Colorado Triennial Reports

Key Findings 2023

This report was created in accordance with §22-30.5-113, C.R.S., which requires reporting to the Governor and to the house and senate committees on education on the state of charter schools in Colorado. Following the passage of S.B. 23-287, the report frequency has been increased and will now be annual. As part of this report, the statute specifies that charter performance should also consider the performance of charter school students relative to the performance of disaggregated student groups. 

 

Methodology

The analyses in this report provide information about the charter school sector in Colorado in alignment with the requirements of the statute. All data utilized for quantitative analyses are gathered from data maintained by CDE. The report relies on the following publicly available data sets:

  • Graduation Rates: www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/gradratecurrent
  • Mobility: www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/mobility-stabilitycurrent
  • School/District Staff Statistics: www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/staffcurrent
  • Pupil Counts: www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent
  • School Directory: www.cde.state.co.us/datapipeline/yr_directory

2023 (released 2024)

 

Key Findings 2020

  • Charter schools in Colorado continue to grow and serve a larger share of students, while enrollment in non-charter schools has shown early signs of decline.

    • In 2018-19, 255 charter schools were operating across the state, serving 124,562 students in grades PK-12, and equaling over 13 percent of students statewide. If all charter schools were organized within a single district, it would be the largest school district in the state (p.6 from the report).
  • Charter schools continue to serve higher percentages of students of color and English language learners (ELLs) than non-charter schools statewide.
    • In the 2018-19 school year, 15.8 percent of charter school students were identified as ELL as compared to 13.5 percent of students in non-charter schools (p.21).
    • The percentage of students of color served in charter schools in school year 2018-19 was 48.3 percent as compared to 46.5 percent for non-charter schools (p.19).
  • Charter schools continue to provide a wide array of educational options, including over 18 different educational models ranging from Montessori to Core Knowledge.
  • Charter school academic performance, both overall and for disaggregated student groups, tends to outpace statewide averages (p.29, 32-33).
  • Charter schools also tend to have smaller achievement gaps than their non-charter school counterparts (p.30-31, 33-35
  • Charter school students are more likely to stay in their school during the school year than students in non-charter schools.
    • Mobility rates for charter school students remain below non-charter school students by between 1.3 and 1.6 percentage points (p.22).
Ongoing Challenges

All of the above successes are occurring despite the fact that Colorado charter schools continue to be funded at only about 80-85% of traditional public schools. As a result, charter school teachers and administrators continue to earn less than their non-charter school peers. In 2018-19, the average charter school teacher earned $42,109, or $14,701 less than the average non-charter school teacher (p.47). The gap between charter school teacher salaries and non-charter teacher salaries has only closed by $700 since 2015-16.

2020 Report Summary