The number of Georgia charter schools has more than doubled since 2016 and more are planned in areas outside Atlanta including Macon.
The push to expand comes despite a lack of concrete evidence that charter schools consistently offer a better or even comparable choice for public education. It also comes as traditional public schools nationwide grapple with a teacher shortage and a yearslong trend of declining student enrollment.
Charter schools compete with traditional local public schools for resources, students and teachers. Critics of the school choice movement argue charter schools divert money from already under-funded traditional public schools.
Proponents say charters are publicly-funded alternatives to the monopoly of local school districts that can not only offer a better educational opportunity for students but also drive school districts to make positive changes through competition.
“One of the intents is just to provide more high quality public school options to families and educators,” said Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “The hope is that by doing that, you’ll be providing educators the flexibility to innovate in that they’ll do things that work and the larger district will then adopt some of those practices.”
The success and value of state charter schools in Georgia is measured annually by the State Charter Schools Commission, an autonomous state entity that operates separately but alongside the Georgia Department of Education.
Instead of using raw test scores to determine effectiveness and value, the State Charter Schools Commission uses statistical estimates in a highly complex formula that determines “value-added measure” and “student growth model estimates” for each state charter school.
Jeffrey Schiman, associate economics professor at Georgia Southern University, was contracted by the State Charter Schools Commission to calculate the value…
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