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Part
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Enrollment Statistics - Charter Schools: K-6th Grade
In 2018, the total number of sixth-graders studying in charter schools is calculated to be about 263,560 students or 8.32% of all students studying across 7038 charter schools in the US. The percent of students studying in sixth-grade across half of the charter elementary schools is in the range of 6.49% to 10.14%. The top-4 states with the highest number of charter schools in the US account for nearly 46.40% or 3,266 charter schools.
US CHARTER SCHOOLS OVERVIEW
- In the US, nearly 7,038 charter schools enrolled more than 3,167,800 million students in 2017-18. Further, the percentage of sixth-graders among all charter school students was calculated to be 8.32% or 263,560 students.
- According to NCES, the number of charter schools enrolling sixth-graders in the US include 3,934 elementary schools and 1,454 combined schools (elementary/secondary).
- The total enrollment in elementary charter schools stood at 1.5 million students while for combined schools (elementary/secondary) it was 1 million students.
- In 2017, the total number of students enrolled in elementary schools (up to grade 8th) across the US stood at 35.47 million; whereas the total number of students enrolled in sixth-grade stood at 3.88 million or about 10.93% of all elementary enrollments and 7.64% of all public school enrollments in 2017-18.
- According to a recent data set by NCES, the charter school enrollment as a percent of total public schools' enrollment in 2017 stood at 6%; whereas, the total number of charter schools as a percent of public schools was found to be 7.1%.
- It is found that the top-four states account for nearly 46.40% (3,266 schools) of all charter schools in the US. The top-four states include California (1,275 schools), Texas (774 schools) Florida (661 schools), Arizona (556 schools). Additionally, it is noted that in the District of Columbia, the charter schools account for nearly 49.3% of all public schools and 43.7% of all student enrollments in 2017.
CALIFORNIA
- In California, about 6,186,278 students are enrolled in PK-12 public schools, of which nearly 652,933 students (10.55%) are enrolled in PK-12 charter schools.
- In 2019, the total number of sixth-grade students enrolled in charter schools were found to be about 52,503 students (8.04%).
- Number and growth of sixth-grade students over the previous year were found to be 51,782 students with an increase of 1.39%.
TEXAS
- In Texas, about 5,399,682 students are enrolled in PK-12 public schools, of which nearly 296,323 students (5.48%) are enrolled in PK-12 charter schools.
- In 2018, the total number of sixth-grade students enrolled in charter schools stood at 26,496 students (8.94%).
- Number and growth of sixth-grade students over the previous year were found to be 24,663 students with an increase of 7.43%.
FLORIDA
- In Florida, about 2,846,857 students are enrolled in PK-12 public schools, of which nearly 313,586 students (21.03%) are enrolled in PK-12 charter schools.
- In 2019, the total number of sixth-grade students enrolled in charter schools stood at 31,819 students (10.14%).
- Number and growth of sixth-grade students over the previous year were found to be 29,608 students with an increase of 7.47%.
ARIZONA
- In Arizona, about 901,383 students are enrolled in PK-12 public schools, of which nearly 190,116 students (21.03%) are enrolled in PK-12 charter schools.
- In 2019, the total number of sixth-grade students enrolled in charter schools stood at 15,496 students (8.15%).
- Number and growth of sixth-grade students over the previous year were found to be 14,895 students with an increase of 4.03%.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
- In the District of Columbia, about 92,994 students are enrolled in PK-12 public schools, of which nearly 43,911 students (47.24%) are enrolled in PK-12 charter schools.
- In 2019, the total number of sixth-grade students enrolled in charter schools stood at 2,850 students (6.49%).
- Number and growth of sixth-grade students over the previous year were found to be 2,799 students with an increase of 1.82%.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
We started this project by searching for precompiled reports or data sets that can help us identify the number of sixth-graders enrolled in charter schools across the US. We combed through reports from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to understand the contribution of charter schools in the US. The reports enabled us to identify the total number of charter schools in the US, followed by the total number of students enrolled in the PK-12 charter schools in the US. Alternatively, no details about the grade-wise breakdown of student enrollments were found for charter schools in the US.
In our research, we found that top-four states with the highest number of charter schools contributed nearly 46.40% of all charter schools in the US. Additionally, we found that charter schools in the District of Columbia accounted for almost 44% of all school enrollments in the region. Next, we tried to identify details about grade-wise enrollments for charter schools across the five states, i.e., California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and the District of Columbia. This enabled us to get a clear understanding of the number of sixth-graders studying in charted schools across the US.
Next, we researched through the official sites of each state's education department to identify the number of enrollments for sixth-grade in charter schools. We were able to collate the data for each of the five states and derived the percentage of sixth-graders among all charter school enrollments for the year 2018. It was found that the range of enrollment for sixth-graders stood between 6.49% to 10.14%.
Alternatively, the NCES data reported that about 7.64% of all public school enrollments and nearly 10.79% of all elementary school enrollments were for sixth-grade in 2018. Hence, we used the above percentage as a proxy to ascertain the number of sixth-graders enrolling in charter schools across the US. Finally, using the above findings, we were able to calculate the total number of sixth-graders enrolled in the charter schools to be as follows.
CALCULATIONS
1) We first calculated the total number of sixth-graders enrolling across charter schools in five states across the US. We considered triangulating the total percent of sixth-graders enrolling in charter schools are as follows:
- California — 8.04%
- Texas — 8.94%
- Florida — 10.14%
- Arizona — 8.15%
- District of Columbia — 6.49%
- Therefore, the mean percentage value of sixth-graders enrolling across 46.40% of charter schools in the US was found to be = (8.04% + 8.94% + 10.14% + 8.15% + 6.49%) / 5 = 8.32%.
2) To confirm our findings, we cross-referenced with the total number of sixth-grade enrollments in public schools across the US.
- Total percent of sixth-graders in public schools = Total number of sixth-grader (3.88 million) x 100 / Total number of public school students (50.72 million) = 7.64%.
The above calculations helped us identify that the difference between the number of sixth-grade enrollments in charter schools for leading five states in the US and the total number of sixth-grade enrollments in public schools across the US was just about 0.68%, i.e., 8.32% vs. 7.64%.
Thereby, we used 8.32% to calculate the total number of sixth-graders enrolling in charter schools across the US. Hence, the total number of sixth-graders enrolling in charter schools was found to be 3,167,800 (total number of students in charter schools) x 8.32% (percent of students enrolling in sixth-grade) = 263,560 students.