For the first time in over 20 years, it’s possible to start answering at least some questions about whether charter schools are “worth it.”

Over the past decade, the growth of charter schools has inflicted enormous disruptions on traditional school districts. Superintendents have grown unhappy about losing students and unions have become angry about both student losses and the fact that most charters employ non-union teachers.

That stressful dynamic prompted across-the-country battles over charter schools. In school districts like Los Angeles Unified, where about half the enrollment losses can be traced to charter schools, that fight has become epic, with the teachers union and several board members blaming charters for pushing the district toward bankruptcy.

The ultimate way to address that is by measuring their bottom-line promise: to ensure that more low-income, minority students actually win bachelor’s degrees. Although the gains these charters are making in college success are important, the real paradigm shift, and it’s a big one, is this: The top charter networks, almost unnoticed, have set a new accountability bar. Judge us, they say, on the number of our alumni who go on to earn bachelor’s degrees.

Read the full article by Richard Whitmire about charter schools from The 74