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Almost immediately after schools closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in spring 2020, we began to see anecdotal evidence that charter schools were reacting quickly and serving students well. This paper offers evidence that smaller networks and schools that represent over 65% of the charter school landscape were able to respond quickly and take advantage of the freedom and flexibility that are built into the charter school model to respond to families. Vignettes in this report highlight some of the charter school leaders who exemplify the very best of resourcefulness. These profiles of a geographically and racially diverse group of schools include stories from communities in New York and Washington state that were at the epicenter of COVID-19 infection, as well as schools in other communities that were affected differently. Before the coronavirus struck, public charter schools were already innovative, finding better ways to serve students who have traditionally been underserved--and delivering exceptional results. In the months and years ahead, we will learn more about how public schools responded to closures during the pandemic and what should be done in the future to better serve students who were all impacted in some way.

This is the third and last paper in a series published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact, highlighting the experiences of school leaders in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders' experiences and racial identities inform and influence their practice. Many practices of good leadership are universal, but an individual's identity can shape how they approach situations and inspire new and innovative practices. This report includes the profiles of two leaders--Kathleen "Kathy" Wang of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Massachusetts, and Maurice Thomas of Milwaukee Excellence Charter School in Wisconsin. Both leaders have found the value of building a strong school culture to ensure that students feel accepted, respected, and supported at school--which in turn leads to high performance academically. [For the second report in this series, see "Identity and Charter School Leadership. Profiles of Leaders of Color: Engaging Families" (ED600929).]

This is the second in a series of reports to be published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact highlighting the experiences of school leaders of color in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders' experiences and racial identities inform and influence their practice. While many practices of good leadership are universal, an individual's identity shapes how they approach situations and can inspire new and innovative practices. The report includes the profiles of three leaders of color--Maquita Alexander of Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., Freddy Delgado is superintendent/principal at Amigos Por Vida Charter School in Houston, Texas, and Kriste Dragon of Citizens of the World Charter Schools, a network of public charter schools with locations in Los Angeles, California, and Kansas City, Missouri. Each of these leaders shared the belief that their school should engage families as genuine and active partners in their children's education and the report identifies the concrete steps they took to put that belief into practice. [For the first report in this series, see "Identity and Charter School Leadership. Profiles of Leaders of Color: Building an Effective Staff" (ED600846).]

This is the first in a series of reports to be published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact highlighting the experiences of school leaders of color in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders' experiences and racial identities inform and influence their practice. While many practices of good leadership are universal, an individual's identity shapes how they approach situations and can inspire new and innovative practices. The report includes the profiles of three leaders of color--Frances Teso of Voices College-Bound Language Academies, in California, Eric Sanchez of Henderson Collegiate, in North Carolina, and Jamar McKneely of InspireNOLA in New Orleans--and shares how they recruit, train, and support their teachers.

The first IDEA Public Schools' campus opened in 2000, just miles from the US-Mexico border in Donna, Texas. Fast-forward nearly two decades, and 79 IDEA public charter schools serve approximately 45,000 students across six regions, and those students consistently outperform their peers statewide on a range of metrics from proficiency to graduation and college enrollment (see Figure 1, page 2). Moreover, IDEA's leadership team and board have no intention of slowing down. Plans are underway to enroll 100,000 students by 2022--which would make it one of the five largest school districts in Texas. And IDEA has bigger plans as well; it aims to one day serve one million students as the country's largest school district. IDEA's experience shows how several strategies can work in the charter sector, including: (1) Have or bring on board top leaders who commit to growth; (2) Develop systems for scale when needed to manage more customers and employees, including information technology, human resources, finance, and key operational systems; (3) Tackle talent scarcity quickly and creatively; (4) Invest in innovation to pursue excellence and growth; and (5) Generate money to expand by producing cash flow from positive operating margins and continued revenue growth, and then invest in growth essentials. This report details each of these components of IDEA's approach, describes IDEA's culture of continuous improvement, provides considerations for future growth, and shares lessons for the field.

When the first virtual school began more than 20 years ago, it offered an incredible promise: Suddenly, students could get access to a great education and a diversity of courses regardless of place or time. They could have flexibility to "attend" school around medical appointments, sports practices, or whatever else life threw at them. Outside of schoolhouse walls, students could have a more personalized learning experience, pursuing their interests and speeding up or slowing down as needed. This report draws on the experience of two virtual charter schools that are making online schooling work for their students--Idaho Distance Education Academy and New Hampshire's Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. Through their examples, this report highlights lessons learned for other online operators and policymakers who are eager to make virtual school success the rule, rather than the exception.

In 2011, some of Charlotte's leading private and corporate foundations formed a partnership with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to implement innovative school turnaround interventions affecting use of talent, time, and technology, and engaging parents and communities at West Charlotte High School and its feeder elementary and middle schools. In this report, Public Impact provides an overview of the Project L.I.F.T. strategy and reflects on successes, challenges, and lessons from the initiative. Though L.I.F.T. fell short of its very lofty and highly publicized goals, its legacy includes the launch of Opportunity Culture in district schools and significant insights about how private foundations can work with public school districts to implement innovative ideas that help turn around low-performing schools. [This report was made possible through the generous support of Project L.I.F.T.]

While the charter sector has much to celebrate, the country can do more to put great schools--including excellent charters--within reach for our most vulnerable students. Students with disabilities represent one such group. The best solutions start by partnering with the parent groups that advocate for students with disabilities, and have been doing so for decades. As partners, charter school champions and organizations working with parents of children with disabilities can collectively improve outcomes for students with disabilities, create better school options for them, and advocate for better policies. This call to action for charter champions to launch and deepen their partnerships with parent advocates explains how they are "better together"--why such partnerships are needed, the forms they might take from partnerships highlighted in Washington, DC, New York City, and Los Angeles, and how to get started.

As districts across the country search for ways to turn around their lowest-performing schools, a growing number are partnering with external providers--often charter operators--to implement "restarts." These providers receive operational autonomy and bring their own approach to schooling, positioning them to implement deep and meaningful changes. The school continues to serve the same community, and the provider contractually commits to raising student performance outcomes. Restarts are appealing, but do they deliver on their promise? This report draws on data from four restarts in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) to identify successes and lessons learned for the field. The report analyzes how enrollment, demographic, and student performance data changed at the restarts over time, and how those changes compared to other low-performing IPS schools in which the district was making significant improvement efforts. The research team also interviewed representatives from the district, restart operators, and The Mind Trust, a local education organization that played a key role in developing the Innovation Schools framework under which restarts operate. These interviews furthered the research team's understanding of the processes, challenges, and opportunities that restarts offer.

The public charter school movement is premised on the exchange of increased autonomy for increased accountability. Individual schools are given more flexibility in their actions, and then must meet agreed-upon benchmarks of quality. If a school fails to fulfill the terms of its charter or achieve its stated goals, it can be closed. However, charter schools that are identified for closure do not always shut their doors. Even as charter school authorizers have become more adept at evaluating school performance and enforcing accountability, some schools have tried to avoid closure altogether. One way that schools evade closure is through authorizer shopping: when a struggling school transfers to a new authorizer to avoid accountability. Experience shows that authorizer shopping is a threat to a state's overall charter school quality if even one authorizer is willing and able to accept failing schools. This report discusses the problem of authorizer shopping, and offers recommendations on how to prevent it.

This report provides a case study of two authorizers--Denver Public Schools and the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public Charter School Board--both with strong outcomes in many areas and a high or growing charter enrollment. For each, it summarizes how their approach to authorizing has shaped the way they address the issues that arise as charter enrollment grows. It describes how that approach has helped them address specific access challenges. It also identifies the issues on the horizon that will need attention. The case studies that follow draw on nearly a dozen interviews that included authorizers, charter operators, and city-based education organizations and experts in Washington, D.C. and Denver. Although this report includes two cases, it does not compare and contrast the authorizers' methods to draw comprehensive conclusions as to which methods are best. In part, these issues--and authorizers' responses to them--are still relatively new and the long-term impact unclear. [For the executive summary, see ED591850].

The executive summary a case study of two authorizers--Denver Public Schools and the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public Charter School Board--both with strong outcomes in many areas and a high or growing charter enrollment. For each, it summarizes how their approach to authorizing has shaped the way they address the issues that arise as charter enrollment grows. It describes how that approach has helped them address specific access challenges. It also identifies the issues on the horizon that will need attention. The case studies that follow draw on nearly a dozen interviews that included authorizers, charter operators, and city-based education organizations and experts in Washington, D.C. and Denver. Although this report includes two cases, it does not compare and contrast the authorizers' methods to draw comprehensive conclusions as to which methods are best. In part, these issues--and authorizers' responses to them--are still relatively new and the long-term impact unclear [For the full report, see ED591851.]

In the past quarter-century, charter schools have grown from a ragtag insurgency into a serious force in American K-12 education, serving as the public education provider for nearly three million children across the country. But this nationwide growth has spread unevenly across U.S. cities. In most places, urban districts have successfully contained the charter insurgents, keeping them marginal and maintaining district preeminence--if not hegemony. In a small but growing number of cities, however, the charter sector has thrived and become a more serious contender for market share and educational power, too large for the prevailing power to ignore. "Engagement" of some kind has become necessary. But what form does that engagement take? To find out, this report examines district-charter engagement in five cities--Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, and Washington, D.C.--in pursuit of three questions: (1) How are districts engaging charters? (2) Why do districts choose to engage charters? and (3) Is engagement resulting in improvement? [Foreword by Amber N. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli.]

Principals are vitally important. But ever-rising accountability standards, limited authority over key decisions, and mediocre pay make the job more and more demanding and less and less attractive to talented leaders. At a time when schools need high-quality leaders more than ever, the grueling nature of the job makes it a tough sell, and principals tend to come and go. But are school systems doing all they can to meet these challenges head-on? Or are some making a difficult recruitment and selection job impossible, through bureaucratic procedures, unrealistic calendars, too little outreach, and inappropriate placements? How can districts hire many more talented leaders and place them where they're most needed? This report unveils some of the mystery behind principal hiring by taking an in-depth look at practices in five urban districts. To do this, the authors interviewed district staff and newly hired principals, surveyed principal candidates, and analyzed a range of qualitative and quantitative data related to districts' hiring practices. The authors offer six recommendations to any district looking to improve their recruiting procedures: (1) Make the job a lot more appealing; (2) Pay great leaders what they are worth; (3) Take an active approach to principal recruitment; (4) Evaluate candidates against the competencies and skills that successful principals are known to possess; (5) Design the placement process to match schools' needs with candidates' strengths; and (6) Continually evaluate hiring efforts. An appendix presents the methodology used in this study. [The foreword to this report was written by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Amber M. Northern.]

Teachers need career pathways that provide new challenges and sustained opportunities for leadership without leaving the classroom. Better opportunities for leadership and innovative pathways help to increase the retention of strong teachers. Although few such programs existed several years ago, a growing number of states, districts, charter schools, and other organizations have recently introduced some kind of teacher-leader program. The author's research aimed to identify successful teacher-leader programs. To do so, she first examined cross-sector research (e.g., business and medicine) that identified strategies for leadership programs that aim to increase the retention of high-performing employees. She then scanned dozens of teacher-leader programs and identified programs with some evidence of a positive impact. Because so many of these models are new, however, little research or documentation exists to demonstrate their effectiveness. Her search identified only five programs with some evidence of success, such as increasing student achievement or teacher retention. Although these programs are not exemplars, they offer valuable lessons learned for developing teacher-leader systems. In this brief, Doyle overviews the cross-sector research related to leadership programs, outlines four best practices from existing teacher-leader programs, and provides next steps for state leaders interested in implementing a teacher-leader system. Throughout, she highlights different programs and strategies that have had some success in the field.

Teacher residency programs are a relatively new method for building stronger teacher pipelines. Research assessing the impact of these programs is still limited, but some early reports suggest that residency programs hold promise for improving teacher effectiveness and retention rates (Barrett, Hovde, Hahn, & Rosqueta, 2011; Papay, West, Fullerton, & Kane, 2011). Lacking comprehensive information on program performance, the authors used quality benchmarks established by experts in the field to identify 14 teacher residency programs for review. Districts or nonprofit organizations administer 10 of the programs, and universities administer the remaining four programs. Based on their review of these programs, the authors offer considerations and examples to states and districts that are interested in establishing a high-quality teacher residency program.

Charter school boards enter into a critical bargain: autonomy for accountability. Compared with their traditional district counterparts, they operate with relative freedom in curriculum, hiring, budgeting, and other operational decisions. In exchange, they are held accountable for student performance in ways that traditional district schools are not: If they fail to meet the expectations set in their charter, they may be closed. Closing a school--which dissolves the charter and charter organization, liquidates its assets, and requires that students reenroll elsewhere--can be a difficult choice, especially when the students have few or no high-quality school options available. Closing the charter could result in sending students to schools that may be only marginally better, or sometimes even worse. The sector needs a pathway to create high-quality seats for these students while still holding the adults in the building accountable for low performance. This report explores a variation on school closure--charter school "restarts." Charter school restarts represent a relatively new strategy for intervening in charter schools when performance does not meet expectations--not just as a last-ditch effort to avoid closure, but as a proactive strategy that responsible boards and authorizers can initiate when the conditions are right. This report: (1) takes a closer look at how restarts fit within the larger context of charter school quality and accountability, and when a restart might be a viable option for charter authorizers and boards to pursue; (2) describes how charter restarts have played out at five schools--Henry Ford Academy: Power House High in Chicago; Harriet Tubman in New Orleans; Paul Robeson in Trenton, New Jersey; Harlem Day in New York; and Hardy Williams in Philadelphia. These examples draw on more than a dozen interviews with current and former charter operators, board members, and authorizers to identify trends, decision points, and lessons learned; and (3) offers recommendations for board members and charter authorizers interested in pursuing a restart strategy, drawing on lessons learned from the school profiles and discussions with leaders in the field.

When the Connecticut State Department of Education published its first district report cards in 2003, it was obvious that the Hartford Public Schools district was struggling. Fewer than half of its students were proficient on the state reading exam. Math performance was better, but 63 percent of 10th-graders and 43 percent of younger students failed to meet proficiency benchmarks. Compared with the state, Hartford looked even worse; its proficiency rates trailed by as many as 39 percentage points. The arrival of Steven Adamowski as district superintendent in 2006 began a new chapter at Hartford Public Schools (HPS). Within months, Adamowski introduced a plan to improve the quality of a Hartford education. The first pillar was school choice, allowing students' families to choose the schools their children would attend. The second pillar was Managed Performance Empowerment (MPE), giving schools the autonomy and accountability to promote high performance. Critical to both pillars was a new school funding model that allocates funding according to student enrollment and need: student-based budgeting. Student-based budgeting (SBB) allocates school funding based on the number of students schools enroll and the needs of those students. Through SBB, district leaders sought to accomplish three goals: (1) increase funding equity; (2) improve budgeting and accountability; and (3) increase transparency, all in an effort to improve student performance. Now, three years later, is SBB meeting these goals? This report seeks to answer that question by analyzing six years of budget data and through interviews with Hartford principals running schools both before and after SBB implementation. Using these data, the authors evaluate the progress the district has made in implementing SBB. In so doing, the report considers four research questions: (1) Has SBB changed the amount of funding individual schools receive?; (2) Has the allocation of school funding become more equitable, both in providing schools with the same amount of funding for students with the same characteristics, and in allocating more funding for students with greater need?; (3) Has SBB increased principals' sense of accountability at the school level?; and (4) Has SBB brought greater transparency to the district's funding process? Appended are: (1) A Transition Plan for SBB in Hartford; and (2) Methodology. (Contains 9 figures, 3 tables, and 25 notes.) [Funding for this paper was provided by H. A. Vance Foundation.]

This report highlights 10 of the most advanced and talked-about teacher evaluation systems nationally: Delaware; Rhode Island; Tennessee; Hillsborough County, Florida; Houston, Texas; New Haven, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, DC (referred to throughout just as Washington); Achievement First (a charter management organization, or CMO); and the Relay Graduate School of Education in New York City. Together, these systems serve more than 1.6 million students each year. These are not the only systems taking on this work, but they are trailblazers. None of the sites featured would say they have fully "figured out" teacher evaluation. Nor do the authors hold them up as examples of perfection. Yet they have all worked long and hard to carefully and thoughtfully tackle the most difficult challenges related to developing and implementing a high-quality teacher evaluation system. This report consists of four components: (1) A brief which provides an overview of the report and background on the topics addressed in the other documents, including key questions, implementation options and trade-offs, and key terms; (2) A cross-site analysis that looks across all 10 sites and summarizes key components of their evaluation systems; (3) 10 detailed profiles of the teacher evaluation systems at our featured sites; and (4) A library of documents that are the building blocks of the 10 systems. Individual site profiles contain sources. (Contains 36 footnotes.) [This paper was created with 50CAN and Public Impact. Funding for this paper was provided by H. A. Vance Foundation.]

Despite the growing role of nontraditional providers and school operators, many school districts remain reticent, if not resolutely opposed, to turning over schools or even school functions like human resources to outside providers. Limiting the use of nontraditional providers, especially those with demonstrated effectiveness, hampers a district's ability to supplement or substitute existing school services and bars schools from reaping the potential gains in faculty productivity, student outcomes, and cost-effectiveness. Given today's tight budgets and shrinking staffs, this is a problematic state of affairs. It is especially so when it comes to school turnarounds, when many districts are struggling to deliver performance on their own but are also hesitant to farm matters out to an external provider--especially to those who may have limited skin in the game or those who may have thin records of success. In this report, the authors point out that uncertain results, political dangers, and unmapped responsibilities make the risk of partnering with new providers simply too great for many districts to take on. To address these challenges, they suggest a variety of performance guarantees such as warranties, bonds, and contracts that can be adapted for the case of nontraditional education providers. These tools can help spread risk and thereby facilitate partnerships as they have done in other sectors. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures and 18 endnotes.)

Thirty years ago, the Connecticut Supreme Court forced our state to take stock of its system for funding schools. Our poorest towns had thousands of dollars less per child to spend. Today, our poorest districts spend roughly the same as our richest, but Connecticut's poor children still score far below their wealthy peers. Our school finance system has begun to resemble a closed-door silent auction: legislators clamor for more education funds for their constituents. District costs rise each year, keeping central office administrators and mayors on edge. Formulas are ignored while backroom budget negotiations layer on more funds for districts with the loudest voices. This is not conspiracy theory; it happens every year in Connecticut. The tab for our K-12 school system is Connecticut's largest public investment at more than $7 billion per year. But we have created a tangle of funding that disguises how money flows and does little to produce dramatic gains for children who need them. We have been taught to believe that increased spending will lead to better schools, but our finance system is completely disconnected from what will improve student achievement. We need to connect money with achievement and inputs with outputs. Just as our schools should prioritize student achievement above all else, our finance system should incentivize practices that produce learning and operate with enough transparency that policymakers can determine what works and what doesn't. Creating a better system will require major reform. This report assesses the current state of our school finance system, outlines the principles of a more effective approach, and proposes detailed solutions, including the costs of those solutions and a transition plan for implementation. Three clear, practical recommendations stand out that are ready to begin a journey through the state's policymaking process: (1) Revamp the state's funding formula so that money follows children based on their needs; (2) Shine a bright light on education finance by creating a comprehensive and easily accessible data system on school funding; and (3) Remove fiscal barriers that stand in the way of creating great schools for everyone. Although Connecticut faces daunting educational challenges, these commonsense reforms can make our state a national leader once again. Data Sources and Methodology are appended. (Contains 4 tables, 5 figures and 79 footnotes.) [Foreword by Alex Johnston. Introduction by Tori Truscheit. This paper was published in partnership with Public Impact.