In New York City, are charter schools more effective than public schools at closing the achievement gap between children from high and low income families?

There is a strong relationship between a family’s economic and social position, including income, education, occupation, and academic achievement. This is otherwise known as the achievement gap, which is defined as the average difference in academic performance between children from high and low income families. In general, studies have shown that children from higher income families tend to perform better in school than children from lower income families. While this can be due to many external factors, the schools themselves have a major impact on this. Lower income neighborhoods tend to have underperforming public schools due to everything from less qualified teachers to a lack of funding. There are often far fewer learning resources for children that are enrolled in these schools. This gives children who attend public school in wealthier neighborhoods a considerable advantage, providing them with a head start in comparison to their lower income counterparts. In other words, children from lower income families, on average, start school academically behind their higher income peers and fall farther behind as their education progresses, creating an achievement gap that is continuously growing. This achievement gap is even more apparent in cities that are very diverse when it comes to income. One of the most populated of these cities is New York, which is high on the list of the most economically diverse cities in the United States. Many of the best and worst public schools are located in this city, making it a city that is especially prone to a wide achievement gap. So what can be done to help narrow this achievement gap? Over the last few decades, an alternative to traditional public schooling has gained a great deal of popularity, especially among parents and children who live in lower income neighborhoods. The growth of charter schools, another type of public school, has provided these parents with an additional schooling option without having to pay for private schooling. Charter schools are tuition free, just like traditional public schools, but they have different policies and operate without many of the government regulations that are imposed on traditional public schools. For example, a charter school may have a longer school day or have unique after school programs that are not available in most traditional public schools. Due to the success of many charters in New York City, such as Success Academy or KIPP Academy schools, the number of charter schools is growing rapidly throughout the city. These schools are mostly located in lower income neighborhoods, where children from lower income families are more likely to attend. Since there are limited spots and any New York City student can apply, a lottery system determines whether or not a child is accepted. However, many studies that will be mentioned in this text have shown that children who attend these charters perform better academically than their traditional public school counterparts. These studies have also taken into account the success of children from higher income families, and much of the data shows that children from lower income families in charter schools are reaching the levels that the children from higher income families reach in traditional public schools. So are charter schools in New York City helping to narrow this income­ based achievement gap, and if so, are they more effective than public schools at doing so?