Beyond Achievement

One of the biggest public school reform movements in the past decade has been the passage of charter school laws. Forty states and Washington, D.C. have approved legislation that allows charter schools to operate within their jurisdictional boundaries. The academic research thus far has focused on where charter schools have located and the achievement consequences of the schools. This paper addresses a direct effect of charter schools by examining their enrollment consequences. The authors find that in Michigan approximately 20 percent of the students who enroll in charter schools were previously enrolled in private schools and approximately 80 percent move from the traditional public schools.