School Choice Kids Graduate Earlier in Baltimore

Kristin DeCarr:

A recent survey by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice found that students who participate in the privately-funded Baltimore school choice program, set up for students of low-income families, are on average graduating high school earlier than those students who are not part of the program and are attending college at higher rates than local and national averages.

Released this week, the survey, called “The Achievement Checkup,” looked at the progress of students who received private school scholarships through the Children’s Scholarship Fund Baltimore from kindergarten through the eighth grade.

Author Alex Schuh discovered that 18% of students who received the scholarship graduated high school within three years. National data finds this percentage to be 2.9% for students who do not have the scholarship offered to them. On a local level, 97% of scholarship students graduated high school. Meanwhile, the graduation rate at Baltimore County Public Schools is 34 to 64%.