California Charter School Student Characteristics in 2004–05

May 2006

Student Enrollment by Ethnicity

Students in charter schools vary substantially from those in noncharter schools in terms of ethnicity. For example, according to data that schools submit to the California Department of Education, charter schools tend to serve fewer Hispanic students and more white students.

Data: California Department of Education (CDE)
EdSource 5/06
Note: Data based on 509 of 511 charter schools open in 2004-05.

Other Student Characteristics

The graphs below show the differences in student characteristics in 2004–05 between the median charter and median noncharter school, broken into elementary, middle, and high schools. (The median shows the percentage at the "typical school"—the one at the 50th percentile for a given characteristic. Equal numbers of schools have higher and lower percentages.)

Charter schools are less likely to serve students who are English learners and who come from low-income families. The one exception is charter high schools, which enrolled more students who participated in the federal free and reduced-priced meals program than noncharters did.

Some charter advocates question these data because many charter schools report that they do not participate in the meals program even if they have eligible students. With that in mind, the table below does not include schools that report 0 students in the meals program. Furthermore, a look at 2002–03 CalWORKS data, which do not depend on school participation, shows that charter schools served fewer low-income students. (CalWORKS data indicate students whose families receive public support.)

In addition, the graphs below show that parents of charter school students are more likely to be better educated than their noncharter peers.

*Does not include schools reporting 0 students enrolled in the free and reduced-priced meals program because some charters have students eligible for the program but do not offer one.

Note:
The above graphs include only schools with 2005 Growth API data.

Data: California Department of Education (CDE)
EdSource 5/06