The number of students enrolled in public charter schools has steadily grown since the inception of the charter model in the 1990s, and now accounts for 6 percent of the total number of students enrolled in public schools across the country.¹ This statistic alone demonstrates the important role that charter schools play in the delivery of public education in the forty-four states and the District of Columbia that have adopted charter school laws.² Over this period of growth, however, the charter school model has been the subject of heated controversy, including whether they equitably serve all students regardless of race, class, sex, disability, or first language.

Charter schools are publicly funded, voluntary enrollment schools created through a legislatively defined process that binds the school to the provisions of a performance contract in exchange for relief from compliance with a specified set of state statutes and regulations.³ While some charter schools have raised legal questions about the extent of their “publicness”⁴ and state laws often do not explicitly declare that charter schools are public, this report adopts the definition used in federal law that charter schools are a specialized form of public school,⁵ and therefore must ensure that they serve all segments of the public that funds them.⁶ In short, charter schools should only have a place in our public educational landscape if they further the public policy goal of advancing equal educational opportunity.

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