Blue sky above the Nevada Legislature building in Carson City on May 30, 2023.
Tom R. Smedes/AP
State-sponsored charter schools in Nevada continue to make academic gains despite the impacts of COVID-19, Assembly members heard Tuesday on the second day of the legislative session.
Members of the Assembly Committee on Education introduced themselves and announced expected presentations would come from state educators and advocates throughout the session.
On Tuesday, Melissa Mackedon, executive director of the State Public Charter School Authority, provided an overview of the agency that has approved Washoe, Clark and Carson City school districts to authorize their own charter schools. The SPCSA also has sponsored 80 charter school campuses across Churchill, Clark, Elko, Washoe and White Pine school districts. Approximately 85% of sponsored schools are in Clark County.
Mackedon said overall in the 2023-24 school year, 73% of SPCSA schools have been faring better on the Nevada School Performance Framework, earning three stars or better, down 7% from the previous year. She also noted 52% received four or five stars, down 8%. Mackedon also noted four-year graduation rates have averaged 83.3%, down .5% from the previous year. Nevada’s state graduation rate for 2023-24 was 81.3%. Twenty-six of 27 SPCSA high schools also exceeded the statewide average.
Charter schools slowly have made year-over-year enrollment increases prior to the pandemic with totals going from approximately 42,333 in 2018 to 63,609 in 2024, Mackedon said. The various models schools provide, from arts integration to career and technical education, dual enrollment high schools, classical education, Montessori and others, have allowed families to choose an education that best serves their students.
Mackedon noted SPCSA-sponsored schools also outperform other states in Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium exam proficiency. The 2023-24 test results for students in third through eighth grades for Nevada’s schools were 54.1% and also outranking Nevada’s public schools, which averaged 41%. In math, charter school results averaged 45% compared to Nevada public schools that ranked 31.3%. Results from other states were retrieved from a sample from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon and Washington.
Assemblyman David Orentlicher of Clark County asked whether there is data that would suggest how families choose charter schools in comparison to public schools and the “secret sauce” that makes them different.
Mackedon said it’s difficult to know what specifically to track in this scenario.
“We certainly have data that shows growth, right, and I think what I shared today was proficiency data, but we can certainly provide the same data that looks at how charter students are growing in those charter schools when they get there even if they start in a charter school in sixth grade and maybe they’re very behind now, and how are the charter schools growing those students,” she said.