Even though politicians and education reformers have been singing the praises of
charter schools for a number of years now, the concept has been slow to catch
on outside of America’s big inner cities. This is especially true in Illinois, where only nine of the
state’s 39 charter schools are located outside of the city of Chicago.
Until now, conventional wisdom suggested that the charter schools are unlikely
to succeed outside of the Windy City, where the schools and the resources to
support them are concentrated in a relatively small area.
However, a report released recently by the Illinois Policy Institute suggests
that downstate charter schools and those in the Chicago suburbs are doing quite
well and in fact outperforming traditional public schools over 70 percent of
the time on standardized tests. Charter schools are public schools operated by
businesses, not-for-profits, universities and other community organizations
with fewer regulations than traditional public schools.
According to the analysis, which examines the 2007-2008 school year for students
K-12, charter schools routinely scored higher than the average district schools
in reading, math, writing and science.
In grade-by-grade comparisons, Springfield Ball Charter did better than District
186 schools, in 16 out of 17 categories (District 186’s fifth-graders scored higher on writing tests) for third through eighth grades.
Also, low-income students at Ball Charter outperformed those in District 186 in
14 of the 19 performance measures examined — all except fourth grade reading and science, fifth grade reading and writing,
and seventh grade reading.
“Given the strong track record of inner-city charter schools in Illinois, the
interest in opening more charter schools is perhaps long overdue in communities
outside of Chicago,” concludes Colin Hitt, the report’s author and the IPI’s education-policy director.
Hitt, who lives in Springfield, says lack of awareness, disinterest, and
reticence on behalf of local school districts, which sign off on – and then compete against – charter schools has prevented greater expansion throughout the state. He hopes
the findings will convince organizations seeking new charters that the schools
exist downstate – and can be very successful.
“I hope that someone would look at opening another school like Ball Charter,” he says.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2009.
