As The Chalkboard noted below, today's Daily News editorial mentions a breakthrough study by the Manhattan Institute that found the presence of charter schools helped improved district school scores on the state English exams, particularly in cases where such schools had a significant number of its students depart to enroll in charters.

Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the Institute and author of the study, wrote an op-ed in today's New York Post, which can be found here. This study follows another breakthrough study on New York City charter schools released last month that was co-authored by Stanford University Professor Caroline Hoxby. The study compared the test scores between charter students with district students who sought admission to charters but were not selected through the lottery.

Charter schools are on the threshold of reaching the existing statutory cap and need other reasonable changes to the law to enable them to operate even more effectively for students. These studies should provide reassurance to policymakers that New York is way beyond the risk or experimental stage of chartering. They are a success for students in New York and have helped nearby district schools improve their overall scores as well.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard