Study finds charter school students outperformed their peers following the pandemic

Stock photo of student taking a test

A newly released study by the University of Kentucky and the University of Southern California found positive news for the pandemic recovery of Tennessee’s public charter school students.

The research of Tennessee’s more than 100 public charter schools found these students consistently outperformed traditional school peers in math and English language arts following the pandemic. The disparity is notable as the study found these same students performed on par with their traditional school peers during the pandemic. 

Researchers speculate that Tennessee’s charters may have had an advantage in addressing the pandemic learning losses that impacted all students.

“Charter schools generally have more autonomy instructionally and structurally and therefore, theoretically, they may have been better positioned to pivot during the pandemic to serve students,” wrote researchers in the report.

Study Aims for “Apples to Apples” Approach

Researchers evaluated state testing data for the 2020/21 school year through the 2022/23 school year for the study.

To provide a more accurate “apples to apples” comparison, they additionally added greater weight to the traditional school students in the study that most closely resemble the demographics of charter school students.

Charter schools are free public schools operated by a non-profit organization under an independent contract or “charter” with a school district or the state. On average, they serve a higher percentage of economically disadvantaged students and students of color.

Disparity Driven by Nashville and Younger Students

The report found that the charter performance disparity is largely driven by students in Nashville and those in elementary and middle school grades.

Graphic by the University of Kentucky and the University of Southern California

Researchers found high school students across the state largely performed on par with their traditional school peers both during the pandemic and after. Elementary and middle school students exceeded traditional students by a “statistically significant margin” in the two years following the pandemic.

The region where students live also played an important role in the charter performance disparity, according to the report.

Graphic by the University of Kentucky and the University of Southern California

Researchers found Memphis’ charter students generally performed on par with traditional public-school students in all three years of the study, except for math in 2022/203. Nashville’s charter students outperformed traditional students in both subjects following the pandemic.

“Given that students generally experienced learning loss during the pandemic, these results suggest that lessons can be learned from Tennessee’s charter sector on how to best approach recovery,” wrote researchers.

Continuation of research finding positive charter impact

The research is the latest to find that Tennessee’s charter school students are exceeding the performance of their peers.

A 2023 report from Stanford University found that Tennessee charter students gained the equivalent of an additional 34 days of reading instruction and 39 days of math.