Download or read book Supporting Charter School Excellence Through Quality Authorizing written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Supporting Charter School Excellence Through Quality Authorizing written by United States. Department of Education. Office of Innovation and Improvement and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Supporting Charter School Excellence Through Quality Authorizing written by Department of Education, Washington, DC. and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most policymakers, charter school operators, and others immersed in the charter school movement since it began in the early 1990s have focused their attention primarily on charter schools, not on the public bodies that license these schools to operate. As the charter school movement has grown, there has been increasing recognition that effective charter school authorizing is critical to the success of the charter school sector. Charter school authorizers are entities charged by law to approve new schools, monitor their compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and evaluate their performance to make decisions about charter renewal and closure. The role of charter authorizers has become particularly important in the context of increasing accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Intended primarily for policymakers and charter school authorizers and potential authorizers, this guide describes various ways that authorizers and policymakers can achieve quality authorizing. It provides detailed information designed to help policymakers at the state and national levels and to help current and potential authorizers replicate these successful models and practices. In order to provide specific illustrations of abstract concepts involved in successful charter authorizing, this guide highlights the practices of eight charter authorizers that have fostered the development of high-quality charter schools. Part 1 of this guide describes the common practices of the eight charter authorizers profiled here. This guide describes how effective authorizers: build a strong organization; develop a strong talent pool; select for quality; support new school operators; provide meaningful and transparent oversight; and hold schools accountable for meeting performance goals. Part II describes the kinds of policy factors that can either support or hinder quality charter authorizing practices. Part III offers profiles of each of the eight authorizers that are highlighted throughout Parts I and II. The profiles cover the history of each of these authorizers and provide more detail on the contexts in which they operate. Appended is the research methodology and a list of resources of organizations, Web sites, essays, and research studies that address elements of successful authorizing and oversight of charter schools. (Contains 16 figures and 2 tables.) [This document was also prepared by Public Impact.].
Download or read book Principles Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing 2012 Edition written by National Association of Charter School Authorizers and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charter school authorizing is a powerful strategy for making excellent public schools and educational opportunities available to all students. Done well, charter authorizing increases student achievement by expanding the supply of quality public schools to satisfy unmet needs--particularly by providing life-changing opportunities for students ill-served by the existing school system. Charter authorizing is complex work, requiring constant balancing of diverse and often competing interests. It is a public responsibility for authorizing institutions, as well as a highly developed profession for the individuals charged with this stewardship role. Quality authorizing requires specialized knowledge, skills, commitment, and adherence to essential professional standards in order to serve students and the public well, and achieve the purposes of state charter laws. Since 2004, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has established and widely promoted such standards--the first "Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing" and subsequent editions--to provide essential guidance to charter authorizing organizations and leaders, as well as to policymakers who seek to support quality authorizing. Because charter authorizing is a continually developing profession, these professional standards must likewise continually evolve in conjunction with the growth and complexity of the ever-growing charter school sector. "Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing" derives from NACSA's vast experience, research, and lessons learned from working with authorizers across the nation. Accordingly, NACSA revisits and updates these Principles and Standards regularly to ensure that they address current authorizing challenges and reflect the latest lessons drawn from practice, research, and analysis. These Principles and Standards are designed primarily for authorizing institutions, and as such, they provide practical guidance to help authorizer staff and authorizer board members carry out their work as a standards-based profession rather than simply a list of tasks. For policymakers, this publication should highlight the complexity and challenges of quality authorizing--and the need for state policy to contemplate and invest adequately in authorizing to achieve a quality charter school sector. (Contains 13 endnotes.).
Download or read book Achieving Excellence at Scale written by Laura Bloomberg and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In communities nationwide, public charter schools are meeting the growing demand for high-quality education opportunities. This is especially true in communities with underperforming public district schools that are not meeting the academic needs of students, including poor and minority students. Forty states and the District of Columbia have laws allowing for fiscally independent, tuition-free charter schools that operate under a performance contract. Today more than 1.2 million students attend the more than 4,300 charter schools established since the first state charter law was enacted in 1991. Yet many students and their families are denied access to quality charter school options because of limits placed on the development of new charter schools or expansion of existing high-performing charter schools. While not every charter school is successful, the charter movement has produced several outstanding schools that consistently demonstrate high levels of academic growth and success for all their students, regardless of race or family income. Given these exemplary models and the increased demand for high-performing charter schools, many state policymakers want to accelerate the replication of such schools. Achieving excellence at scale requires states to pursue strategies that promote growth (i.e., expansion or replication) among charters with a track record of success. Governors and policymakers seeking to increase the number of high-performing charter schools can: (1) Define charter school quality to guide charter school expansion; (2) Streamline reporting, renewal, and governance requirements for high-performing charter schools; (3) Create at least one statewide authorizing body to facilitate outstanding charter school expansion; (4) Ensure greater parity of funding between charter schools and district public schools; and (5) Support charter schools' access to adequate facilities. A section titled Charter School Expansion Basics is appended. (Contains 41 endnotes.).
Download or read book Differentiated Charter Authorizing Strategies for Innovation Scale and Quality Viewpoint written by Tom Vander Ark and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is time to rethink charter school authorization. There are approximately 5,000 charter schools in the United States (about 5 percent of schools) and a push from parents and the Department of Education for more. Given that many charters authorized during the initial wave of charter applications have not proven themselves to be any better than traditional public schools, there have been efforts to tighten up authorizing. In an effort to screen out weak proposals and applicants, the application process has become much longer (i.e., 18-24 months), more demanding, less flexible, and more bureaucratic. As a consequence, students' access to innovative and high-quality options for education is being limited. Charter authorizing is a critical function and will increasingly shape public education in the United States. At the beginning of 2010, there were 872 authorizers including state education authorities, school districts, universities, nonprofit organizations, and two municipalities. The recommendations of this paper are most relevant to the 70 authorizers with more than 10 charter schools and a statewide scope. The 20 state charter offices in that category employ an average of 2.7 staff members. This paper recommends expanded as well as differentiated authorizing capacity for the maturing charter school sector. State education policymakers (legislatures and state boards) should consider six distinct authorizing pathways with associated capacity. These are: (1) Standard. An updated authorizing process should focus on qualified first-time applicants proposing a single school based on a proven school model with demonstrated community support; (2) High Performing. A short-form application with quick turnaround should be available for operators of two or more high-performing schools; (3) Innovation. Qualified applicants with a strong hypothesis should be able to seek conditional approval for innovative school models that incorporate novel assessment systems, performance-based progress, unique staffing and compensation models, distributed learning, blended institutions, and/or year-round learning. State commissioners could modify criteria to target specific reforms, populations, or geographies; (4) Online. Reflecting the Internet's ability to cross municipal and state borders, virtual and blended operators should have the ability to enroll students statewide and/or across a multi-state region under a reciprocal charter agreement; (5) Turnaround. School improvement providers should be invited to propose in a two-step process that would result in a list of preapproved vendors that are subsequently matched with turnaround or restart opportunities; and (6) Conversion. The conversion of a high-performing public or private school to charter status warrants special consideration. Conversions warrant a statewide (non-district) authorizer to ensure real charter status and treatment. This monograph is intended to promote discussion about emerging issues. It does not reflect adopted positions of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). It includes the author's personal opinions and anecdotes about charter school authorizing. (Contains 4 endnotes.).
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 Principles Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing written by National Association of Charter School Authorizers and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Education Unbound written by Frederick M. Hess and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if it's the system that's the problem? What if the key to breakthrough school improvement is not mandating new solutions built on an elusive combination of the right standards, pedagogy, and assessments but removing entrenched bureaucratic barriers and rethinking restrictive norms and routines? What if we were free to start from scratch? This is the greenfield reform strategy: Create an environment that invites new solutions to surface and provide the infrastructure necessary for them to succeed. In Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling, Frederick M. Hess advocates for an entrepreneurial approach focused on supporting outstanding teaching and learning. Sharing the examples of organizations whose bold alternative strategies represent promising shifts in K-12 education, Hess builds a case for * School systems marked by data on performance and productivity and compelled to compete on cost and quality. * Personnel policies designed to attract, retain, and reward teachers and leaders committed to excellence. * Education funding configured to support new ventures and foster creative problem solving. The goal, Hess argues, ought not to be the creation of a new "best" system but schools capable of evolving with the students and society they serve. Education Unbound is a catalyst for conversation and change and a must-read for practitioners, policymakers, would-be education entrepreneurs, and anyone committed to school excellence and the next steps in education reform.
Download or read book Navigating Special Education in Charter Schools Part II written by Lauren Morando Rhim and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What ought authorizers do to ensure that the charter schools they approve provide a quality education to students with disabilities who enroll in their school? That is the question many authorizers wrestle with as they strive to strike a balance between fulfilling their responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) while providing the autonomy that is central to the charter school ideal. As the gatekeepers monitoring entrance to the charter sector and, thereafter, the groundskeepers responsible for ensuring the maintenance of quality programs, authorizers are charged with making certain that applicants demonstrate the capacity to operate a quality school and then holding them accountable for doing so. Consequently, authorizers are uniquely positioned to ensure that charter school operators can adequately address the challenges associated with providing quality special education programs. This Issue Brief is the second in a two-part series on navigating special education in the charter sector. The first brief introduced the key constructs underlying the provision of special education in charter schools and identified strategies charter schools are using to build capacity to provide special education and related services. This installment, based on a decade of research on special education in the charter sector, outlines tangible steps authorizers can take to assess applicants' ability to meet special education obligations, support the development of special education capacity in charter schools and hold charter schools accountable for delivering quality special education programs. (Contains 4 resources.) [For "Navigating Special Education in Charter Schools Part I: Understanding Legal Roles and Responsibilities. Authorizing Matters. Issue Brief," see ED539289.].
Download or read book Success and Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and the Workforce and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book GOOD to GOVERN written by Marci Cornell-Feist and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the board that selects, supports, and terminates when necessary, the school leader. It is the board that ensures that the school is operationally and financially viable. It is the board that partners with the school leader to define academic excellence and then holds the bar high insisting that the school delivers. An authorizer's success in creating quality public schools hinges upon knowing who you are giving the charter to, making sure that they are prepared to govern effectively, and ultimately holding them accountable for the performance of the school. Therefore, successful authorizing must place a great deal of stock in vetting, probing, and orienting the founding board. This Issue Brief identifies some of the key characteristics and qualities of effective charter school founding boards and offers concrete suggestions about how the charter school authorizing process can set boards up for success from the very beginning. Boards that get it right from the outset are likely to deliver on the academic promises outlined in their charters. Boards that start out on the wrong foot are almost certain not to deliver the academic excellence their students deserve. (Contains 2 endnotes.).
Download or read book Promoting Charter School Accountability Through Authorizer Quality written by Molly McGraw and published by . This book was released on 2009* with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Charter School Principal s Story written by Barbara Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when a Canadian principal, guided by the teachings of Fullan and Hargreaves, takes on the role of school leader in an inner-city charter school in the United States? This inside story of a principal in the DC charter school system, reveals much about the desire for educators and students to experience more than a life of multiple-choice testing that tends to be so commonplace in these schools. While such a case adds to the mound of research that supports the ‘change takes time’ findings, it nevertheless demonstrates the reality, on a day-to-day basis, of what’s worth fighting for in schools. Student and teacher engagement and empowerment matter, and to get to such ends, a school must fiercely focus on targets well beyond test scores. This book speaks about how a budget reveals school values, and by shifting resources to support staff and student development, a school, coping with regular turnover, can be filled with more confident and capable community members. A school crawling with leaders emerged as more student, teacher and non-instructional staff were supported in new roles, aimed at building an inspired culture, with the talent and capacity to move others to action. The old ways of ‘doing school’ do not address the needs of the 21st century learner, and while many forces with limited views of education were at play, this story does provide an example of what promising things can and should happen to increase engagement and learning in more charter schools across America. “Dr. Barbara Smith’s narrative of her times in public charter schools offers all of us insights into the struggle to create schools of high academic quality and compassionate care, worthy of her educational mandate and mission.” – David Booth, Professor Emeritus, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto “Dr. Smith’s message inspires me to be an advocate for education and her work will inspire you as well!” – Jalen Rose, Chair of Board of Directors, Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, Detroit, Michigan, ESPN Commentator “This inside look provides an opportunity for innovation in a field that has held to aging standards for far too long!” – Diane C. Manica, Former Director, Leadership and Accreditation, University of Detroit Mercy
Download or read book An Exploratory Multiple Case Study of the Western United States Charter School Authorizer written by Shaloma Alynca Gray and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The practices and characteristics of charter school authorizers are not well understood, but these entities are responsible for the approval and revocation of charter schools. The phenomena behind the closure of charter schools in relation to charter school authorizers have not been addressed through an exploratory qualitative case study. The purpose of this qualitative, exploratory case study was to examine the policies and practices of six charter school authorizers located in the Western United States to understand the differences in policies and practices that either inhibited or enhanced the success of each charter school. Quality authorizing theory, the NASCA standards for quality charter schools, Total Quality Management, and board governance constructs provided the conceptual framework for this study. A list of charter school authorizers with the highest number of school closures, as well as authorizers with the lowest number of school closures was obtained for analysis. Data collection consisted of interviews with reputable charter school leaders. Additionally, minutes of board meetings, board policies and procedures, and field notes were also used to explore the policy environment. Research literature and press articles were also reviewed concerning charter authorizers and their connection with charter school closures, quality authorization, and management practices. The findings revealed that the charter authorizer0́9s policy environment can contribute to the success of charter schools. The transparency of authorizer policies and practices provides insight to help charter operators develop policies and procedures that coincide with the authorizers0́9 oversight.
Download or read book Improving Charter School Leadership NGA Center for Best Practices Issue Brief written by National Governors' Association, Washington, DC. Center for Best Pactices and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the quality of a school's teachers, the quality of a school's leaders is the most influential school-based factor affecting student learning, and research indicates that leadership impacts student achievement the most in academic settings serving students who traditionally have not done well in school. In an effort to provide high-quality K-12 education options, particularly for the many students across the country who attend low-performing schools, governors and other state policymakers are looking to alternative approaches, such as charter schools, to maximize investments in public education. Forty states and the District of Columbia have laws that allow for fiscally independent, tuition-free charter schools that operate under a performance contract. As the number of students attending these schools continues to rise, state leaders have a growing interest in ensuring that this education sector is well-equipped to meet the goals of improving student achievement, especially for low-income and minority families who have been underserved by the traditional education system. Without strong leaders, charter schools will not be well-positioned to meet their promise of raising student achievement. Strong charter school leaders are necessary to establish and achieve a clear school mission; to recruit, develop, and retain effective educators; and to provide teachers the leadership support they need to deliver high-quality instruction. Governors and policymakers interested in expanding and strengthening their respective charter school options will need to consider what policy levers to use to increase the supply and quality of charter school leaders. Six strategies are discussed: (1) Support new and existing university-based charter school leadership training programs and partnerships and nontraditional providers; (2) Help secure funding for charter leadership programs by soliciting private support or using federal funding; (3) Enhance charter school directors' ability to hire qualified teachers by allowing charter schools or programs to run their own teacher training programs; (4) Increase directors' ability to attract and retain effective staff by offering state benefits for charter school teachers; (5) Provide ongoing and relevant professional development for school directors across the district and charter school sectors; and (6) Encourage and support charter board member training. (Contains 41 endnotes.).
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:
