Dive Brief:

• On Tuesday, five Boston-area students filed suit to lift Massachusetts' restrictions on the number of charter schools allowed to open in the state.
• The five students were denied spots during the charter school admissions lottery earlier this year and were placed in traditional public schools designated as low-performing.
• The suit alleges that the state's cap denies them their constitutional right to a quality education by limiting their options.

Dive Insight:

The future of charter schools at the state level is in the midst of being redefined across the country. But as of yet, it's hard to tell exactly where the pieces will fall. Each state has taken a different approach. In Washington, the state's already-cautious approach to charter schools took a turn for the severe, when the state's Supreme Court eliminated their ability to tap state funds. In Ohio, failures of oversight have put a check on the rapid growth of the charter sector. A  decision in the students’ favor could open the recalcitrant state to more charter options but legal experts say a straightforward decision to do so is unlikely. Still, it has placed Massachusetts education leaders, who generally favor more charters, in an odd position of potentially successfully defending a restriction they don’t support.

Of note is the fact that the suit cites much-disputed studies that suggest charters perform better than traditional public schools; most research indicates that charters perform, on average, roughly the same as more traditional options.