Tag Archives: selection bias

Lessons for Colorado from Study on Boston Charter School Success

The argument only grows stronger that charter schools work. While some will dwell on the exceptions, the big picture becomes clearer and clearer. A new study by the Boston Foundation finds that in their city “charter school students consistently outperform their peers at pilot schools and at traditional schools.” As Core Knowledge blogger Robert Pondiscio notes, even factoring out the selection bias of more motivated parents shows charter schools doing more to improve student achievement. And the well-read Dr. Greg Forster puts the Boston study in context to note that “charters are an improvement over the status quo, even if only a modest one, as a large body of research has consistently shown.” He observes that “more freedom consistently produces better results, and more unionization consistently doesn’t.” Charter schools are one good way to bring more freedom to the education system so good ideas and practices can blossom while bad ones are rejected.

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