One of the key differences between Arizona charter schools and traditional public schools is the regulatory freedom from state and local rules in terms of teacher staffing. What does this unregulated freedom mean for our children?

Charter schools do not require teacher certification of any kind? Overall only about 60 percent of charter school teachers in Arizona hold teaching certificates.

Arizona’s charter school teachers earn more than their public school counterparts and have significantly smaller class size than public schools. Despite this important fact of smaller class size, a staggering 46 percent of charter schools did not do significantly better than the public schools.

According to research, the single most important factor in student learning improvement is teacher quality. William Sanders of the University of Tennessee has found that teacher quality can add as many as 50 percentile points to student test scores. Studies comparing public schools with charter schools show that charter schools underperform in math and reading at the high school level.

Almost 37 percent of charter schools performed significantly worse in terms of reading and math when compared to the public school students.

From the available research, it seems that the attention paid to charter schools outweighs the effect they have had on public education. Charter schools need more research, oversight and true evaluation.