AFT Charter School Study Sparks Heated National Debate

A national report suggesting that charter school students lag behind their counterparts in regular public schools touched off a late-summer tempest among proponents and critics of charter schools.

The study, produced by the American Federation of Teachers and the subject of the lead story in The New York Times on Aug. 18, was made more controversial by its implicit suggestion that the U.S. Department of Education had tried to bury federal test data that reflect poorly on such schools.

Enrolling 800,000-plus children in 38 states, charter schools are public schools that operate outside the bounds of school district authority—often in exchange for guarantees of improved academic achievement. They are a favored education improvement strategy of the Bush administration, which supports them with grants and a Web site. The federal No Child Left Behind Act also points to charter schools—now numbering about 3,000—as an important option for children in schools that fail...