From the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/education/29charter.html

I found this article somewhat interesting but incomplete as it does not go into the pros as to why more survey data should be available. As for the lame excuse that it would be too expensive, education is the foundation for future success and it is critically important to understand whether Charters deliver better results than "traditional" public education.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 - The Department of Education is sharply cutting back on the information it collects about charter schools for a periodic report that provides a detailed national profile of public, private and charter schools.

Confirmation of the change, originally relayed in an e-mail message to a university professor, came on Wednesday from a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Last week, the first national comparison of test scores showed students in charter schools largely trailing comparable students in traditional public schools.

The federal report, known as the Schools and Staffing Survey, provides a wealth of information about charter schools, including the location and number of such schools, their share of low-income students, the qualifications of principals and teachers and the ratio of teachers to students.