Authorizing a Charter School

As an authorizer of charter schools, a school board, university or other chartering entity would be well advised to clearly describe its and the community’s expectations about what it means to be an educated person. In fulfilling a significant responsibility and maximizing an opportunity, the authorizer should submit that statement of expectations to everyone in the community along with a standing request for proposals for new charter schools. Authorizers will invite founders of new schools to commit, pursuant to a charter (contract), to educate every student to the school, authorizer and community’s highest expectations.

Increasingly, it’s becoming apparent to school boards that it’s in their community’s interests to move to the chartering idea. School boards are recognizing that chartering offers a way to improve their own learning programs quickly in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. It’s an opportunity for school boards to expand educational options for students/parents within public education. School officials should create a climate in the community where innovative ideas for new schools originate with educators, parents and other enterprising individuals. Chartering provides incentives and the mechanism for needed change. It enables school boards to do improvement on their own initiative, in their community’s interests and from their own resources.

It’s essential that charter school authorizers determine the standards of performance to which they will hold charter schools accountable. In establishing an accountability agreement, it is helpful to think about two levels of expectations that apply to a charter school. The first level is a set of standards that the school and authorizer expect students to attain. These standards articulate what the school’s students should know and be able to do. The second level is a set of goals for school-wide performance.

How well must students and the charter school perform in order for the school’s charter to be renewed? How poorly must a charter school and students perform before the authorizer takes action to remedy the failure or close the school? Optimally, the authorizer and charter school should agree upon both the threshold for charter renewal and the floor for non-renewal. In other words, how good is good enough and how bad is too bad?

To fully appreciate the significance of the authorizer’s role in chartering schools, it’s important to remind ourselves about the concept of autonomy for accountability. If school boards and other authorizers will clearly describe, in performance-focused terms, their expectations for student learning and school success, they can unhitch educators at the school-site from excessive regulations that stifle innovation and improvement. They can and should allow the charter school to be an independent, autonomous entity that’s accountable by contract to the authorizer. Wisconsin’s charter school law provides school boards with unlimited opportunities to transform public education in ways that benefit young people, families, communities and the state. Hopefully, every school board will understand that a charter school that it does not own and run is still ‘its public school.’ A school board that contracts for the operation of a charter school is ultimately responsible to the public. The challenge will be for the school board to give the charter schools real freedom to be significantly different and to grow. School boards should not hesitate to reallocate scarce resources to achieve new goals for their students and community.

Authorizing Links

• National Association of Charter School Authorizers
• Charter Granting Agencies
• UWM Charter Schools Office
• Charter School Issues
• Charter School Authorizing
• School Boards Have Choices Too: Focus on Authorizers (PDF)
• Education / Evolving
• Implementing Special Education in Charter Schools