Proof of Promise: Data Suggests Charter Schools Are Preparing Students for Life Beyond the Classroom

Palmetto Promise Institute recently published a blog highlighting the release of the 2025 South Carolina school report cards.  Overall, the results were promising—more schools moved up the grading scale, and academic performance across the state improved.  With this in mind, PPI would like to take a deeper dive into the data and explore specifically how public charter school districts fared as compared to their traditional public school counterparts. 

Comparing the data was a straightforward process. We started with the state’s master Excel file that includes report card results for every school in South Carolina. From there, we sorted the schools into two groups—traditional public schools and public charter schools. Once that was complete, we calculated the average scores for each group across several key report card categories, like academic achievement, student progress, and college and career readiness. With those averages in hand, we could easily see how traditional and charter schools stacked up side by side—and where one group might be leading the way. 

The Results 

Results varied greatly, with traditional public school districts outperforming public charter school districts in some areas (mostly in letter grades and end-of-course assessments), and public charter school districts gaining an edge in others.   

There were several key areas where public charter school districts outperformed their traditional counterparts.  Arguably, they outperformed the traditional districts in some of the most important categories in the school report card—categories that reflect the districts’ ability to prepare students for life outside of school. 

Among graduates, 32.47% of public charter school district students were considered college ready, compared to 30.48% of students in traditional districts. Likewise, 29.63% of charter students were both college and career ready, edging out the 28.6% of traditional public school students who met that mark. Charter students also posted stronger results on specific readiness indicators—17.17% met the college-ready threshold on the SAT, compared to 15.76% in traditional districts, and 26.8% reached the college-ready standard for dual enrollment courses, far ahead of the 18.61% of traditional public school students who did the same. 

Don’t Punish Charter Schools for Their Success 

This is a common refrain for Palmetto Promise Institute – public charter schools serve an important purpose in South Carolina.  They are an innovative, tuition-free option for students who require a different learning environment than their traditional zip code-assigned public school.  This data suggests hat charter schools are better able to meet their students’ needs in several key areas, all without the same financial resources allotted to traditional public schools.   

• Public charter schools do not receive state funding for student transportation. 

• Public charter schools do not have the authority to take out local bonds for facility construction, acquisition, improvement, etc.  

• Public charter schools are also common targets for funding cuts—in this year’s budget, funding for virtual public charter schools was cut by adjusting their student weighting from 0.65 to 0.5 (See Budget Proviso 1.3[N][4][b]). 

As South Carolina continues to raise expectations for all students, it is vital that success, whether found in traditional public, public charter, or other kind of school, is celebrated and supported, not stifled.  

These differences, though slight, suggest one thing: public charter schools are helping more students graduate ready for college, careers, and life. These schools are doing more with less, innovating in the face of funding inequities. Rather than punishing them for their success, policymakers should look to charter schools as partners in progress.   

South Carolina’s public charter schools are proof that when families have options and educators have freedom, students win.