A charter seat is an upgrade — except where it is a downgrade
Across 56 Massachusetts charters, 27 clearly outscore the district they sit in and 21 clearly trail it. The gap runs from 82 points better to 64 points worse, and which one you get depends on the district you are leaving.
A charter school is public, tuition-free, and open to any family that wins its lottery. That combination makes it sound like a free upgrade: a way out of a weak district at no cost but the odds. Sometimes it is exactly that. Sometimes the school you win a seat at is worse than the one you were trying to leave.
Every charter reports to the state on the same MCAS scale as the district around it, so the two can be set side by side. Across the 56 Massachusetts charters with a score and a district to compare it against, the word “charter” turns out to promise almost nothing on its own.
Better, worse, and a wash — in almost equal measure
| The charter, against its host district | Charters |
|---|---|
| Clearly better (more than 5 points higher) | 27 |
| About the same (within 5 points) | 8 |
| Clearly worse (more than 5 points lower) | 21 |
27 charters clearly beat the district they sit in; 21 clearly trail it; 8 land within a few points either way. The spread between the best and worst bet is enormous — from +82 percentile points to -64. Two schools carrying the identical “charter” label are not remotely the same proposition.
The prize is set by the district you are leaving
The scatter is not random. Sort the charters by how strong their host district already is, and the pattern is almost mechanical: the weaker the district around it, the bigger the charter’s edge.
| Host district | Charters | Median edge | Better | Worse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weak district (under 25th) | 45 | +9 | 24 | 15 |
| 25th to 50th | 3 | +44 | 2 | 1 |
| 50th to 75th | 3 | +4 | 1 | 1 |
| Strong district (75th+) | 5 | -15 | 0 | 4 |
Most charters sit in struggling districts — 45 of 56 are in a district below the 25th percentile — which is where the movement built them and where the seat is worth most: a median edge of +9 points, and some far larger. It is the handful in strong districts that go the other way. All 5 charters sitting in a top-quartile district score below it, by a median of 15 points. That last group is small, so read it as a warning rather than a law — but the direction is unmistakable, and the individual cases are stark.
Where the seat is worth the lottery
These are the charters that most outscore the district a local family is otherwise zoned into. In each case the surrounding district sits near the bottom of the state, and the charter near the top.
| Charter | Town | Charter MCAS | Host district | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer Charter School of Science | Everett | 89th | 7th | +82 |
| Brooke Charter Schools | Mattapan | 91st | 22nd | +69 |
| Pioneer Charter School of Science II | Saugus | 92nd | 24th | +68 |
| Springfield Preparatory Charter School | Springfield | 67th | 6th | +61 |
| Libertas Academy Charter School | Springfield | 60th | 6th | +54 |
| Community Day Charter Public School | Lawrence | 57th | 5th | +52 |
| Boston Collegiate Charter School | Dorchester | 73rd | 22nd | +51 |
| Mystic Valley Regional Charter School | Malden | 84th | 33rd | +51 |
Pioneer Charter School of Science in Everett scores at the 89th percentile while its town’s district sits at the 7th — a +82-point gap. For a family in that district, winning this lottery is the difference between the bottom of the state and the top, at no tuition.
Where it is a step down
And these are the charters that trail their host district, several of them in towns families move to for the public schools.
| Charter | Town | Charter MCAS | Host district | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foxborough Regional Charter School | Foxborough | 13th | 77th | -64 |
| Old Sturbridge Academy Charter Public School | Sturbridge | 14th | 60th | -46 |
| South Shore Charter Public School | Norwell | 46th | 91st | -45 |
| Codman Academy Charter Public School | Dorchester | 1st | 22nd | -21 |
| Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School | Hyde Park | 1st | 22nd | -21 |
| Boston Green Academy Horace Mann Charter School | Brighton | 2nd | 22nd | -20 |
| Boston Preparatory Charter Public School | Hyde Park | 3rd | 22nd | -19 |
| UP Academy Charter School of Dorchester | Dorchester | 4th | 22nd | -18 |
Foxborough Regional Charter School sits in a district at the 77th percentile and scores at the 13th — -64 points. A family that moved to that town for its schools and then entered the charter lottery would be trading down if they won.
What to do with this
Do not read the label; read the two numbers. A charter is worth entering a lottery for when it scores well above the district you are in, and that case is concentrated in exactly the places the public schools are weakest — the cities and the old mill towns. In a strong district it is usually the local public school, not the charter, that is the safer bet, and the charter is worth a look only for reasons a percentile does not capture: a specific programme, a smaller setting, a particular fit.
Every town’s charter options, with the charter’s own score against the local district, are on its page in the town finder.
How this was measured
Each charter’s statewide MCAS achievement percentile from the state’s accountability data, minus the percentile of the public district in the charter’s own town — 56 charters where both figures exist. 5 more are left out because their town is not one this site scores as a district. Percentiles carry noise, so a gap under 5 points is treated as no real difference.
One honest limit: a charter’s town is the nearest comparison, not always the exact one. Regional charters draw pupils from several towns, so the district shown is the one a family in the charter’s own town would otherwise attend — the comparison a mover in that town is actually making, but not the full catchment. MCAS measures one thing and measures it at a point in time; it is not the whole of a school. Figures as of July 18, 2026. Charter schools are public and tuition-free, allocated by lottery.
