I’m in Boston.

The charter sector here delivers the following results:

Boston is the highest-performing charter sector in the nation: a .35 effect size translates into roughly an extra year and half of learning per year.

So a student in Boston learns over twice as much by attending a Boston charter school rather than a traditional school.

It is currently illegal for charter schools to grow in Boston.

It would not shock me if Boston charters serve a somewhat less at-risk population than Boston traditional schools.

Sound regulation could change this overnight.

And, if charters served every child in Boston, perhaps the sector’s effect size would drop from .35 to .2 – and Boston children would only learn twice as much as they would in the traditional sector.

Boston could likely be the highest-performing urban school district in the nation if it would simply let great schools thrive.

It could also perhaps be the first truly excellent urban school system in our country.

Unfortunately, this does not appear to be happening anytime soon.

It is both a local and national missed opportunity tragedy.