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Health & Fitness

Charter Schools have Positive Impact on Public Schools

August 20, 2013

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by Christian D'Andrea
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

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[Madison, Wisc...] Competition from charter schools is positively affecting the way that traditional public schools are being run. Work in these schools has led to K-12 innovation across the educational sector in fields like efficiency, expanding course offerings, collaboration between schools, and partnering with community stakeholders.

A recent study by Marc Holley, Anna Egalite, and Martin Lueken suggests that charter schools have helped spur innovation not only in their own classrooms, but also across the public school sector. According to those authors, traditional public schools in urban districts have adopted some charter ideals - like engaging parents by marketing their schools, increasing the courses and subjects they offer, and replicating charter school practices - in order to retain and attract students. As a result, the traditional public schools in these districts offer a more diverse blend of educational curricula than schools that aren't affected by this competition.

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This suggests that charter schools, which educated more than two million students in America last year, are having a significant effect that reaches beyond their own classrooms. The competitive effect that Milton Friedman had once hypothesized about between voucher-receiving private schools and traditional public schools has spread to this alternative offshoot of the public school system. As a result, urban districts with a high percentage of low-income students are learning from charter experiences to create a more comprehensive learning environment for the children that live in their cities.

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