Let’s Grow What Works in Public Education: Charter Public Schools
For too long, our society has accepted a very narrow measure of how well public schools are preparing young people for success. Generally, it often comes down to test scores and graduation rates. Those are important measures, but we should also look at what happens after high school.
What if I told you there are public schools in Washington state where students were notably more likely to achieve better life outcomes as young adults? Even though we only have early data because the schools haven’t been around a long time, the data suggests there is something worth scaling and replicating.
A new report, Turning the Tassel in Washington State: Outcomes for Public Charter School Graduates from 2019-2025, looks at life outcomes within the first 10 years of graduation from public high schools — both district-run and charter. We wanted to know whether public school graduates are employed, how much money they earn, whether they completed postsecondary education or training, whether they own their own homes, and perhaps most importantly the extent to which they believe their schools prepared them for success as young adults.
This report is part of a larger, national project based on a survey of 5,000 young adults who graduated from public high schools — charter and district-run — between 2015 and 2025, with an oversample of 400 recent graduates in Washington state. The report also includes important insights from a poll of more than 1,000 Washington parents and their thoughts on education. Both surveys were commissioned by Agency, Inc., and conducted by The Harris Poll.
What did we learn? The early findings in Washington state are quite encouraging.
Within seven years of graduating from high school, charter public school alumni show signs of being on the road to consistently better life outcomes when compared to their peers. This tracks with national trend lines, in some cases exceeds the national averages. In Washington state, the reported earnings gap between employed charter public school alumni and their peers from district schools is astounding: charter graduates earn, on average, $120,109** per year — nearly $44,000 more than their district graduates.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the salary gap is even wider among alumni who are employed full- or part-time and self-identify as Black, Latino, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or Native American. The gap is a jaw-dropping $62,897 more in average annual earnings ($132,611** charter graduates vs. $69,714** district graduates). Charter schools overwhelmingly serve students from these racial groups. And although they have historically faced disparities in educational and economic outcomes, signs point to something special happening for them at charter public schools.
In addition to salaries, recent charter graduates in Washington pursue postsecondary training and education at overall higher rates than their peers (97%** charter graduates vs 86% district graduates). They are also much more likely to own their home as nearly half (47%**) are homeowners, compared to less than 1 in 5 district school graduates (18%).
The trends identified in the report should serve as a promising early indicator of the success of charter public schools in Washington state.
Charter public schools are relatively new to Washington. The first school opened in 2014, and the first class graduated from high school just seven years ago in 2019. We entered this project fully aware of the limited number of graduates in the state, but believed it was worth pursuing as part of this national project.
Further, we wanted to better understand what parents want for their children, and from public education. The poll of parents showed that they overwhelmingly want choice and a voice in their children’s education. 93% agree parents should have a choice in where their children goes to school and 89% agree having more than one type of public school option, like charter public schools, is a good thing. They are also watching decisions made about public education and choice at the state and local levels — 87% of parents polled said they pay attention to candidates’ positions on education when making voting decisions.
Both parents and recent graduates are aligned in their belief that every young person deserves to graduate equipped to pursue the pathway of their choice.
So how do we get there? Let’s put all good options on the table and do more of what works. The data is this report make a strong case for including charter public schools as one of the options that work.
We owe it to our students.
Read the full report at AgencyWorks.org/Research and learn more about charter public schools at LetsGrowWhatWorks.org.
**Results in Washington state for charter graduates based on small bases (N=50–99) and should be interpreted as directional only — meaning that the data can suggest the “direction” or the general pattern or trend, but it cannot be used to measure the exact magnitude of that pattern, due to the size of the sample.