A news article some months ago about a charter school operated by the School of Education at the University of California, Davis led us to ask "How many education schools operate charter schools, and how do the students in those charter schools fare?” We were only able to identify four charter schools operated by education schools (University of Chicago, University of Dayton, Stanford and UC Davis), but if you know of more, please send their names along. While a firm conclusion can’t be drawn from our brief analysis of the student performance at these schools, it's still intriguing.

The graphic below summarizes academic results, with short blurbs on each school following the graphic.


University of Chicago Charter Schools
University of Chicago
Urban Education Institute
Founder: Unclear

The four campuses of this network of charter schools are all successful academically, with the only evidence of poor student performance found in the 2013 reading and math results for the Grade 6-12 secondary school:

• The North Kenwood/Oakland Campus (Pre-K -Grade 5) was founded in 1998. Every year since 2001, NKO students have outperformed Chicago Public Schools students.
• In 2008, Carter G. Woodson (Grades 6-8) opened its doors. In the past two years, the proportion of students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading and math increased from 70 to 83 percent.
• In 2005, Donoghue (Pre-K- Grade 5) opened. Since 2006, the proportion of the school’s students meeting or exceeding state standards in literacy, math, and science grew from 52 to 70 percent. 
• In 2006, Woodlawn (Grades 6-12) opened its doors. In 2010, 100 percent of its graduating class was accepted to college. However, Woodlawn students scored below state averages in reading and math in 2013.

Dayton Early College Academy
University of Dayton
Department of Teacher Education
Founder: Dr. Thomas Lasley, Chair [1]

The two campuses of the University of Dayton’s charter school are both successful academically:

• Dayton Early College Academy (Grades 9-12) was established in 2007, with grades 7-8 added in 2008. In 2013 its students outperformed the state average in all subjects of the Ohio Graduation Test. It has received a bronze medal from U.S. News & World Report as one of “America’s Best High Schools.”
• In 2012, DECA Prep (K- grade 6) was established. It is rated as “Excellent” by the Ohio Department of Education.

Stanford New School
Stanford University
Graduate School of Education
Founder: Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor

The Stanford New School opened its doors in 2001. It closed its doors in 2010 after being consistently rated as one of the state’s lowest performing schools.

West Sacramento Early College Prep
University of California, Davis
School of Education
Founder: Dr. Harold Levine, Dean

West Sacramento Early College Prep Charter School opened its doors in 2007. In 2011, the California Charter Schools Association recommended non-renewal of the school's charter because it failed to meet any of the renewal criteria. (Only 1 percent of charter schools operating in California failed to meet standards that year.) Despite this recommendation for non-renewal, the school remains open. In 2013, the average scores on California's achievement tests were 56 percent in reading and 51 percent in math; students attending West Sacramento Early College Prep scored an average of 21 percent in reading and 7 percent in math, placing the school in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide.

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[1] Dr. Lasley is on the Board of Directors at NCTQ.