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The vast majority of literature on school choice, and charter schools in particular, focus on attending an elementary or middle school grades and often focus on test scores or other proximal outcomes. Much less is known about the long-term effects of attending a charter school in 9th grade. It is important to fill this information void for a few reasons. First, schools in general affect more than just students’ test scores. Second, secondary schools (including grades 9–12) make up a larger share of the charter sector. Third, school choice depends on freely available information for parents and students to make informed decisions about where to attend, including potential long-term benefits. We add to the empirical research on charter school effects by using a doubly-robust inverse probability weighted approach to evaluate the impacts of secondary charter school attendance on 9th grade behavioral outcomes and individuals propensity to commit crime and participate in elections as young adults in North Carolina, a state with a large and growing charter school sector.

We identify California public middle schools that use a 7th grade achievement threshold to place students into 8th grade Algebra. These schools provide 439 opportunities to estimate regression discontinuity effects of 8th grade Algebra placement. We meta-analyze these effects and find small positive effects on students’ high school math and English achievement, and substantial positive effects on high school math course-taking. Further, our analyses indicate substantial treatment effect heterogeneity across schools. Descriptive analyses suggest a positive relationship between treatment effects and average school student achievement and the location of the placement threshold, and a negative relationship with student poverty.