New Survey of Charter School Authorizers Sheds Important Light on Quality in Charter Education

Report Finds a Growing Consensus Over Best Practices Despite Wide Variation in Authorizers

WASHINGTON, May 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) today released The State of Charter School Authorizing 2009, a comprehensive report on its second annual survey of the nation's authorizers. Charter school authorizers are the entities that approve of new charter schools, oversee their operation, and evaluate their performance in renewing schools' charters.  

"With charter schools an increasingly prominent part of our nation's education strategies, the need is as great as ever to understand the nature of charter authorizing," said Greg Richmond, President and CEO of NACSA.  "I am pleased that our report reveals new insights into authorizers and their work that powerfully inform us about their role as the linchpin for quality in charter education.

"This study develops from authorizers the answers to many questions underlying charter quality: about how much autonomy is given to charters, how much accountability they face, about how often they are closed and for what reasons," continued Richmond.  "This is knowledge about authorizers and the schools they oversee that will bolster efforts to improve the nation's growing charter sector."

Report author and NACSA's Vice President for Policy and Research Alex Medler noted that "the performance of the entities that authorize charter schools is of critical importance to the continued growth and development of the charter school sector.  Depending on state law, we know that authorizers can be school districts, state education agencies, higher education institutes, independent chartering boards, non-profit organizations, and mayors and municipalities.

"It is not surprising then that we find great variability in both the characteristics of authorizers and their practices.  Charter school authorizers vary by the number of schools they authorize, the resources including budget and staff that they commit to the work, and their philosophy about what their role is.

"We see in the data an emerging consensus about implementing a key set of best practices.  However, a significant minority of large authorizers report not having adopted certain key practices, such as using external panels of experts to review new charter applications (52% do not); using face-to-face interviews with charter applicants (13% do not require interviews or do not rate them as important); requiring an annual financial audit of all charter schools (13% do not); and signing formal contracts with the schools they oversee (10% do not)," concluded Medler.

 Media Advisory: An embargoed copy of this report is available at: http://www.qualitycharters.org/files/public/NACSA_AR_2009_fprintvers_Embargoed.pdf. The authors of the report will give a briefing for journalists via teleconference beginning at 10:00 EDT on May 6. Please contact Dawn Ofodile at [email protected] or 312.376.2332 to RSVP to receive the teleconference dial-in number and a copy of briefing material. Please contact Dawn if you would like to schedule an individual interview with the report authors or would like further information about the study.

About the National Association of Charter School Authorizers: NACSA (www.qualitycharters.org) is the trusted resource and innovative leader working with public officials and education leaders to increase the number of high-quality charter schools in cities and states across the nation. NACSA provides training, consulting, and policy guidance to authorizers and education leaders interested in increasing the number of high-quality schools and improving student outcomes.

SOURCE National Association of Charter School Authorizers