The teachers unions and their fellow travelers claim that one reason charter schools outperform traditional schools is because charter schools expel students more frequently.

Well, new data from Education Week puts that urban legend out to pasture.

EdWeek just analyzed recent data from the US Department of Education and published the following:

“The Education Week analysis of federal data found that charter schools across the country did not expel students at a rate higher than that of regular public schools. Both charter and noncharter schools expelled far fewer than 1 percent of their students. The data also showed that the regular public schools suspended students—a practice that research shows can put students on the path to dropping out of school—at a higher rate, 6 percent, than charters, at 4 percent.”

To be sure, this was not true in every city examined, but overall it is clear that blanket claims from charter enemies about excessive expulsions simply are not supported by actual data.