Commentary

Charter School Market Share

With more than one million students enrolled in charter schools nationwide, some individual communities are seeing large numbers of students enrolled in charter schools. Via a new study on charter school market share from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: While charter schools enroll a modest percentage of students nationwide, some communities far exceed national and state averages to enroll high percentages of charter school students. In fact, 19 different communities educate over 13% of their public school students in charter schools (and ties account for 19 different communities being represented in our top “ten”). New Orleans leads the pack with 69% market share, due primarily to the post-Katrina reconstitution of the schools. Ohio has FIVE different communities in the top ten, with Dayton leading the pack at the #2 spot on our countdown with 28%. Alliance home base and our nation’s capital, Washington D.C., comes in at #3 with 25%. And the largest community on the list is Detroit, with 18% of its nearly 160,000 students in public charters.