This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, October 1st, 2007. I'm Caleb Brown.

Charter schools are now active in some 40 states, but what's their record of achievement?

What impact have charter schools had on individual student performance?

And do charter schools crowd out private education opportunities.

Erb Walburg is author of the book School Choice The Findings.

He says charter schools have a strong record of performance, but there are reasons for concern about

charters for those who would prefer a total free market in education.

There are about 4,000 charter schools in 40 states, and these began about a dozen years ago in Minnesota. There is sort of a

combination of public funding and private governance. That is to say that they get money from

states and or local public school districts, but they have private boards and the boards can hire staff or they

can hire a vendor or an operator of the school and so they're a kind of a combination of public and private analysis usually

operation usually there the reason they're called charter schools is they're typically given a five-year charter.

And when they first began, if they performed well, that is with respect to achievement, then they were allowed to continue. But if they didn't attract

students and if they didn't have high test scores, or reasonable test scores, I should say,

then they were closed by the issuing authority which might have

been a state or a public school district or other authorizer.

Charter schools are pretty popular among parents but aren't traditional public schools

pretty popular among parents as well?

Well, most parents don't have a choice of schools.

The great bulk of parents in the United States must go to the school in their neighborhood

that they are assigned to by public officials that is the staff and board of public school districts and so most parents in

United States unless they can afford to send their children to a private

...