Why Do Urban Massachusetts Charter Schools Overperform?

• In Event: 75.041 - MTCC Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 75.041-9 - Charter Schools: Defining and Measuring Success

Abstract

This paper wrestles with the puzzle that urban charter schools in Massachusetts are performing far higher in comparison than almost every other variation of school choice. The modest empirical estimates of voucher-program effects are substantially lower than the utopian promises commonly made by voucher advocates before 1990, and that comparative modesty of results strongly suggests that education markets work very differently from the type of markets assumed to exist by voucher proponents, and often by those who write about school choice in general. We discuss four potential explanations ranging from the statutory cap on charters to market localism.

Authors

• Sherman Dorn, Arizona State University

• Amanda U. Potterton, University of Kentucky