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Charter Schools: Providing Hope and Opportunity

Parents should determine which school is best for their children – not zip codes.

Parents should determine which school is best for their children — not zip codes. With the rise of charter schools across the country, more students are able to escape underperforming schools and receive the high-quality education they deserve. In fact, the success and popularity of the charter school movement during the last 25 years is truly remarkable.
  • What started as one school in Minnesota has grown to nearly 7,000 charter schools located across the country.
     
  • More than three million students are enrolled in a charter school today.
      
  • 15 out of 16 independent studies found that charter school students perform better academically than their district school peers.
       
  • More than 1 million student names are on charter school waiting lists, waiting for the opportunity to receive a great education.

To commemorate National Charter Schools Week — and the hope and opportunity charter schools provide — Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, spoke about her recent visit to a charter school that’s successfully serving the children of Harlem in New York City:


Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate National Charter Schools Week, I want to highlight my recent visit to Success Academy Harlem 1 — 1 of 41 charter schools in the largest and highest performing public charter school network in New York City.

Success Academy currently serves 14,000 students and has more than 16,000 families on its waitlist. Founded in 2006, Harlem 1 is Success Academy’s first school and founder Eva Moskowitz served as its first principal.

With a focus on developing the whole child, Success Academy aims to make its schools joyful places of learning and I’m here to tell you these schools are getting results and they are joyful. Five of the top five schools in the state of New York in math and two of the top five schools in English are
Success Academy schools.

Every student in every school deserves an excellent education. But unfortunately we are falling far short of that goal as a nation.  Thankfully, innovative charter schools like Success Academy Harlem 1 are providing thousands of families with new hope and opportunity.

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