Authors: Robert Bifulco and Helen F. Ladd
Institutions: University of Connecticut and Duke University

This report analyzes annual achievement gains in end-of-grade state reading and math test scores for students in North Carolina who between 1996 and 2000 transferred from public to charter schools. Here, each student has gain scores while in a public school and while in a charter school, so students are compared to themselves. The authors conclude that "... students in North Carolina do less well in charter schools than they would have done in traditional public schools and ... the effects of attending a charter school are large."