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In the summer of 2004, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) published data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showing that average fourth-grade achievement is higher in regular public schools than in charter schools, both for students overall and for low-income students. For black students, a group that many charter schools are designed to serve, the analysis showed that average achievement is no better in charter schools than in regular public schools. These conclusions were reported in a front-page article in the New York Times. Their accuracy has not subsequently been challenged. 1 Some charter school supporters claimed that the NAEP data provided only misleading information about the quality of charter schools because: (1) NAEP only assessed a single year (2003) of fourth-grade scores and so could not detect whether charter school scores were low because their students had even lower scores in earlier grades. If so, charter school students could have made more progress even if they still had not caught up to regular public school students by the fourth grade; (2) black and low-income students in charter schools are more disadvantaged than black and low-income students in

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