On average, the funding gap between charter schools and traditional schools is 22 percent, or $1,800 per pupil. The average charter school ends up with a total funding shortfall of nearly half a million dollars.
Source: Charter School Funding: Inequity’s Next Frontier
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Building a Foundation for Success: How Authorizers Can Help Schools with the Facilities Challenge
This report explores how authorizers can help with charter schools' facilities challenges despite limitations in the direct support and resources they can provide. It examines the creative and proactive roles that some authorizers have taken to help schools meet their facilities financing needs.
Green Book Grants Management Website
Through this website, readers can find federal, foundation, corporate and other grants for schools with the application guidelines (RFPs). The grants listed on the site can be searched by funder or by specific need (curriculum, facilities, etc.). Current information on state grants is limited to Arizona state grants, but information about federal, foundation, and corporate grants available for charter schools can be found by using this comprehensive resource.
Serving Our Children: Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education
The author, a representative on the Washington, D.C. City Council and advocate for charters and choice, explores what D.C. has learned from the charter school experience and what it means to American public education as a whole. D.C.'s charter schools are used as a case study to demonstrate how their flexibility and autonomy allows them to better serve the social, economic, and educational needs of urban students and families.
Charter Schools Today: Changing the Face of American Education; Statistics, Stories and Insights
This new report explores the impact of charter schools across the nation. It tracks the growth of schools and enrollment, looks at how schools operate, and examines the successes and challenges schools experience. The report reinforces other research that demonstrates charter schools are being accountable, educating under-served students, and offering innovative opportunities to families. It also updates a previous CER report on charter school closures and finds that, as of January 2004, 311 charter schools have closed, representing 9 percent of all charters ever opened. This report finds that in a growing number of cases, schools have lost their charters due to direct action by districts and other groups such as teachers unions. (Note: There is a $49.95 cost for the report which can be ordered by calling (202) 822-9000 or emailing cer@edreform.com.)
Principles and Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing
This set of voluntary principles and standards for charter school authorizers addresses the key areas for which authorizers are responsible, including designing and overseeing the application process, negotiating contracts, providing oversight and evaluation of charter schools, and deciding whether their contracts should be renewed. They stress the importance of fair procedures and rigorous criteria for evaluating charter school applications. The document also recommends that authorizers provide clear, adequate, and evidence-based notice of problems, allow reasonable time for problems to be fixed, and make decisions about whether and how to intervene on a clear and consistent basis.
School Information Partnership Website
The US Department of Education, in cooperation with the Broad Foundation, has launched the School Information Partnership (SIP), a website that provides detailed information about school, district, and state performance associated with the No Child Left Behind Act. As of late Spring 2004, the website provided data from nine states: Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington; all 50 states and the District of Columbia will be available by the end of the year. The site includes a data snapshot of adequate yearly progress results, reading and math scores, student enrollment by subgroup, NAEP results, and teacher quality indicators. This effort is part of the federal government's strategy to provide parents and policymakers with more data about schools and student performance to improve achievement and focus resources.
The Real Value of Teachers: If Good Teachers Matter, Why Don't We Act Like It?
This report discusses how value-added data can be used to help measure the effectiveness of teacher preparation and professional development programs. Such data can also help ensure low-income and minority children get the teachers they need to succeed, the report finds. It offers several recommendations to federal, state, and local policymakers, teachers, and training providers to help improve teacher quality, raise overall student achievement, and close the achievement gap.
The Rugged Frontier: A Decade of Charter Schooling in Arizona
This report examines the evolution of charter schooling in Arizona, one of the nation's most open chartering systems. It reviews the charter law and authorizing policies, examines the outcomes charter schools have attained, and analyzes the potential risks and rewards inherent in the Arizona model. The authors offer a series of recommendations specifically for policymakers in Arizona, but ones which may also be useful for policymakers addressing the balance of restrictiveness and permissiveness in other states. Recommendations include: be tough, but smart about oversight; use information aggressively as a tool for accountability; close poorly performing schools; provide resources for high-quality authorizing; and, focus on creating a support system to improve and expand the supply of high-quality charter schools.
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Charter Schools Resource Update is sponsored by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and distributed by WestEd.
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