http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/26/20090426showdown0426.html
The Arizona Charter Schools Association, an advocacy group, is pushing tougher enforcement of state standards and stricter accountability in the state's 475 public charter schools. Association leaders say the public charter school movement must shift its focus from expansion to quality. The association has created a sophisticated data model to measure the performance of Arizona's district and public charter schools. The model allows researchers to determine how well groups of students performing at similar levels change over time, then compare schools on progress rates for each group. The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, which regulates public charter schools, supports the new method and has agreed to use the data in evaluating schools. The data is expected to be used by the board to examine public charter schools at five- and 10-year reviews and at 15-year contract renewals. The new system will push faltering schools past vague promises of improvement to face tough questions such as, "How are you going to fix it? What's the expected improvement we should be able to measure and see?"
Source: The Arizona Republic
Date: 04/26/2009
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