WASHINGTON, D.C. In his State of the Union address tonight, President Barack Obama touched upon many issues from providing affordable, high-quality child care to offering women and minorities access to STEM-centric high schools. He also emphasized the importance of providing every American access to free community college and a more affordable higher education. However, he did not address his vision for the nations K-12 education system.
Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued the following statement in response to the President’s address:
“Given the momentum in Congress behind reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the President had an opportunity to reinforce his Administrations commitment to annual testing and accountability, and send a strong message to Congress to not dial back the progress made over the past 13 years toward shining a light on the persistent and growing achievement gaps in our schools.
“We remain hopeful that the President’s budget will address some of the needs of our K-12 system, including greater support for high quality public charter schools. If our K-12 system fails to educate our neediest students, they will not have a chance at reaching high school or college.”
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, many independent research studies have found 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 our website at www.publiccharters.org.
