Colorado Triennial Report

Key Findings
  • 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.