Just to give you an example - a school can perform basically the same from one year to the next, and yet jump from top in the county to lowest. How is that possible?
If a subgroup is too small to count, those scores aren't included in the state's grades (at least in
Michigan). So if a school is small, which charter schools often are, in one year a demographic might be included in the scores, and the next year they might have one or two less of those students and they aren't counted. When you meet with administrators at a school you are interested in, I recommend asking about that specifically - which groups of students are included in the test scores you're looking at?
Another thing that influences test scores are which populations decide to go to a charter. Students who feel like their neighborhood school is serving them well don't have as much motivation to look for other options. So you may have students coming from failing schools going to a charter. It's natural to want to compare scores from a charter in a decent neighborhood to the neighborhood schools in that same area. But the students they are pulling may actually be nearby inner city kids coming from poor schools or are dealing with the effects of poverty in their personal lives, which spills into their achievement.
Some charters are run by a corporate management company, others aren't. So if the profit aspect matters to you, find out if the charter you're looking into is truly public (all run and managed by public officials and a true nonprofit) or not. Also ask if the teachers are certified. Some charters require all teachers to be fully certified and others may not depending on the state.
You should also figure out what matters to you in a school environment. Is it only test scores? What else is important to you?
Asking if charters are "good" is like asking if traditional public schools are "good." Some are awesome, some suck. And there are a lot of factors that affect student achievement at any school.
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