| Throughout the past five to ten years in South Texas, there was a high demand for opening charter schools. Charter schools became the innovative educational reform that provided a plausible solution of schooling other than traditional public schools in South Texas. As of 2014-2015, there were 689 charter schools in Texas serving 238,091 students, of which 58.2% were Hispanic and 71.1% were eligible for free or reduced lunch. The charter school is a type of reform that has brought controversy to traditional public schools because of the consequences with them. For example, there has been competition in attendance, loss of funding, and overall academic performance among the economically disadvantaged, English language learner and Hispanic populations served in neighboring public school districts. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reading and math academic performance in grades 3, 4, and 5 in state assessment results for 2015-2016 school year and determine if there was a significant difference in student achievement between charter schools and traditional public schools of South Texas. This quantitative study analyzed overall reading and math performance in grades 3, 4, and 5, the reading and math performance of economically disadvantaged students and English language learners in grades 3, 4, and 5, and the Hispanic reading and math performance of students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Special consideration was made to the overall comparison analysis because of the subpopulations of the schools were included within the percentages compared. Also, a particular focus of this study was the overall reading and math performance because of the demand to increase literacy and numeracy problem solvers among the South Texas student population. In conclusion, the focus on the economically disadvantaged, English language learners and Hispanic student populations was because the majority of students in South Texas qualify under those categories and it was of great concern to schools to meet their needs. The results of this study indicated that there was no significant difference in reading and math academic performance scores for grades 3, 4, and 5 between charter schools and public schools in south Texas. |
