This year’s edition of Hopes, Fears, & Reality explores the broad realities of the present-day charter school movement. This chapter shows how public officials, citizens, and the press can move beyond the preoccupation with test scores to begin assessing charter schools on the basis of their long-term consequences for children. The chapter provides a roadmap for understanding the tradeoffs between test scores and other longer-term—and possibly more significant—measures of charter school outcomes.
