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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Minnesota Sponsors Assistance Network
This new organization, a cooperative venture of Education/Evolving and the Office of Choice and Innovation in the Minnesota Department of Education, is designed to improve the quality of charter sponsoring. While the Network is of greatest relevance to Minnesota’s charter authorizers and schools, the new Web site also includes resources that could be used or adapted by authorizers, education officials, charter leaders and others in all states with charter school laws. Developers hope that the Minnesota Sponsor Assistance Network will serve as a model for similar capacity building and quality enhancement initiatives in other states.
Education Service Provider Clearinghouse
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers' Education Service Provider (ESP) Clearinghouse offers details on 44 national and regional service providers serving charter schools nationwide. Each profile in the clearinghouse describes the services provided by the ESP to charter schools, the educational programming offered, a listing of all charter schools served by the ESP, organizational structure and contact information, and references to accountability data, evaluations, news articles and other documents that examine the ESP's educational programs or schools. The information was collected from a wide range of sources, including charter authorizers around the country, state education agencies, other public sources, and the service providers themselves.
The Charter Option: 5 Big Questions (and many smaller ones) Your Board Should Ask
This article, by a staff attorney at the National School Boards Association, examines the issues a local school board should consider before authorizing a charter school. The key questions are listed as: (1) What could charters add? (2) Could charters bring in new talent? (3) Would charters leave no child behind? (4) What is the financial and operational impact (5) What about accountability? The article discusses charter proposals; financial and operational impact of charter schools; and the responsibility of a school district considering charter schools for its community. The author advises a school district considering chartering schools to be fully prepared to "make the required commitment to a collaborative and mutually accountable relationship."
Charter School Partnerships: 8 Key Lessons for Success
Partnering with other organizations can provide charter schools with important financial, human, physical, and organizational resources. This guide offers a variety of lessons learned by over 20 charter schools across the nation about how to form and sustain mutually beneficial partnerships with nonprofit, for-profit and public organizations. It walks charter developers through critical issues and challenges and offers a series of recommendations, including details about the following eight lessons that create the structure of the guide. (1) Weigh the costs and benefits of partnering. (2) Do your homework and choose your partner well. (3) Clearly define the partnership. (4) Create structures for partnership. (5) Leverage your resources; create new ones. (6) Be flexible and prepare for compromise. (7) Check your progress. (8) Lead. The authors caution charter school developers and leaders to choose their partnering opportunities cautiously.
How are California's Charter Schools Performing?
California’s classroom-based charter schools were 33 percent more likely to meet student performance goals in 2004 than were regular public schools, according to this new study. Classroom-based charters significantly outperformed regular public schools and non-classroom based charters. Among schools with data available, 64 percent of classroom-based charter schools met their performance targets in 2004, compared to 48 percent of regular public schools, and 44 percent of nonclassroom-based charters. Charter schools outperformed at all grade levels. Charter elementary schools outperformed regular public schools 57 percent to 46 percent; charter middle schools outperformed regular public schools 81 percent to 54 percent; and charter high schools outperformed regular public schools 58 percent to 49 percent. Charter school age did not significantly affect performance.
Charter School Performance Similar to Other Public Schools; Accountability Needs Improvement
This study of charter schools operating in Florida in 2003-04 found that the state's charter schools served students who are demographically very similar to those in other public schools.
Students in charter schools, however, were more likely to be academically behind when they entered their schools, compared to students remaining in traditional public schools. For this reason, charter school students were slightly less likely to meet grade-level standards compared to students in other public schools. Once in school, however, most charter school students achieved comparable learning gains in math and reading as similar students in traditional public schools. Students who were furthest behind made more progress in charter high schools than students in traditional public high schools. The study found that local contracts and annual reports were not effective in holding charter schools accountable for making improvements in student performance.
Simple Guide to Charter School Laws: A Progress Report
This reference guide provides some details about each of the nation's 41 charter school laws and rates their strengths and weaknesses. Six states receive a letter "A" and two received an "F." For example, with 509 charter schools operating in Arizona in Spring 2005, the state is applauded for its flexibility and multiple authorizers. It receives the label as the state with the nation's strongest charter school law. In addition to current rankings, the document predicts the future health of the charter school movement in each state.
Number of Charter Schools by State
This up-to-date list includes the latest numbers of charter schools by state (through the end of April 2005). Nearly 3,400 charter schools are operational, serving approximately one million students. Approximately 459 charter schools opened in 2004-2005, serving nearly 76,000 students nationwide. An estimated 236 new schools will open in 2005 or 2006. Approximately 354 charter schools have closed since 1992 with an estimated enrollment of 185,000.
Don't Tie Us Down
This companion article to "Charters as Role Models" proposes that charter schools should be "deliberately, thoughtfully, boldly different from existing mainline public middle and high schools." The author worries that bringing charter schools under the No Child Left Behind framework will stifle their ability to innovate and develop radically different, and more promising, school models. He finds that "any policy that drives charters into old molds -- making them, in effect, 'look and act familiar' as worthy expressions of the existing ‘system,’ producing students who do well primarily on tests organized in ways that reflect this system -- undermines the sound intent of the charter idea." He warns, "mindlessly administered, NCLB could have the effect of driving charter schools into discredited routines, in effect, killing them."
Charters as Role Models
This article examines how charter schools can be a role model for the entire public education system. The author argues that charter schools, if they are effective, should not fear accountability under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act. NCLB does not have to be a threat to charter autonomy. Rather, he argues that excellent charter schools, no matter how traditional or progressive, can "handily meet the achievement expectations of state accountability systems while maintaining their distinct character. The requirements of NCLB are merely a starting point." The author believes that with more effort, charters can model a balance of autonomy and accountability, “never giving up the innovation and energy that make (them) special, but also shouldering the load of helping to close the nation’s achievement gaps."
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