California Charter Schools Conference, Sacramento, March 1-4
The 17th Annual California Charter Schools Conference will be held March 1-4, 2010 at the Sacramento Convention Center. Hosted by the California Charter Schools Association, the conference will be focused on the most urgent issues facing the public charter school movement. The event will feature more than 120 breakout sessions on a wide range of topics, including Facilities, Budget/Finance, Increasing Student Achievement, Special Education, Individualized Learning, Legal Issues, Safety, Advocacy, Math, and English Learners.

Charter Schools Institute: Practices for High Performance, July 20-23
This summer's Charter Schools Institute, located at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is designed for those involved in the design and implementation of public charter schools at both the school and system levels as well as those responsible for the design of state or national policy affecting public charter schools. The intensive four-day program will help participants examine elements of high- performing public charter schools, explore issues of scale-up that support positive outcomes for students, address topics of internal accountability within public charters that enhance student learning, set priorities and allocate resources to build organizational capacity, and devise a theory of action for working effectively with external agencies and constituencies.

Free National Charter Schools Teacher Institute, Washington, June 21
The U.S. Department of Education is offering a free pre-conference for classroom teachers prior to the 9th Annual National Charter Schools Conference. Teachers will be able to participate in high-quality professional development designed to provide the classroom support, technical assistance, and increased collaboration needed to assure academic success for all students. Prominent teachers leaders from around the country will provide training sessions and share research-based practices they have successfully applied in their classrooms and schools. Participants will discuss instructional strategies in each content area and for each grade level. Content focus for the sessions will be available in the following areas: differentiated Instruction, English Language Learners, history, math, reading, science, technology to support student achievement and using data. Conference registration available online and at 1-800-280-6218.

Georgia Charter School Conference, Marietta, March 10-12
The Georgia Charter Schools Association is hosting the state's 8th annual charter school conference at the Marietta Hilton Hotel & Conference Center, March 10-12. Over 400 public charter school advocates including teachers, administrators, board members and policy makers will celebrate the state's public charter schools with the theme: "Plant a Charter. Grow a Kid." Kevin Chavous, a leading national advocate for school choice, will be a keynote speaker. More information available online at the conference website.

National Charter School Conference, Chicago, June 28 - July 1
The 2010 National Charter Schools Conference, hosted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, is the only national gathering of the public charter school community. With the theme of "Innovators in Education: Leading the Race to the Top," the 10th annual conference will be held June 28 – July 1, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will provide the opening keynote presentation on June 29. Register online by January 31, 2010 to receive Early Bird registration rates. Make hotel reservations at one of the two official conference hotels by telephone or online. More information available at the conference's website.

Making Sense of Charter School Studies: A Reporter's Guide
The National Charter School Research Project, an initiative of the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education, has released a guide to help reporters evaluate the quality of charter school achievement studies. It also can be used to interpret other charter school or general education research. The document presents a list of "critical consumer questions," such as: (1) does the report compare apples to apples; (2) how large and representative is the study's sample and comparison group; (3) does the report look at test scores from one or more than one year; and (4) are the findings overstated. The guide also lists problems with common methods for measuring achievement in charter and traditional schools.

Back to School: Ten Things You Should Know About Charter Schools
This brief presents ten facts for charter advocates to share with community members, the media, and local and state policymakers to illustrate that charter schools are public schools. Facts include "58 percent of charter school students are minority and 52 percent are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch" and "many charter schools are helping to close the achievement gap for low-income and minority students."

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.

2006 National Charter Schools Conference
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is now scheduled to participate live, via satellite, on March 2 at the 2006 National Charter Schools Conference (to be held February 28 - March 3, 2006 in Sacramento, CA).* In a conversation with John Merrow (host of PBS' Learning Matters), she will discuss the impact of what is happening in New Orleans on the overall charter school movement. Other featured speakers include Bill Nye the Science Guy and a host of national charter experts and advocates who will share their perspectives on the state of the charter movement. View programming (over 170 sessions and table-talk discussions to choose from) and speaker details, as well as register and make hotel reservations at the conference web site at http://www.charterconference.org. To register by phone, call 800-280-6218. *Participation subject to Senator Landrieu's schedule.

Fall 2005 Charter School Leadership Summit: Blazing the Trail
The Charter Schools Development Center and CharterVoice have announced a 2005 Charter School Leadership Summit to be held in Berkley, CA on November 1-3. The conference is designed to provide charter school developers, operators, and grantors from California and around the nation with guidance on how to develop, lead, and oversee charter schools. Pre-summit "mini-boot camps" offered on November 1 will include "Advanced Charter School Governance," "Start Smart: Charter School Development," and other topics. Ted Kolderie is the featured keynote speaker.

National Charter Schools Conference
The National Charter Schools Conference will be held in Sacramento, February 28-March 3, 2006, in conjunction with the 13th annual California Charter Schools Conference. Online attendee registration & hotel reservations will be available beginning August 15, 2005.

ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students
These ESL Standards, which where developed as a collaborative effort between T.E.S.O.L. and the Center for Applied Linguistics, are helpful in planning curriculum for English Language Learners. They are clustered by grade level (pre-K-3, 4-8, and 9-12) and address varying degrees of proficiency (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Vignettes of actual instructional sequences in which teachers help students meet the standards in diverse settings are provided.

Outline for a Charter School Annual Report
( DC Public Charter Schools Board )
This outline guides users in how to craft a description of a school, provide details on student performance, and create an audit report.

The State Testing Program for Ohio and How It Works: A Primer for Charter Schools
This guide for charter schools in Ohio examines the roles and responsibilities of schools under the state's new accountability system. It details what charter schools need to know to effectively administer tests and how they should collect and report testing data.

Charter School Accountability Consultant Referral Network
( Charter Friends National Network )
This website provides a directory of consultants who assist charter schools and others with accountability planning, workshops, standards/curriculum alignment, etc.

Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education
This compilation of content standards for K-12 curriculum, in both searchable and browsable formats, catalogs nearly 250 highly regarded national, state, district, and other academic standards and related benchmarks in 11 major disciplines (ranging from math and language arts, to "life skills"). It appears to borrow heavily from the major national-level standards-setting efforts in many subject areas, while only briefly referencing state-level efforts.

Developing Education Standards
This site, maintained by Putnam Valley Central Schools in New York, offers an annotated list of Internet sites with K-12 educational standards and curriculum framework documents. The list is indexed by governmental and general resources, by subject area and by state.

Looking at Student Work
LSW is an association of individuals and educational organizations that focuses on looking at student work to strengthen connections between instruction, curriculum, and other aspects of school life and students' learning. This association grew from a meeting on "Examining Student Work and School Change" held in Chicago in October 1998, hosted by the Chicago Learning Collaborative and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. The site includes a list of print Resources by many of the participants in LSW that provide more information and protocols for looking at student work, and Web Picks.

The New ESEA: A Primer for Policy Makers
( 2002, Center for Education Reform )
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires all public schools to show yearly academic progress and make achievement gains on tests approved by each State and benchmarked against national assessments. CER's New ESEA page provides basic questions and answers to help schools and districts put in place systems that meet these new Federal demands.

Tools for Accountability Project
The Tools for Accountability Project is one part of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Its mission is to collect, evaluate and disseminate strategies and materials that will assist schools, districts and their communities as they take stock of their performance, make improvements, and track their progress. The site includes a Reading Room and an excellent list of Resources describing organizations and networks that work with schools and have particular expertise in the use of accountability tools. The report on Using Data for School Improvement is quite helpful.

Accountability for Student Performance
( 2001, September, Charter Friends National Network )
This updated guide addresses the growing number of accountability resources and organizations focused on charter accountability. Readers can read brief descriptions and access links to recommended resources on mission, standards, measurement, evaluation, and reporting.

Board Tune-ups
( Independent Schools Association of the Central States )
The board plays an essential role in governing the charter school. Because so much is riding on the effectiveness of the board in carrying out its roles and responsibilities, it is important that the board spends time looking at its own performance in order to improve it. This is a collection of 13 assessment tools for the periodic tune-up of your charter school board.

Charter School Accountability Action Guide
( 2000, Pioneer Institute )
This Accountability Action Guide is designed to provide faculty, administrators, and standards and assessment teams at charter schools with a step-by-step approach, a "recipe" for building a school-wide academic accountability system. The six steps presented and discussed in the guide are drawn from best practices and lessons learned in several charter schools as they implemented the Accountability Assistance Project (AAP).

Charter School Accountability: A Guide to Issues and Options for Charter Authorizers
( 2000 )
This guide, commissioned by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, aims to present charter school authorizers with a clear picture of the design issues they face in creating accountability systems for charter schools, and a review of some of the approaches charter-granting agencies around the country are using to address these issues. While charter school authorizers are the primary audience of this guide, it may also be of interest to charter school leaders, state policymakers, and state and district leaders. To order a printed copy, send email to info@charterfriends.org.

Charter-Granting Agencies' Tool Kit, National Edition
( 2000, December, Charter Schools Development Center )
Developed by the California Charter Schools Development Center for charter-granting agencies, school districts, and county and state offices of education nationwide, this extensive tool kit contains hundreds of sample documents addressing charter review, operational relations, monitoring and renewal, and leveraging system-wide change.

Comprehensive, Practical Guide to Holding Charter Schools Accountable
This 135+ page guide addresses accountability for both student performance and schoolwide performance. It provides intensive, practical information to enable charter schools to address accountability matters in a straightforward and credible fashion. The Guide covers standards-setting (including updates on California's state standards efforts), alignment of standards with curriculum and assessment, selection of appropriate assessment and testing tools (including state-mandated standardized testing), sponsor relations, and accountability for sound school operations (finance, legal, governance). The guide also includes actual sample documents and practices from "model" charter and non-charter schools.

Illinois Charter School Developer's Handbook: Getting Your Charter School Off the Ground
( Leadership for Quality Education )
While this guide was developed for Illinois' charter schools, charter school leaders in other communities will find that this resource offers practical, valuable advice for the phases of planning, designing, and operating a charter school. Important guiding principles and tips for several areas are provided, including: drafting a charter proposal, gaining community support, developing an educational program and accountability standards, recruiting and enrolling students, designing a school governance structure, recruiting and selecting staff, making personnel policies and contracts, fundraising and budgeting, finding and financing facilities, and complying with laws that apply to charter schools.

NCLB 4 DC Charters
"NCLB 4 D.C. Charters" is a cooperative effort between the DC Public Charter School Board and the DC Board of Education Public Charter School Office, the two authorizers for charter schools in the District of Columbia. It was created to provide technical assistance to D.C. charter schools so they can meet new Title I requirements. The program educates the community about charter schools and NCLB; provides school-based technical academic assistance for schools; and offers systemic training and support for data-driven decision-making.