Download or read book Increasing Charter School Accountability Through Interventions and Closures written by Joey Gustafson and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A basic premise of charter school reform in public education is offering more autonomy in the use of funds and the design of curriculum in exchange for greater accountability in academic and financial outcomes. This premise poses a significant policy challenge for state policymakers to establish an appropriate level of regulation; charter schools must be sufficiently independent yet still conform to most state and federal education and financial management laws. This guide examines the laws, policies, and programs that states use to establish consequences for financial mismanagement in charter schools. It discusses how states define the financial conditions for intervention. It also describes the approaches to corrective actions for deficient charter schools and the procedures for closing charter schools. The guide reviews the prevalent policy options and provides examples from existing state laws and practices. It also raises issues that state policymakers may want to consider when adopting or amending approaches to establishing consequences for charter school financial mismanagement. Specifically, this guide will help state policymakers consider the various policy options for defining financial conditions for state intervention, determining appropriate corrective actions for deficient schools, and establishing procedures for closing schools. The guide concludes by stating that policymakers must create appropriate oversight procedures and processes for intervention and closure that are clear, fair, and effective. (Contains 4 footnotes and a list of resources.) [This publication was written with Nina Salomon and William Schmid and produced by the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance, a collaborative effort of the Center on Educational Governance at the University of Southern California, The Finance Project, and WestEd.].
Download or read book Improving Charter School Accountability written by David Osborne and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today some 5,600 charter schools are in operation, with more than two million students. Some critics persist in a fruitless argument that these schools have failed, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. But regardless of your opinion about them, charter schools are here to stay. Those concerned about public education should quit debating whether we should have charter schools and instead focus on improving their quality. That will require us to do at least two big things. We must replicate the most successful charter models--the subject of a Progressive Policy Institute paper last year, "Going Exponential: Growing the Charter School Sector's Best"--and we must close down the worst charter schools--the subject of this report. From the beginning, the charter concept was to give schools more autonomy--freedom to hire and fire their staffs and control their own budgets and curriculum--while still holding them accountable for performance. No charter would be allowed to fail its students year after year, as traditional public schools are often permitted to do. If their students were not learning, they would close. This promise has not always been fulfilled. Hundreds of school districts have authorized charters then failed to invest in oversight. Even some statewide authorizers report that they have insufficient data to make merit-based renewal and revocation decisions. Failing charter schools are at much greater risk of closing than other failing public schools. Still, if we are to harness their true potential, many states need to heighten that risk. In its first 10 years, the charter community focused mostly on "quantity": getting charters open. Over the past ten years, it has focused increasingly on charter school "quality". Today, it is time to open a third frontier: "authorizer quality". The key to quality in the charter sector is quality authorizing. In this report the author discusses why it is so important that authorizers close failing charters, reviews the facts about charter and authorizer performance, examines why some authorizers fail to close underperforming charters, and proposes solutions to these problems. To answer such questions, the author has reviewed the literature and interviewed fifteen current or former charter authorizers and another ten experts on charter schools. In addition, thanks to the generosity of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), the author has reviewed the data accumulated by its annual surveys of authorizers. (Contains 2 figures and 83 endnotes.).
Download or read book D C charter schools strengthening monitoring and process when schools close could improve accountability and ease student transitions report to congressional committees written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Increasing State Education Agencies Processes for the Accountability of Title I Funds in the Charter School Closure Process written by Karen Lynn Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using State Education Agencies (SEAs) charter school closure documents, this paper examines the extent to which SEAs hold closing charter schools accountable for adhering to the regulatory requirements for the use of federal grant funds, specifically those funds authorized under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Federal grants management actions in the charter school closure process are juxtaposed with the administrative, logistical and organization tasks that predominate SEAs' charter school closure processes. Interviews with SEA personnel that have participated in their respective SEA's charter school closure process illustrate actions to hold closing charter schools accountable for Title I funds; thereby providing the basis for recommended actions to increase SEAs processes for the accountability of Title I funds in the charter school closure process.
Download or read book The State of Charter Schools written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Charter Schools and Accountability in Public Education written by Paul T. Hill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charter schools are among the most debated and least understood phenomena in American education today. At the heart of these matters is a contested question of accountability. To survive, charter schools must make and keep promises about what students will experience and learn under their purview. However, unlike public schools, charter schools do not rely exclusively on their relationship with school districts. They must also look to parents, teachers, and donors to cooperatively establish expectations of a particular school and its mission. Aimed toward elected officials, school reform activists, and educators, this book is the result of the first national-scale study of charter school accountability. The authors researched one hundred-fifty schools and sixty authorizing agencies in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Michigan. These states contain the majority of charter schools that have been operating for three years or more and represent the major differences in state charter school legislation. The authors include interviews from a range of participants in the field©¡from state legislators and administrators to principals, teachers, and parents. In assessing the structure of accountability as it works internally to bolster external confidence, Hill and Lake suggest the struggle of charter schools actually complements those of standards based reform. Both seek to transform public education to make schools responsible for performance, not compliance.
Download or read book Where Charter School Policy Fails written by Amy Stuart Wells and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative volume, Amy Stuart Wells and her co-authors provide evidence that the laissez-faire policies of charter school reform often exacerbate existing inequalities in our schools. Providing the most comprehensive, critical review of charter schools to date, this timely volume is based on the authors’ in-depth study of 10 urban, suburban, and rural school districts and 17 diverse charter schools in California, plus their analysis of other charter school studies from around the country. Focusing on two central issues—accountability and equity—they explore how charter school policies affect the lives of children, educators, and parents in diverse social, economic, and political contexts. The authors conclude that although the quality and experiences of charter schools is highly varied across different contexts, the laws that allow these schools to exist fail to assure meaningful accountability. Meanwhile, these policies increase inequality and stratification by pushing the educational system toward privatization in terms of finance and admissions while failing to target much-needed resources toward low-income communities. This dynamic book will help educators and policymakers develop a future policy agenda for charter school reform that will be more responsive to the needs of all children. “The authors, for the first time, make sense of the diverse and diffuse charter school ‘movement.’ They argue that the lack of support, the absence of equity provisions in state laws, and the burnout of many charter school personnel have led to the beginning of the end of this—yet another—school reform. This book provides important lessons for all who care about public education.” —Jean Anyon, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Download or read book Choices and Challenges written by Priscilla Wohlstetter and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As charter schools enter their third decade, research in this key sector remains overwhelmingly contradictory and confused. Many studies are narrowly focused; some do not meet the standards for high-quality academic research. In this definitive work, Wohlstetter and her colleagues isolate and distill the high-quality research on charter schools to identify the contextual and operational factors that influence these schools’ performances. The authors examine the track record of the charter sector in light of the wide range of goals set for these schools in state authorizing legislation—at the classroom level, the level of the school community, and system-wide. In particular, they show how the evolution of the charter movement has shaped research questions and findings. By highlighting what we know about the conditions for success in charter schools, the authors make a significant contribution to current debates in policy and practice, both within the charter sector and in the larger landscape of public education.
Download or read book Charter Schools Performance and Accountability written by Gerald Watkins Bracey and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Charter Schools Today written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Charter School Closures written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Charter School Accountability written by Chester E. Finn (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration into charter schools; what they are, who they serve, and how successful they are.
Download or read book Avoiding Accountability written by Jennifer DePaoli and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ohio's charter-closure law is touted as one of the toughest in the nation because it requires the automatic closure of charter schools that consistently fail to meet academic standards. Ohio's charter-closure law, which became effective in 2008 and was revised in 2011, calls for automatic closure of schools rated in Academic Emergency for at least two of the three most recent school years. Key Findings report: (1) Ohio law requires automatic closure of academically failing charter schools; (2) Loopholes in the closure law allow sponsors and charter management organizations (CMOs) to keep failing schools open despite orders to close; (3) Seven of 20 closed schools are still operating, with five run by the same CMOs that first opened them; and (4) An eighth school avoided mandated closure by shutting down a year early, but reopened with much of the same staff. Despite the appearance of being tough on academically failing charter schools, Ohio's automatic closure law has glaring loopholes that undermine its effectiveness and the overall quality of its charter schools. Policy Matters Ohio's investigation shows that Ohio's charter-closure law is at best a superficial attempt to close poorly performing schools and improve Ohio's charter sector; by failing to set firm consequences for sponsors and CMOs, the law only succeeds in punishing students. Ultimately, responsibility lies with Ohio policymakers for refusing to hold sponsors and CMOs accountable for the academic failures of their schools. This report offers recommendations for the overhaul of Ohio charter school law to increase standards for more effective sponsor oversight of management-school board relationships. [For the Full Report, see ED573584.].
Download or read book Charter High Schools written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book No Child Left Behind written by Paul E. Peterson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003-11-18 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act is the most important legislation in American education since the 1960s. The law requires states to put into place a set of standards together with a comprehensive testing plan designed to ensure these standards are met. Students at schools that fail to meet those standards may leave for other schools, and schools not progressing adequately become subject to reorganization. The significance of the law lies less with federal dollar contributions than with the direction it gives to federal, state, and local school spending. It helps codify the movement toward common standards and school accountability. Yet NCLB will not transform American schools overnight. The first scholarly assessment of the new legislation, No Child Left Behind? breaks new ground in the ongoing debate over accountability. Contributors examine the law's origins, the political and social forces that gave it shape, the potential issues that will surface with its implementation, and finally, the law's likely consequences for American education.
Download or read book Charter School Operations and Performance written by Ron Zimmer and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 1999-06-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes an array of issues pertaining to accessibility, student achievement, governance, and operation of charter schools in California. Four specific research questions were investigated: (1) What population of students attends charter schools? (2) Is student achievement higher in charter schools than in conventional public schools? (3) What oversight and support do the chartering authorities provide? (4) How do charter schools differ from their conventional public school counterparts in terms of their operation, including finances, academic achievement, and staffing?
Download or read book Winston Charter School written by Rebecca Susan Pitkin and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charter schools are a growing force within the school choice movement. Charter school law provides charter schools the freedom to innovate and maintain increased autonomy as long as internal and external accountability mandates are being met. Despite the growing popularity of charter schools, little is known about charter schools in high stakes testing states and the way they negotiate the intersection of external accountability mandates and internal school mission. This qualitative case study examines a charter school for diverse students in an urban setting. The study describes the practices teachers and the head of school engage in to fulfill the school's mission of preparing all students for college using a rigorous curriculum integrated with an intensive service-learning component. Charter School Accountability Theory provided the framework for data collection, observations, finding, and implications. Findings indicate that charter schools in high stakes testing states negotiate the intersection of internal and external accountability mandates by utilizing state standards as a foundation for school curriculum. Charter school stakeholders must choose innovations that are compatible with external accountability mandates, and autonomy exists in the ways schools negotiate the best path to meeting the mandates. Charter school autonomy is constrained by external mandates, especially in high stakes testing states. Developing internal accountability is a challenge for charter schools as external mandates are already in place, and alignment with them is necessary for charter schools, especially those in high stakes testing states.
