Mathematica released another study this week of 36 charter schools that have lotteries, comparing students who won the lottery vs. those who didn't, and found few differences, though "these charter schools were more effective for more low-income, lower-achieving students" and "Parents whose children had won lotteries to attend charters were 33 percent more likely to say the schools were excellent than parents whose children lost the lotteries and attended regular public schools."

I wish they'd release the names of the schools – just because a school has a lottery doesn't mean it's good. This study reinforces the fact that just being a charter school doesn't magically make it a better school than a comparable, nearby public school, especially since charters get less money, are usually younger/newer, and face many obstacles such as finding adequate facilities. The keys to building ANY high-quality school, regardless of whether it's charter, district, magnet or private, are the same: quality leadership and teaching, high expectations, a strong curriculum, more time on task, etc.

Students who won lotteries to attend charter middle schools performed, on average, no better in mathematics and reading than their peers who lost out in the random admissions process and enrolled in nearby regular public schools, according to a national study released today.

The federally commissioned study , involving 2,330 students who applied to 36 charter middle schools in 15 states, represents the first large-scale randomized trial of the effectiveness of charter schools across several states and rural, suburban, and urban locales. The charter schools in the sample conducted random lotteries for admissions, so that only chance determined who attended.

The study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, of Princeton, N.J., also concludes that the lottery winners did no better, on average, than the lottery losers on non-academic outcomes such as behavior and attendance.

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June 29, 2010