But so far, students at some of these schools are still performing poorly on tests. The Good-Braden study included charter schools in Arizona and California as well as Michigan. There is nothing innovative about charter schools, even though most charter school legislation calls for innovation. Student achievement is not enhanced with charter schools. Some individual charter schools have been associated with high student achievement, while others are associated with dreadful student performance.
Many charter schools operate in violation of federal law.
The investment of public monies in charter schools is much more representative of a wasteful experiment than an informative one. Good and Braden say the idea of freeing schools of regulations so they can experiment is a good one. But, unfortunately, they stress, charter schools tend to be so free of regulation that they are accountable to no one. Education Week carried a summary of this study. Today, Michigan has almost 200 charter schools, enrolling more than 50,000 students.