Is Colorado a good model for a charter school bill?

There has been a lot of talk recently about charter school legislation in Kentucky.

One potential candidate bill offered late last week by the Kentucky Department of Education is supposed to be modeled after charter legislation in Colorado.

Is Colorado a good choice?

You bet!

Here is a breakout of the proficiency rates (percent of students scoring at or above “Proficient”) from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math and reading assessments. Using the Main NAEP Data Explorer (Link found here), I was able to disaggregate the numbers according to the type of school in Colorado, either a charter school or a non-charter school.


At least for these particular NAEP samples, the charter schools in Colorado blew away their regular public school counterparts.

Furthermore, while I have reservations about the study overall, even the report from CREDO which I discussed some time ago recognizes Colorado as one state where charter schools do outperform their traditional public school counterparts.

Now, the question is, how faithfully does the Kentucky Department of Education’s proposal really follow the law in Colorado?