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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Seven Strategies for Success: School-Business Partnerships
Business is becoming increasingly involved in charter and other public schools. The Daniels Fund has researched why some school partnerships are more effective than others. The report highlights seven strategies for successful partnerships based on the findings. These include: ensure student learning and achievement are the focus of every partnership; create a meaningful process for communicating about the program and recognizing the contributions of business partners; and, regularly monitor and evaluate each partnership and the overall program. Best practices, success tips, and barriers to avoid are also included in this online guide.
The Five Dysfunctions of Charter School Boards
This document explores the dysfunctions found in public charter school boards and offers solutions for improving performance. One common dysfunction is a board that attempts to manage the day-to-day operations of the school, rather than focusing on governance. The author recommends that the board should make clear the outcomes desired, establish (through policies) the boundaries in which the outcomes are to occur, and then hold the management accountable by evaluating performance. Another dysfunction is the failure of the board to constantly improve its own performance. The author recommends that boards devote time to participating in professional development programs, discussing important books and articles, and staying aware of charter school trends and state and federal law.
What Works Clearinghouse
The Department of Education has revamped its What Works Clearinghouse Web site to make it more useful to policymakers and practitioners. The What Works project is aimed at vetting research on educational interventions and programs so that decisionmakers can make informed choices about what works, or is likely to work, in their own schools. The revamped Web site includes intervention reports that contain program descriptions, information on implementation costs, and ratings on program effectiveness in specific areas.
Venture Capitalism Meets Charter Schools
This article profiles the Charter School Growth Fund, which is focused on boosting the supply of high-quality public charter schools. In the past several months, the Fund has awarded funding packages to six charter operators (out of over 90 applicants) in various regions of the country averaging approximately $1.7 million over four years and totaling nearly $10 million. Collectively, they plan to open over 40 new schools in the next five years and create new seats for over 14,000 additional students. Grantees receive a mix of grants and loans, with funding spread out over three to five years. If a grantee does not attain a stipulated benchmark, it can lose some or all of the funding. The article celebrates the Charter School Growth Fund's willingness to finance the aspects of charter schools that other funders have been less willing to support: the additional staff positions necessary to manage an expanding enterprise.
Let's Do the Numbers: Seven Practices for Sound Fiscal Management
The Executive Director of the National Charter Schools Institute offers an examination of seven practices designed to help a charter school accomplish sound fiscal management. These include: establishing internal controls (through policy); monitoring compliance with fiscal policies; developing financial reporting interpretation skills; developing accurate budgets; recognizing red flags; minimizing risk; and hiring an independent auditor. He recommends that every board should understand is that it is ultimately responsible for the school’s finances. Even in schools where the board has contracted the management of the school, the board is still ultimately responsible for the school’s finances.
The Answer Key: How to Plan, Develop and Finance Your Charter School Facility
This free guide offers charter school operators step-by-step assistance in planning, evaluating and implementing facilities projects. Helpful worksheets, including needs assessments, budgets, and balance sheets are included. The document offers advice at all key stages of facilities development, from the concept phase through financing the project to completion of construction.
Key Issues in Studying Charter Schools and Achievement
This report from the Charter School Achievement Consensus Panel, a group of nine researchers convened by the National Charter School Research Project, examines the existing research on student achievement in charter schools and details how future research could be improved. The panel reviewed and rated more than 40 evaluations of charter school performance released between 2000 and 2005. Studies evaluating charter schools nationally or across states were found to be "fair" to "poor." Two key findings are that 1) no one research method or approach is problem-free, and 2) the results of studies focused on one kind of charter school cannot be generalized to all charter schools. The panel offers guidelines for local, regional, and national studies and recommends that the research community consider the pattern of results from multiple studies instead of relying on a single study for definitive results.
Charter Data Point #1: What NAEP is Really Telling Us About Charter School Performance
This brief details the findings from a survey of 390 public charter schools as part of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). According to NAEP, a high proportion of charter school students have a history of academic struggle and begin charter schools below average on state performance assessments. NAEP finds that performance is generally higher in older charter schools. Schools that had been open seven to 10 years significantly outperformed schools that had been open one to five years. The sample found that charters that receive a renewal term of 11 years or more had higher scores than the charters with the more typical five-year renewals. And, schools with only three-year renewals had lower scores. The author finds that the NAEP data leave unanswered many important questions about charter schools, primarily due to the survey’s small sample size, and that there is a critical need for longitudinal studies.
Florida Charter Schools: Hot and Humid with Passing Storms
This study examines the outcomes of a decade of charter schooling in Florida. The Sunshine State is often referred to as "School Choice Central" due to its variety of public school choice options, including vouchers and tax credits, school-to-work academies, and virtual and home schools. Among all the choice options in Florida, none has reached as many children and families as charter schools. In the 2005-06 school year, there were over 300 charter schools serving three percent of the state's public school students. The report reviews the evolution of Florida's charter school legislation, examines the achievements and the shortfalls of the state's charter schools, and offers several recommendations for improvement.
Charter School Fact Papers
Massachusetts' Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform has authored four brief fact sheets designed to debunk common grievances against public charter schools. The documents address charters' academic accountability, fiscal accountability, leadership and innovation, and ability to meet communities' needs.
NACSA 2006 Annual Conference, October 23-24 in San Diego, California
Register by October 18 for the National Association for Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) 6th Annual Conference, October 23-24 in San Diego, CA. NACSA’s Conference is designed to offer highly interactive and practice-oriented sessions on issues important to all who are dedicated to advancing quality charter schools and school change. Topics will include the essentials of effective charter school authorizing, measuring academic performance, and using chartering as a strategy to restructure low-performing schools. Tom Vander Ark of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will deliver the keynote address.
Politics of Charter Schools: Competing National Advocacy Coalitions Meet Local Politics
This paper seeks to identify supporters and opponents of charter schools at all levels of government and describe their motivations and behaviors. The author explains that state and local support for charter schools is most often determined by needs and incentives and that there is no cohesive state or local charter political pattern, given the variations in charter schools and their contexts. He concludes that national organizations will not win "the war on charters," but rather state and local politics will decide if charter schools will continue their impressive growth or end up as a marginal reform that impacts small numbers of students in urban centers.
Growth and Quality in the Charter School Movement: 2006 Dashboard
This one page brief offers snapshot data of student demographics and tracks the charter school movement's rapid growth. It also provides information about charter schools making AYP and public opinion polls.
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