. But in a study published this year, a team of researchers that includes two MIT economists used a novel method to show that in general, students perform better at those charter schools than they would at other types of public schools. The effects on students enrolled in the charter schools studied are “just really striking,” says Joshua Angrist, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT and a member of the research group. Using data from 2004 to 2007, the team found, for instance, that a middle-school student ranking at the 50th percentile on the statewide math exams would improve, on average, to roughly the 65th percentile after just one year in one of the high-performing charter schools in Boston.”
By Peter Dizikes