Charter School City, otherwise known as Washington, D.C., has 25 percent of its public school students attending those independently run, taxpayer-supported schools. That is more than any other American city except New Orleans and Dayton, Ohio. Given their unique political location, the D.C. charters have gotten the most publicity, including surveys showing that the D.C. charter parents are very satisfied.
But exactly how satisfied are they? How does that satisfaction compare to parental feelings about the regular public schools? Do those good feelings about charter schools change over time? Those important questions are among the many charter school issues that are relentlessly examined in one of the deepest and most even-handed examinations of charter schools I have ever read–“Charter Schools: Hope or Hype?” by Jack Buckley and Mark Schneider. It is difficult to find a book or study of charter schools these days that does not take sides in the raging argument over whether charter schools are the salvation or the scourge of our nation’s schools. But Buckley and Schneider have pulled it off. Their book looks just at D.C. charters but is a useful indicator of what is going on with charters nationwide.