The Center for Education Reform is a pro-charter school group in the United States. The group organizes studies of state charter school laws. In 2007 it produced its annual survey finding that 54% of charter school students qualified for free or reduced lunches. This qualification is a common proxy for determining how many low-income students a given school enrolls. The same survey found that half of all charter school students fall into categories that are classified as 'at risk'."
Legislation
The Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 10; 113th Congress) was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on April 1, 2014 and passed in the House on May 7, 2014. The Center for Education Reform was critical of the bill, cautioning that "it is nothing more than a natural progression of the federal government becoming too involved in charter school policy. The organization argued that "the federal government is taking too much of a direct role in defining 'quality' and 'high performance' charter schools," taking away power from the states to make their own decisions about what charter schools qualify for grants. They argued that this takes away the autonomy and innovation that define charter schools, discounts parental choices about schools, and, due to the formulaic nature of these evaluations, discourages charter management organizations from taking over failing schools (since the failing school will hurt their scores).