Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Policy on May 8th, 2013
This past week has been a whirlwind in statehouses across the country, as the pace of legislative proposals picked up in the face of end-of-session deadlines. Over a dozen states are considering policies that would improve authorizing policies and practices. We are awaiting the final approval by the governors of Indiana and Florida to important [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Performance Standards, Quality Authorizing on May 7th, 2013
Speaking of creating an ecosystem for charter school accountability, here is Bill Phillips, president of the Northeast Charter School Network (NECSN) with a call for clear quality standards for charter school renewal and revocation that focus on academic results. Phillips also endorses the closure of a low performing charter, a school he says was “one [...]
Posted in Accountability, Charter School Growth, One Million Lives, Policy on May 6th, 2013
Last month, the US Department of Education and the National Charter School Resource Center hosted an Accountability Summit to explore emerging accountability challenges across the charter school sector and to discuss a variety of strategy and policy options to support quality as the sector expands. NACSA helped organize the event and almost 100 SEA charter school program leaders, [...]
Posted in Charter School Growth, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing on Apr 29th, 2013
Last week in New Orleans, NACSA wrestled with issues of standardization and differentiation in the charter school sector. We held our annual joint meeting of our Board of Directors and National Advisory Board in the French Quarter and, despite the festive surroundings, had a number of serious and enlightening discussions. In a dinner discussion that [...]
Posted in One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing, Research on Apr 18th, 2013
Today we released our 5th annual report on NACSA’s authorizer survey results: The State of Charter School Authorizing 2012. Its release each year leads me to reflect on how the authorizing sector is changing, how much it has improved and what challenges still lie ahead. Certain findings deserve particular attention: More of the nation’s authorizers [...]
Posted in One Million Lives, Policy, Quality Authorizing on Apr 17th, 2013
Governor Phil Bryant today signed Mississippi’s new charter school law, making the state the 42nd in the country to welcome charter schools. Its adoption paves the way for the state’s children to have access to more educational opportunities. NACSA President and CEO Greg Richmond issued the following statement: “Today, the future of Mississippi’s children got a little [...]
Posted in Accountability, Charter School Growth, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing, Research on Mar 19th, 2013
A new report, Searching for Excellence: A Five-City, Cross-State Comparison of Charter School Quality, by researchers at Public Impact and published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute examines charter school performance in five cities, Albany, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, and Indianapolis and finds that overall the charter sector in these cities outperformed their local district schools. They also found, though, [...]
Posted in NACSA News, One Million Lives, Policy, Quality Authorizing on Mar 11th, 2013
Last week we released the second edition of NACSA’s Index of Essential Practices. Based on NACSA’s Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing, the Index is a road map for quality authorizing, articulating a set of practices for authorizers that can significantly improve the quality of their work. The 2012 Index is a great [...]
Posted in One Million Lives, Policy, Quality Authorizing on Mar 8th, 2013
This week NACSA released the second edition of its Index of Essential Practices. The Index articulates a set of practices for authorizers that can significantly improve the quality of their work—and in turn the quality of the charter schools in their portfolios. The 2012 Index also includes data on individual authorizer practices as reported in NACSA’s annual [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Policy on Mar 8th, 2013
Check out the new op-ed from Al Fan of Charter School Partners and NACSA’s Alex Medler on the need for greater accountability for the state’s charter schools. “A bi-partisan bill is making its way through the Minnesota legislature to close the state’s persistently lowest performing charter schools. The effort is not led by charter school [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Policy, Quality Authorizing on Mar 5th, 2013
An op-ed in the Sunday Fort Wayne’s Journal Gazette, by NACSA’s President and CEO, Greg Richmond, warns people to beware of charter schools that engage in authorizer shopping. This is a serious problem for those trying to close down failing charter schools in Indiana, and nationally. “Authorizer shopping” occurs when failing charter schools try to [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing on Mar 1st, 2013
Although Ball State University’s Office of Charter Schools has faced some tough criticism in the past, it is working to set an example of how an authorizer can drastically improve its policies and practices—and consequently the strength of the schools in its portfolio. The largest authorizer in Indiana for over a decade, Ball State has [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives on Feb 19th, 2013
It is always disappointing when charter schools that are not meeting their performance expectations fight efforts to hold them accountable. We shouldn’t forget, though, that some charter schools will live up to their promises and accept accountability for their performance. The Washington Examiner reports: “The District’s only all-boys public school plans to close at the end of [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing, Research on Feb 15th, 2013
The charter promise is not, “We will give you a charter to run a public school and flexibility from many of the rules and regulations constraining traditional schools. But if you fail to achieve what you promise to achieve we will insist that you submit a plan that outlines what you might do about it [...]
Posted in One Million Lives on Feb 14th, 2013
Silver bullets and unicorns have three important characteristics in common. 1.) They don’t exist; 2) No one older than 16 believes that they exist; and 3) anyone claiming that someone else believes that they exist is only propping up a straw man to be easily knocked down. It is odd, then, that David Kirp chose [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Performance Standards, Policy, Quality Authorizing on Feb 12th, 2013
Today, the Detroit Free Press covers an important new report submitted to the Michigan Board of Education. The report ranks, for the first time, the state’s 11 largest authorizers ”based on student achievement, student growth over time, authorizer improvement over time, and achievement gaps across all five tested subjects (mathematics, reading, science, social studies, and writing), as well as the graduation rate for [...]
Posted in Accountability, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing on Feb 12th, 2013
Last month, the charter schools office at Ball State University announced that it was revoking the charters of seven of its lowest performing schools for failure to meet the performance expectations outlined in the schools’ performance contracts. Sadly, rather than accept responsibility for their failure and the consequences that they agreed to when they opened, [...]
Posted in Accountability, Charter School Growth, New Schools, One Million Lives, Policy on Feb 12th, 2013
The Fordham Institute’s Adam Emerson emphasizes the critical role that new schools must play in the transformation of one million lives. The One Million Lives Campaign launched in the fall by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers has captured popular (and media) attention, mostly for its call to shutter the worst-performing charter schools. But that’s only half of its purpose. [...]
Posted in Charter School Growth, New Schools, One Million Lives, Quality Authorizing on Feb 11th, 2013
As part of its annual Call for Quality Options, the Louisiana Department of Education has launched a new interactive information center to accompany the various ways in which the department is seeking to attract and evaluate proposals from new providers. The dashboard displays information geographically and provides parish-level detail about academic performance, opportunities for [...]
Posted in Accountability, Charter School Growth, One Million Lives, Policy, Quality Authorizing, Research on Feb 11th, 2013
Do struggling charter schools need a “mercy rule“? As in Little League baseball, sometimes things start out so badly for one team that you just need to step in and stop the game early. The latest study by Macke Raymond and her colleagues at CREDO prompted this question for me. I recommend reading the whole [...]
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