Charter Schools

June 20, 2025

A Decade of Doubt

By failing to believe in students’ capabilities, and to set standards accordingly, we have condemned many to illiteracy and generally dire educational outcomes—in sum, incapability.  This need not be the case, and for a brief moment, in Massachusetts and other educational hotspots, it wasn’t.
June 27, 2023

Charter School Success: Importance in Suffolk County and College Enrollment

Learn about how charter schools set students up for success, especially in urban areas like Suffolk county. MCAS scores and college enrollment are stats that point to the impact of Charter schools.
April 28, 2023

Poll Finds Charter Schools Widely and Broadly Popular in Massachusetts

More than six years after the failure of a statewide ballot initiative that would have increased the number of charter public schools in Massachusetts, a poll shows that 62 percent either strongly or somewhat favor them, with only 16 percent opposed.
February 23, 2023

Room to Grow: Study Identifies Opportunity for New Charter Schools in State's Gateway Cities

The Commonwealth’s 26 Gateway Cities represent a strong opportunity for the establishment of new charters and/or expansion of existing schools, according to our new study.
April 6, 2022

Accelerating Learning at KIPP

KIPP Academy Charter School is working hard to ensure that all students have access to high-quality instruction, especially as children everywhere struggle with post-COVID learning recovery. In this video, KIPP Academy Executive Director Nikki Barnes and KIPP Academy Lynn Middle School Principal Jimmy Seter allowed us into their in-depth discussion of the principles, objectives and strategies they use to foster an environment of encouragement, informed guidance, learning growth, and equity. 
July 29, 2021

A Conversation about Massachusetts Charter Schools: Retention Rate and Age Trends Among Public Educators

Massachusetts was home to 400 school districts in the 2020-2021 school year, 78 of which are charters.  Established by the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, public charter schools in the Commonwealth have delivered on their promise of access, outcomes, and opportunity....
June 5, 2019

Study Finds Student Growth Percentile Is Unreliable, Limits Access to Charter Public Schools

High degree of error, especially in small school districts, leads to small districts replacing larger ones in bottom 10 percent BOSTON – The Student Growth Percentile (SGP) that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) now uses as 25 percent...
June 3, 2019

Pioneer Public Statement on Legislative Demise of New Bedford Charter School Deal

This past week, in a display of the state’s teacher unions’ raw political power triumphing over deliberative debate, reasonableness, and the best interests of urban students, the Legislature quietly discarded state education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley’s bold effort at compromise in the ongoing...

How Massachusetts Showed the Way on Education Reform

By Jamie Gass & Charles Chieppo Read this op-ed in The American Conservative We are now nearly four decades beyond the publication of A Nation at Risk, a federal report that indicted the “rising tide of mediocrity” and initiated a well-deserved period...