More Than Half of Student Growth Now Enrolled in Charter Schools

The Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee today heard a stunning report about public charter schools. Although charter schools only enroll about 9% of all stutents in public schools, they enrolled more than half of the increased number of students in the state over last year. Estimated new students in Utah in 2012 are about 12,500. Charter schools enrolled about 6,500 new students while public school districts only enrolled some 6,000 new students. Charter schools also enrolled more new students than public schools in 2000, 2006 and 2009. This trend shows how popular charter schools are with parents. If we do not artificially restrict the number of charter schools, we can expect charter schools to continue to serve a large proportion of our growing student population. As some school districts struggle with growing pains, they may trust the charter school community to help with accommodating a large portion of that challenge. 

I love the robust and competitive form of education in charter schools. I also am pleased to see that so many families in Utah also recognize the quality of such a form of public education. One of the great strengths of charter schools is that parents must be very strongly involved not only in their student's learning, but also in the policies and running of the school.