California Charter School Performance Update

The Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub reports on the performance of California charter schools in the 2003-2004 school year.

According to the California Charter Schools Association, the latest numbers from the Academic Performance Index - the official measure of how well schools are progressing toward state goals - show that 64.4 percent of charter schools achieved gains from 2003 to 2004, compared to 61.1 percent of non-charter schools.

Charter schools, meanwhile, increased their scores on the index by an average of 12.9 points, compared to 7.3 points for non-charter schools.

The improvement was most dramatic in San Diego, where charter school gains were three times greater than their traditional counterparts, and in Oakland, where charters with at least two years of scores had an average increase that was nearly five times the growth in regular district schools. In San Diego, three of the four public high schools showing the most gains were charters.