Making the Grade: Comparing DC Charter Schools to Other DC Public Schools

Abstract

Across the United States, charter schools have become one of the most frequently used means of increasing choice among educational alternatives. In this article we use data from a recent telephone survey of Washington D.C. parents to evaluate the success of the District’s large and growing charter school program. We find that parents with children in charter schools rate their teachers, principals, facilities and schools higher than their traditional public counterparts. This finding is robust even when controlling for self-selection into charter schools. Based on these empirical results, we argue that the greater satisfaction with charter schools reflected in these differences in grades is not simply the result of the act of choosing.