the Charter divide
Part 2 of a six-part series
“The Charter Divide” is a six-part series examining what Nevada’s accountability data reveals—and conceals—about charter school performance. Subsequent installments examine data suppression, English learner outcomes, high school attrition patterns, the state’s reporting gap and the accountability system’s structural blind spots.
Data sources: NSPF SchoolRatings 2024-25; NSPF Disaggregated Data 2022-23; Nevada Group Summary Report 2025-26. All published by the Nevada Department of Education.
When Nevada evaluates its public schools, it relies on a federal framework that requires reporting outcomes for specific student subgroups: Black students, Hispanic students, English learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students. If a school enrolls too few students from any of these groups—typically fewer than 10 to 15—that subgroup’s data is suppressed to protect student privacy.
A New Education analysis of the state’s 2024-25 accountability data shows that data suppression is dramatically more common in charter schools than in traditional public schools—not because of privacy concerns, but because charter schools frequently don’t enroll enough students from these populations to meet the reporting threshold.
Only 49.1% of charter schools can report English learner outcomes, compared with 86.8% of traditional schools.
The gap is consistent across every protected subgroup. Only 54.1% of charter schools can report Black student outcomes, compared with 89.7% of traditional schools. For students with disabilities, it’s 63.5% versus 94.3%.
| Subgroup | CCSD | Charter | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Lang. Learners | 86.8% | 49.1% | −37.7 pp |
| Black/African American | 89.7% | 54.1% | −35.6 pp |
| Students with an IEP | 94.3% | 63.5% | −30.8 pp |
| Non-Hispanic White | 91.4% | 50.9% | −40.5 pp |
| Free/Reduced Lunch | 94.8% | 68.6% | −26.2 pp |
ESSA Aims to Leave No Student Behind, Lets Schools With Few Minorities Ignore Outcomes
The suppression rates matter because they determine which schools face consequences under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Schools identified for Targeted Support and Improvement, or TSI, are flagged because a specific student subgroup is chronically underperforming. Additional Targeted Support and Improvement, or ATSI, follows a similar logic.
But a school cannot be flagged for a subgroup it doesn’t report.
In 2024-25, just one charter school out of 159 received a TSI designation, compared with 50 out of 348 traditional schools. That’s 0.6% versus 14.4%. The disparity is routinely cited as evidence that charter schools produce more equitable outcomes.
The data tells a different story. When roughly half of charter schools lack sufficient subgroup enrollment to be evaluated for TSI, the near-absence of TSI designations reflects who the schools serve, not how well they serve them.
Not Enough Students to Matter?
The suppression gap widens at the middle and high school levels, consistent with patterns researchers associate with charter attrition—the tendency for higher-need students to return to traditional schools as they advance through grade levels.
At the high school level, only 50.0% of charter schools can report outcomes for students with disabilities, compared with 90.4% of traditional schools. For English learners, it’s 55.3% versus 84.6%.
The pattern raises a question that Nevada’s accountability system is not designed to answer: are charter schools producing equitable outcomes, or are they simply not enrolling the students whose outcomes would be measured?
Are there just not Black, English learner or students with disabilities applying to charter schools? Are the lottery systems transparent? We look at that in another post later in this series.
Data source: SQSS Disaggregated Data 2024-25, chronic absenteeism indicator.
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