A charter, historically like the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, or the US Constitution, was an agreement by the people with each other in how to conduct themselves towards each other, and those who were interested in Quality knew that only Freedom could acquire it. Notably the nobles would spell out what monarchs, federalists, or authorizers CANNOT DO. We need that anti-federalist mindset now. Oversight and accountability are functions of persuasion in a scenario of school choice, where parents and students can pull out or stay in. Others so used to centralized power over others just don't like the obligations inherent in having to persuade others for or against what their druthers are. Even many elected officials want a final resolution to one way of thinking, their own. Let's stand up for the minority of "one".
To whom is a charter school accountable? Mussolini, in his book "On Fascism" describes an economic philosophy of government directed enterprise. Most authorizers have adopted this view. The more generous civic-minded sorts of folks advocate a government/business partnership, believing that if either side of the scale tips in favor of the other, then the result of the partnership will be the worst of government and the worst of business. It happens without the black shirts every day.
Who are its most important stakeholders? In reality, the people who care to make a school, or the people who care to destroy alternative schools, or control schools mostly decide the fate of who will be listened to or ignored. Stockholders are tool providers and want to see Human Investments pay off in a variety of ways, whether the school is ostensibly non-profit or for-profit. The people who agree to a charter and those who choose to go to it, and an authorizer only because a state asks or mandates them to be overseers or non-controlling accountability watchdogs. An authorizer told me the other day, "If I can't control it, I cannot be accountable for it, nevertheless the law says I am." If I could continue his thought it would be: "I would even more resent the role of only being able to persuade, I prefer to force by edict."
What should be sought after in a charter school's relationship to its:
authorizer? Freedom to innovate, not in methods of 100% compliance to the authorizer's view of operations or standards, but to their own vision, and subsequently the free market of ideas that parents and students will buy or not buy by enrolling or transfering. An authorizer should be expected to praise and criticize, but not threaten any other action than more bellicose criticism unless force or fraud is suspected in accounting for attendance or enrollment. Authorizers' opinions about performance is all that that should be a drumbeat of opinion.
Board members? Someone with a vision, someone with executive ability to carry out a vision or a theme, someone who can communicate with the history of what has worked well and be able to integrate it with other best practices, and someone who can count.
Parents? The ability to provide a place for students to study in quiet if not solitude, transport to libraries, efforts to acquire computers with internet, the opportunity to be a co-teacher with credentialed teachers if so inclined in a life skill. One day a shah, the next day a chauffeur.
Students? The desire to stair-step themselves upward, the hope to have time with a teacher one-to-one for at least an hour per week, access to teachers by phone and email. Students should gain further instruction after failing, in order to not keep failing any longer than a week, not for a semester, not for years.
Local School districts? Adopt a reverse historical deteriminism that you can start with an Education Soviet, move through a fascist stage, and then discover the challenge of providing human investments in a freer market of common and private services, and gaining a return from them for the next generation -- but not necessarily in tax revenue.
Business members? Education has something to offer business and is not a leach. Students have time and research tools to do more than be interns or apprentices, they can solve strategic problems with critical thinking skills developed with business people or government mentors who are pleasantly astonished at the new directions students come up with or go back to the drawing boards.
Community service providers? Having taught at a Medical Academy, a wonderful interaction in all aspects of medical careers by medical entities was topped when the Red Cross asked my students to design a robotic Search And Rescue Ambulance (SARA). Students did so with a technical design submitted for the Defense Advanced Reserach Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge race of robotic vehicles and were recently thanked for two innovations the military SAR could use. You can learn to tie a tourniquet only so many times, but you can be asked as an at-risk student to do critical thinking as fine as any general. Teaching "how to think" is true education.
Education Management Organizations? Know that leadership is not management, and management is not leadership. Bring good ideas together and see if they work in combination and tell the nation. Charter Schools "permit to exist" by those who deign to let them exist, are expecting them to be innovative, so deliver research & development for the revenue you are supposed to steal while bringing drop outs back into education.
Others? As the community likes it, displace the monarchs and declare and end to the monarchy. Its what Queen Cinderella would do. There is a difference between a commons and a public. Popular leader of wants or dictator of public need. Which do you choose to be? Who wants to invite Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Abigail Adams to this convention to write a Charter School Bill of Rights?
Posted as a reply to:
Accountability Roles & Processes (Authorizers & Other Stakeholders) by Bob Montgomery 
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