Summary

This report focuses on the seven downstate and suburban charter schools that enrolled K-12 students during the 2009-10 school year. Charter schools that focus exclusively on reenrolling high school dropouts are excluded from the analysis. Also not included in the analysis are Peoria’s Quest Academy, Rockford’s CICS Patriots Charter School and Southland College Prep, all of which opened in the fall of 2010. All performance measures excluding test scores were included for the Southern Illinois University East St. Louis Charter School. The school’s 2009-10 PSAE test scores taken by the school’s grade 11 students were not posted by the Illinois Interactive Report Card and could therefore not be included in the analysis.

Of the charter schools that enroll elementary, middle and high school students, the results are promising. Downstate and suburban charter schools outperformed the district averages in 80 percent of school wide performance measures.

• In every instance, charter schools posted lower truancy rates than district schools.
• In 5 of 7 comparisons, charter schools had higher attendance rates.
• In 5 of 6 comparisons, charter schools had a higher percentage of all students meeting/exceeding state standards on tests.

A closer grade-by-grade and subject-by-subject analysis of performance shows charter schools are making strong headway. Overall, the grade-level test results at charter schools exceeded the district grade-level average 72.6 percent of the time.

In each subject area, charter schools outperformed the average at district schools in direct comparisons:

• Reading test results at charter schools exceeded district averages in 80 percent, or 20 of 25, direct comparisons.
• Math test results at charter schools exceeded district averages in 71.4 percent, or 20 of 28, direct comparisons.
• Science test results at charter schools exceeded district averages in 55.6 percent, or 5 of 9, direct comparisons.
• Writing test results at charter schools exceeded district averages in 68.4 percent, or 13 of 19, direct comparisons.

In the four schools where the grade-level performance of economically disadvantaged students could be compared directly to district averages, charter students outperformed the district averages in 70.8 percent, or 34 of 48, direct comparisons:

• At Decatur Robertson Charter School, low-income students outperformed their peers district-wide in 66.7 percent, or 12 of 18, comparisons.
• At Springfield Ball Charter School, low-income students outperformed their peers district-wide in 100 percent, or 18 of 18, comparisons.
• At Galapagos Charter School low-income students outperformed their peers district-wide in 66.7 percent, or 2 of 3, comparisons.
• Legacy Academy of Excellence’s performance did not hold consistent with the pattern — low-income students outperformed their district-wide peers in only 22.2 percent, or 2 of 9, comparisons.

These results are consistent with those published for Springfield Ball and Decatur Robertson in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 editions of this performance report.

Charter schools provide parents with new school choices for their children, which is something that Illinois families strongly desire. In a December 2007 poll, more than 80 percent of people surveyed in Illinois said that they would most prefer to enroll their children in a school other than a regular district public school. More people named charter schools as their top choice than they did regular public schools, 23 to 19 percent.

Throughout the state, many parents are looking for smaller classes or safer schools. Others are looking for a unique curriculum; for example, one suburban charter school focuses on ecological issues. Success at meeting these unique demands is difficult to measure and does not always show up on data-driven reports such as this, which focuses exclusively on standardized measures of student performance. That said, the data are clear. More often than not, charter schools in downstate and suburban Illinois are outperforming the average at district schools. This is the case with low-income students in particular. Parents who are seeking schools with stronger academic records are likely to be happy with their choice of charter schools.

As more charter schools open throughout downstate Illinois and the suburbs of Chicago, one hopes they will match the success of existing charter schools. Every community could use better schools—as charter schools continue to flourish, perhaps they will spur all public schools to challenge the norm and improve how all of Illinois’s children are educated.