Which Cities Have the Highest Public Charter School Enrollment?

By Eric Berschback

There are 554 public charter schools in Arizona, and nearly 200,000 public charter school students – but which cities in Arizona have the most parents and students choosing charters? To find out, we combined the physical address of every school in Arizona with each school’s enrollment figures from ADE’s 2017-18 enrollment file. The result was a city-level view of just how many students and parents are opting for public charter schools.

Phoenix unsurprisingly leads the way in absolute public charter student enrollment. Its 48,000-plus public charter students represent about 25 percent of all public charter enrollment in the state, and 20 percent of all public school students who attend a school – district or charter – within Phoenix. The top 20 cities for absolute public charter school enrollment in the 2017-18 school year are shown in the following table:

But what about public charter enrollment, as a percentage of total enrollment within a city? In many ways, this is the more interesting question. For this particular analysis, we excluded the seven cities in Arizona that had 100 percent public charter school enrollment for the 2017-18 school year, as a result of having one public charter school within city limits and zero district schools. The top 20 cities for public charter school enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment are listed below, along with the number of public charter and district schools within each city:
More than half of Oro Valley’s and Fort Mohave’s public school students are attending a charter school, with Cornville, AZ, right behind them at 45 percent public charter school enrollment. As for larger cities in Arizona, Queen Creek and Surprise lead the way, with more than 1 out of 3 of their public school students enrolled in a charter.
Arizona now has a 17 percent public charter school population, and these data help to illuminate some of the cities where charters have truly given parents and students a much-needed choice in education.

 

Note: Bapchule, Centennial Park, Gold Canyon, Paulden, Shonto, Tubac, and Youngtown each have one public charter school and zero district schools, resulting in 100 percent public charter school enrollment. The public charter school enrollments in these cities range from 29 students (Sonoran Desert School in Gold Canyon) to 511 students (Masada Charter School in Centennial Park).

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