From Andrew Marra at the Post—"Study: Palm Beach County students learn less in charter schools"

You can also see this article at the ExtraCredit blog. Andrew Marra at The Palm Beach Post sites a study that finds urban charter schools in Palm Beach County are underperforming. It's important to remember that charter schools are using tax dollars and selectively choose their students. Intuitively one would think this advantage would result in a higher student achievement levels; however, that is not the case in Palm Beach County. From the article:

     Students in Palm Beach County’s urban charter schools are learning fewer reading and math skills than similar students in nearby traditional public schools, a new study by Stanford University has found.
     The expansive report, released this week, found that in most of the 41 metropolitan areas studied nationwide, charter school students learn more or as much as demographically and academically similar students enrolled in traditional public schools in the same neighborhoods.
     But 11 Palm Beach County charter schools stood out as an unenviable exception. [emphasis added] Not only did students in the unidentified schools tend to learn less than those in nearby traditional schools, the learning gap in reading proved to be bigger than in any other metropolitan area studied.

[and . . .]

     “I think one of the things it indicates is that the district-operated schools are high-performing schools — I think that in itself contributes to that score,” said Jim Pegg, director of the Palm Beach County School District’s charter school division. “But I think the charter schools do have some difficulties.”
     “There are a few that really flourish,” he said, “but in general they’re working hard but they don’t have the resources nor the quality of teachers that the school district has.”