It would be kind to say that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) was dawdling in its analysis of the data on charter schools that were collected by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). ED collected the data with the regular NAEP assessment in 2003 and placed the regular data on its website in the fall of 2003. The American Federation of Teachers found the charter school data, though, and analyzed them. The New York Times reported the AFT's findings in a front-page story on 17 August 2004. Charter schools did not come off well when compared to regular public schools, even when the analysis controlled for family income and location. There were no ethnic differences between the student populations of the regular public schools and the charters, but the white/minority achievement gap was as large in charters as it was in regular public schools. This article analyzes the findings from that report.