Those who are most likely to benefit from charter schools are the least likely to be enrolled in them, says a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative.
The study is the third in a series of reports that have examined the impact of charter schools on student performance in Boston. The second study in the series, which was released in May 2013, found that students who attend charter schools in Boston were more likely to have higher proficiency rates on state tests than students in the Boston school district, especially students of color and English-language learners.
However, the new study’s analysis found that charter schools in Boston served a smaller percentage of students with disabilities than did the regular public schools, although that gap is shrinking. Charters also serve a smaller percentage of English-language learners than other city schools do, and that gap continues to persist. The study found that both types of schools served similar percentages of students of color through the study period, which ran from 2002 to 2012.
