A Think Twice Review of:

Review of Searching for the Tipping Point: Scaling up Public School Choice Spurs Citywide Gains

Think Twice - Dec 03, 2024

Publisher/Think Tank - Progressive Policy Institute

Author(s) - Tressa Pankovits

A recent Progressive Policy Institute report purports to examine the impact of charter schools on the achievement of students who remain enrolled in district-run public schools. Based on the data in the report, however, it shows only a weak relationship between the presence of charter schools and increases in achievement for all students, which contradicts the report's claims.

Reviewer(s) - David R. Garcia, Arizona State University

The report is centered around a graph that depicts a strong positive relationship between the percentage of students enrolled in charter schools and decreases in the achievement gap (as measured in test scores) for all low-income students in selected cities. In his review of Searching for the Tipping Point: Scaling up Public School Choice Spurs Citywide Gains, David R. Garcia of Arizona State University ran a correlation analysis using the data provided in the report and discovered that the relationship depicted in the graph is, in fact, weak (r = 0.4).