Ten years ago, Camden Prep became one of the first schools in New Jersey’s most notorious district to try to revitalize a chronically underperforming elementary school.
That same year, Marcus Maurquay started fourth grade at Camden Prep, in a classroom called “The College of New Jersey.” Uncommon Schools, the nonprofit charter company tasked with revamping Maurquay’s neighborhood school, is naming every classroom after a university in an effort to raise expectations for post-secondary education.
The state had recently taken control of primary and secondary education in Camden, a city then controlled by the government. Chris Christie had called it “a human catastrophe.” Barely 20% of students could read at a grade level, and less than half graduated from high school. Twenty-three of the city’s 26 schools were among the lowest performing in the state.
Get stories like this straight to your inbox. Sign up for the 74 newsletter
In the years that followed, Camden, like many other urban districts ravaged by plummeting real estate values and rising poverty and crime rates, welcomed several new public charter schools and turned over the most chronically failing schools to nonprofits, which renamed them Renaissance Schools.
Today, Camden is considered one of the most innovative districts in the country. More than two-thirds of students attend public or Renaissance schools, enrollment is rising, and the city is steadily, if incrementally, closing achievement gaps among low-income children.
Certainly, the school system still has a long way to go: the majority of students are still not reading at grade level, chronic absenteeism is increasing and budgetary constraints pose a serious challenge.
How does Camden’s innovative school system care for students?
But new research shows that low-income children in Camden increased their proficiency on state standardized tests by 21 points between the 2010-11 and 2022-23 school years. And in doing so, they closed a long-standing performance gap with peers statewide by 42%.
Maurquay was among those who benefited from this evolution. And to complete the circle of how far the city has come, he stepped onto the real campus of The College of New Jersey in August as a freshman: a first-generation college student on a full scholarship.
Camden isn’t the only low-income city where students at charter or Renaissance-style schools are closing the learning gap with their more affluent peers.
A new report from the Progressive Policy Institute shows that low-income students in large districts that have aggressively expanded public school choice have begun to overtake their peers statewide over the past decade — and that achievement levels are rising in both charter and district-run schools. schools. In the 10 districts with the highest percentage of students enrolled in charter schools, low-income students citywide have closed the gap on statewide test score averages by 25% to 40%. (The analysis does not include New Orleans, where 100% of the district’s students attend charter schools.)
“We just wanted to see if the impact would spill over,” said Tressa Pankovits, co-director of PPI’s Reinventing Public Schools project. “We were really surprised by the extent to which the gap between students across the city and the national averages was closed. It wasn’t just some numbers. It was well into double figures.”
The analysis examined data from cities across the country where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and where at least a third of children attend a public or charter-style school. The researchers used average standardized test scores from third through eighth grades.
Interactive: See how the achievement gaps between students in your country are increasing
The researchers underscored that the one-third rate is not a guaranteed or proven tipping point, but that in almost all cases where those schools met or exceeded that enrollment level, academic growth increased citywide for all low-income students.
“There has been slow but steady progress in Camden,” said Giana Campbell, executive director of the Camden Education Fund. “Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done, but when we look at where the city was ten years ago, we are really, really encouraged by the progress we are seeing across the city.”
“We had a time in Camden where we didn’t have this diversity of school types and progress wasn’t what it is today. The proficiency scores in Camden in 2010 were just criminal. We couldn’t go much lower,” she says. “And so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that because we’re one of the most innovative school systems, with all these different types of schools, that we’ve been able to see the progress that we have today.”
New Jersey is home to another highlight from the PPI report: Newark, where 35% of students are enrolled in public charter schools and the achievement gap has closed by 45% over the same twelve-year period.
Missouri has two school systems making similar progress. In Kansas City, where 46% of students are enrolled in public schools, the achievement gap between low-income students and all students decreased by 31% between the 2010-2011 and 2022-2023 school years. And in St. Louis, where 39% of students are enrolled in public schools, the achievement gap has closed by 30%.
Hannah Lofthus, founder and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, said the report’s findings reflect what she has experienced over the past 15 years in Kansas City, where neighborhood school enrollment is available; charter schools; “signature” schools, which focus on college preparation; and career and technical schools. Kauffman consists of two charter high schools and one charter high school.
“We said, ‘How can we find out what works for kids and then replicate that,’” she explains. As the daughter of two public school teachers, she says collaboration among the city’s different types of schools has been key to the big gains low-income students are making. “We have kids come to us in fifth grade who are 15% proficient in reading and math, and they leave somewhere around 70%.”
Pankovits cautions that the analysis shows correlation, not causation. And while the increases indicate significant academic growth, proficiency is still low for the majority of students in these districts.
But Pankovits also says the report refutes the oft-quoted claims that charters take away the best students and resources in district schools at the expense of those left behind. Instead, she argues, increasing charter school enrollment creates “a positive competitive dynamic,” and that the report’s findings should strengthen policymakers’ confidence in the potential to build low-performing schools for all students in low-income communities.
In fact, a rising tide lifts all boats: Looking just at traditional district schools in Camden, for example, low-income students have closed 35% of the skills gap over the same ten-year period, compared to 42% for the district as a whole.
Like Camden, Indianapolis has traditional district schools, charters and so-called innovation schools that it is using to achieve its academic turnaround. The report shows that in the city, where 58% of students are enrolled in public or innovation schools, the achievement gap between low-income students and all children statewide increased by 23 between the 2010-2011 and 2022-2023 school years. % is closed. .
In Indianapolis, charter schools are setting the tone in performance, research shows
“The report confirms what we have been seeing in Indianapolis for a long time,” said Brandon Brown, CEO of the Mind Trust, a nonprofit that supports the city’s charter and innovation schools. “And much of the evidence shows that the growth of high-quality charter schools does not come at the expense of the school district. It tends to improve many of the outcomes for all types of schools.”
“I think we showed in Indianapolis that it’s hard and it’s not a straight line and we don’t always agree with each other. But if these systems work together, the chances that kids will benefit will be much greater” , he says. “And I think we’ve seen that very clearly here.”
The report comes as America’s schools are still trying to chart a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has set students behind academically and driven down enrollment. A new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools shows that charter schools gained nearly 400,000 students over the past five years, while district schools lost 1.75 million. Hispanic and Black families are increasingly choosing charters, the report found, with Hispanic enrollment growing 18 times faster in charters than in district schools.
In Indianapolis, enrollment is increasing and at its highest point in more than a decade — a fact Brown credits to the public school choices families have. For the first time, he says, parents from neighboring school districts are choosing the city system.
“Large urban districts across the country that are experiencing massive enrollment declines need to look to Indianapolis and work together to create high-quality options for families, and see this as a way to mitigate the negative impact on enrollment to mitigate,” says Brown. “When system leaders can work together, it tends to grow enrollment, and that’s in stark contrast to many school districts across the country.”
Disclosure: The Mind Trust offers financial support The 74.
