Twelve studies find that overall gains in charter schools are larger than other public schools; four find charter schools’ gains higher in certain significant categories of schools; six find comparable gains; and, four find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind traditional schools.
Source: Charter School Achievement: What We Know, July 2005 Update
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Download: 
http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/RAND_WR306.pdf
Examining charter and traditional public schools in California and Texas, the authors find that black students in both states are more likely to move to charter schools and tend to move to charter schools with a higher percentage of black students, and those schools are more racially concentrated than the public schools they leave. Students who move to charter schools are on average lower performing than other students at the public schools they leave and that this performance gap is largest for black students. The researchers conclude: "These findings should relieve some of the fears of the critics who argued that charter schools could become white enclaves and skim the best students. In fact, it appears that charter schools are targeting some of the more challenging students. However, on the downside, charter schools, through black student choices, may create greater segregation and expose these students to less diversity."
Date: 2005
Source: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, RAND Corporation
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