Washington, D.C. Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, released the following statement on Arne Duncan’s decision to step down from his role as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education:
“We applaud Secretary Duncan for his leadership on behalf of all the nations students and schools.Duncan placed a priority on working to ensure equity for all students, advanced innovation in education, and has been committed to ensuring students from all backgrounds have access to high quality public schools.
“In particular, his leadership on behalf of the federal Charter Schools Program has enabled the dramatic growth in the number of high quality charter schools, ensuring that hundreds of thousands more students now have access to better schools regardless of their family income or zip code.
“The National Alliance thanks Duncan for his service.”
About Public Charter Schools
Public charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, manyresearch studieshavefound that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.
About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector. For more information, please visit publiccharters.org
