Charter schools in North Carolina are increasingly serving the interests of relatively able white students

This paper examines the evolution of the charter school sector in North Carolina between 1999 and 2012. The paper examine trends in the mix of students enrolled in charter schools, the racial imbalance of charter schools, patterns in student match quality by schools’ racial composition, and the distributions of test score performance gains compared to those in traditional public schools.

The paper finds that charter schools in North Carolina are increasingly serving the interests of relatively able white students in racially imbalanced schools and that despite improvements in the charter school sector over time, charter schools are still no more effective on average than traditional public schools.