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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been a catalyst for transformation in K-12 through initiatives, including diversifying teaching pipelines, starting new schools, and establishing programs designed to meet the aspirations of students far away from quality opportunities. HBCUs and their alumni have played powerful roles in K-12 public education, including charter schools. Alumni are leading outstanding charter learning institutions with exceptional student outcomes, and some HBCUs have partnered with charter schools in effective ways including integrating charter schools on their campuses. This arrangement provides students with a unique experience in which they are introduced to the promise and prestige of higher education earlier in their educational journey. Utilizing that expertise and record of achievement is especially important now. America's public schools lag behind those of our international competitors, both in terms of student attainment and educational equity. The lasting influences of a global pandemic, particularly for lower-income students and students of color, have magnified the challenges of our outdated K-12 system -- one that was not working well for many students even before COVID-19. This report examines the potential for HBCUs to make high-stakes decisions about who is able to start new public schools, what outcomes those schools should meet, and what to do when adults fail students.

As students and communities emerge from the ravages of a global pandemic, authorizing faces a key challenge: embracing its fundamental role of providing high-quality educational opportunities, while evolving to meet new demands and expectations, especially those created by the pandemic. How it navigates this tension will impact millions of students and families. This brief report discusses: (1) the authorization of the most consequential school governance reform of the past two decades; (2) the driving force of family and community demands and aspirations; (3) creating a way out by fostering high-quality innovation; (4) taking a fresh look at authorizing policy and practice opportunities; and (5) handling high-quality innovation in the future.

The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is a key lever that the federal government uses to ensure charter schools provide more students access to excellent public schools. As the U.S. Department of Education studies the program, a new National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) brief, "U.S. Department of Education's CSP: Investing in Students by Investing in Charter School Authorizing," provides four recommendations for improving technical assistance in the CSP State Entity grant -- a critical component to ensuring strong, equitable, and effective authorizing: (1) Boost funding for technical assistance, by increasing the 7% set-aside to at least 10%; (2) Promote and support high-quality authorizing by ensuring half of all technical assistance funding is used on authorizing; (3) Provide flexibility for grantees to spend more technical assistance funding in the first two-years of grants; and (4) Ensure transparency and effectiveness by requiring grantees to conduct a needs assessment when applying for and an evaluation when concluding a CSP grant.

In Spring 2020, National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) convened a working group of authorizers and other stakeholders to learn more about the challenges they faced, given the data gaps caused by COVID-19, and to ask what guidance was needed for the sector to adapt to these unusual circumstances. Based on their feedback and insights, NACSA created this guide to support authorizers as they reflect on these challenges and opportunities. This guide is meant to help authorizers gain context and spur thinking on what it means right now for authorizers to maintain high standards of accountability, regardless of the data gaps. [For the accompanying toolkit, "A Guide for School Districts: Exploring Alternative Measures of Student Learning and Wellness," see ED610389.]

Charter school authorizers play a crucial role in shaping the quality and availability of charter schools throughout Georgia. In partnership with the State Board of Education, state law allows local school districts and the State Charter Schools Commission to approve and oversee charter schools. While much is known about existing charter schools in the state, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) recently conducted a first-ever analysis of the state's charter school pipeline--what schools are being proposed and by whom. The data highlights the state's varied sector, focused on innovation and a diversity of models and operator types. It also reveals the significant impact the Commission is playing in shaping the state's public education landscape.

This first-ever look at the national charter school pipeline--what schools are being proposed and by whom--reveals a diverse sector, with a tremendous variety of applicants and school models. Working with Public Impact, National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) collected and analyzed nearly 3,000 charter school applications submitted to authorizers, located in 20 states, that oversee nearly two-thirds of all charter schools nationally. The analysis shows the significant impact authorizers have in shaping the public education landscape across the country.

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.

The need for more quality public schools for U.S. children is as great as ever. One policy solution to help meet this demand is to grow more of what is already working. To expand access to existing high-quality charter schools, policymakers and authorizers remove barriers and make it easier to grow enrollment and expand locations. Behind every charter school is an authorizer--and its responsibilities are essential to growing more great charter schools around the country. How can state policies help authorizers meet their communities' need for more great public schools? This brief compares the policies that govern high-performing charter schools in three states with a variety of authorizing contexts--Florida, Missouri, and Louisiana--to provide examples for other states to consider.

The "Quality Practice Project" (QPP) is the National Association of Charter School Authorizers' (NACSA's) multi-year research initiative to identify what high-performing authorizers do to achieve stellar student and public interest outcomes. Participants and researchers collaboratively investigated the perspectives and practices of high-performing authorizers compared with a sample of authorizers achieving moderate, but not weak outcomes. This first-of-its kind research and NACSA's report based on its findings are an important step toward developing a more evidence-informed connection between practices and outcomes. At the heart of this research is the close-up study of a small group of authorizers chosen for the strong outcomes of their portfolios of schools. By spending significant time on the ground with these five authorizers--studying, observing, questioning, learning, and cataloging--NACSA has significantly expanded knowledge about what great authorizing looks like. The process involved document reviews, artifact reviews, multi-day on-site visits, interviews with authorizing institution members, and interviews with other key stakeholders in the authorizer's context (e.g., charter associations, school leaders). The result is tangible examples of the authorizer practices associated with high-quality charter school portfolios. This report presents snapshots of each of the five case studies--The State University of New York's Charter School Institute (SUNY); Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools; Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; Washington, D.C.'s Public Charter School Board; and Thomas B. Fordham Foundation--which are available in full on the website (http://www.qualitycharters.org/research/quality-practice-project/). Each sketch highlights examples of three essential elements in action in that particular authorizer's office: leadership, commitment, and judgment.

Good charter school policy must be part of the solution to address the public education system's greatest problem: too many children lack access to a transformative education. Getting authorizing policy right is critical because good authorizing has the power to transform the lives of not just a few children, but millions. While the quality of authorizing is more important than the quantity, the number of authorizers in a given jurisdiction or state matters: experience shows that the presence of multiple authorizers can strengthen a state's charter school sector. While the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) strongly recommends the presence of multiple authorizers, an authorizing structure only works if it creates a quality chartering ecosystem that produces more good schools for children. This report provides recommendations for policymakers and higher education leadership considering creating Higher Education Institution authorizers in their state.

Improving the quality of charter school authorizing is critical for improving the quality of charter schools and the outcomes experienced by students and communities. As every charter school has an authorizer, improvement in authorizing has the power to be among the most significant catalysts in creating many more high-quality schools and closing persistently failing schools that do not prepare students for future learning, civic participation, and workforce demands. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers' (NACSA's) research and evaluation division conducted a thematic qualitative analysis of those evaluations. The analysis was designed to identify common strengths and weaknesses and ultimately to provide empirically based and detailed findings on specific practices authorizers are using across the country. It is anticipated that authorizers, NACSA, and other entities interested in improving authorizing will use these findings to design better technical assistance activities, professional development engagements, tools, templates, and other approaches that ultimately lead to a stronger sector of charter schools.

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 theory, authorizers play an important role in decisions regarding charter schools and student discipline, as they are the bodies responsible for protecting the public interest, while balancing school autonomy and accountability. Within public education, a rigorous debate is occurring about student discipline practices, particularly suspensions and expulsions. The practices of charter schools are part of this debate, yet little is known about what is currently happening on the ground. Are they too heavy handed, or are they currently not doing enough? As the nation's only organization that collects data on authorizers' practices and perspectives the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) is tracking this debate and authorizers' practices closely. This year, for the first time, NACSA's annual survey of charter school authorizers included questions related to how authorizers view their role when it comes to student discipline, and what, if anything, they are doing in their day-to-day work. This report further examines NACSA's recently released data on authorizer perspectives and practices on school discipline. While the big picture information demonstrated a range of approaches and perspectives, inspection of the data within each authorizer's individual responses appeared to reveal some patterns. The analysis found that all authorizers do not approach school discipline in the same way. There appears to be two distinct groups of authorizers: one group--termed the Monitor & Report group--uses a range of monitoring, collecting, and discipline reporting practices more frequently compared to the other group--termed the Hands Off group--comprised of authorizers that are much less likely to use those same practices. Analysis of the two groups found: (1) When it comes to school discipline, the vast majority of authorizers are using transparency-based practices; (2) A smaller group of authorizers are not actively monitoring and overseeing the school discipline practices of their schools; (3) Currently, most authorizers are not heavy-handed in their approach to student discipline; and (4) There is no clear link between the size, type or number of schools an authorizer manages and its student discipline practices. Appended are: (1) Study Method Description; and (2) School Discipline Survey Questions.

Currently, more than 180,000 students attend 135 full-time virtual charter schools in 23 states and the District of Columbia. While some students do well in a full-time virtual charter school environment, too many of these schools are not providing a quality educational program to the vast majority of their students, while enrolling too many who are simply not a good fit for attending a fully online school. In this report, "A Call to Action to Improve the Quality of Full-Time Virtual Charter Public Schools," the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now (50CAN) and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) propose specific policy recommendations to help states better hold full-time virtual charter schools accountable for student results. A list of resources is included.

As charter school authorizers and states have increased performance expectations and grown less hesitant to close failing schools, "authorizer shopping" has emerged as a growing threat to overall charter school quality. Authorizer shopping happens when a charter school chooses or changes its authorizer specifically to avoid accountability. A low-performing school may shop for a new authorizer to avoid closure, or reopen under a new authorizer after closure. This report considers five examples of authorizer shopping in action and provides specific guidance to authorizers, policymakers, and advocates to address authorizer shopping. The following are appended: (1) Example 1: "Recycling--When Is a New School Really New?"; (2) Example 2: "Shopping or Finding the Best Fit?"; (3) Example 3: "Authorizer Shopping in a Virtual World"; (4) Example 4: "Unintended Consequences of Increased Accountability"; (5) Example 5: "Many Authorizers, Little Consistency"; and (6) Appendix Endnotes.

Since 2008, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has annually surveyed our nation's authorizers. Survey findings provide an annual measuring stick for those in the field of authorizing, and they help education decision makers, foundations, legislators, and researchers inform their understanding of the field of charter school authorizing. Findings from 2014-15 illustrate an increase in the number of authorizers using at least 90 percent of NACSA's recommended 12 Essential Practices. But with fewer than 90 percent of authorizers stating that they use a mission for quality authorizing, written annual reports, and an expert panel to review applications, there is still work to be done.

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 their 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. This report 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. This report is intended to serve as a guide to formative development for charter authorizers at all stages and levels of experience. For new or less-experienced authorizers, these "Principles and Standards" offer an essential road map to guide planning and organizational development of strong practices, including the identification of areas where deeper guidance or additional assistance is needed. These "Principles & 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.

Drawing on deep expertise and diverse experiences in the sector, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) and the Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF) have collaborated to identify a set of key policies and practices that could dramatically accelerate the replication and growth of high-performing charter schools and charter networks. The work has generated a set of detailed recommendations that legislators, authorizers, and state education agencies (SEAs) can use to build a policy environment that will substantially increase the prevalence and impact of high-quality charter schools. The policy recommendations in this report provide a roadmap for systematically improving the quality of the charter sector. By differentiating among charter operators based on performance levels, building system capacity to cultivate and support high-performing schools and networks, reducing barriers and adding support to facilitate quality replication, and accelerating the closure of low-performing schools, the charter sector can create excellent educational opportunities for a dramatically greater number of children.

Since 2008, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has annually surveyed the nation's authorizers. Survey findings provide an annual measuring stick for those in the field of authorizing, and they help education decision makers, foundations, legislators, and researchers inform their understanding of the field of charter school authorizing. The 2014 survey asked authorizers to complete 113 questions across a range of topics related to charter school authorizing, including application practices, renewal decision-making, and ongoing oversight practices. Findings from the 2013-2014 school year illustrate a 50% increase in the number of authorizers using at least 90% of NACSA's recommended 12 Essential Practices. But, with less than 90% of authorizers stating that they use a mission for quality authorizing, initial five-year contract charter terms, written annual reports, and an expert panel to review applications, there is still work to be done.

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.)

Charter schools have moved from being widely viewed as a marginal force in public education reform to taking on a central role in our national, state, and local debates around improving education. And a growing number of policymakers--including superintendents, mayors, governors, and even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan--are using chartering as a critical tool to drive school improvement and meet the needs of underserved children. These developments create new demands on authorizers to strategically manage their portfolios by effectively monitoring the quality of the schools they have chartered, closing low-performing schools, and fostering the replication and growth to scale of high performers. Charter school authorizers are under increasing pressure--from policymakers, funders, and the media--to assume a variety of responsibilities, including spurring struggling and mediocre schools to higher levels of achievement, attracting high-quality operators, and fostering the replication of successful schools--in addition to their more established roles of approving charter applications, monitoring school performance, and closing low-performers. Key questions for authorizers--and the charter school movement more generally--are which of these roles are really appropriate for authorizers to take on, which they can reasonably be expected to do well, and which would be better addressed by other entities, including those that do not yet exist. This paper, created as part of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers' (NACSA's) federally funded Performance Management, Replication, and Closure (PMRC) project to improve the policies and practices of authorizers in these key areas, looks at how a set of seven leading authorizers (herein called "model authorizers")--all of whom oversee substantial numbers of schools, have been authorizers for some time, and are nationally regarded as leaders in the field--are responding to new challenges and demands in the three areas where expectations for authorizer performance are undergoing the greatest evolution: performance management, replication, and closure. The author finds that even the most forward-looking authorizers are struggling to develop effective policies and practices in these areas, and no one authorizer has "all the answers." At the same time, the author finds that authorizers are highly cognizant of the complex implications of the new roles that charter schools are being asked to play in public education reform, and are creating new practices, processes, and tools to address some of those implications. Every one of the seven authorizers is currently taking steps to refine, improve, or create new practices in these three key areas. These examples show that the most effective authorizers are learning from experience and data, and steadily working to improve the quality of their practices, processes, and policies. (Contains 2 figures.)

This issue brief is part of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers' (NACSA's) "Cyber Series," which addresses issues in policy and practice that relate to authorizing online and blended charter schools. This brief aims to improve authorizer understanding and oversight of blended charter schools, which combine digital learning with instruction in brick-and-mortar locations. It begins with an explanation of the variety of blended charter school models, followed by a brief discussion of key issues for authorizer awareness and consideration in the blended charter school context, with attention to both initial approval and ongoing oversight. The brief then provides more specific guidance on evaluating proposals for blended charter schools. Finally, it provides general recommendations for overseeing and evaluating blended charter schools. (Contains 1 table and 22 endnotes.)

This report presents the findings from a rigorous national survey of charter school authorizers conducted in 2011 by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). This is the fourth time NACSA has conducted this type of national survey. As in years past, the vast majority of authorizers (90 percent) are school districts and they oversee a slight majority of charter schools (52 percent of all charter schools). Put another way, 10 percent of authorizers are not school districts and they authorize 48 percent of all charter schools. Yet differences among authorizers' practices have more to do with the number of schools they oversee than the type of institution they are. Authorizers that oversee 10 or more charter schools implement a greater number of professional practices than those that oversee fewer schools. Continuing a pattern seen in 2009-2010, closure rates have fallen for charter schools that go through a review at the end of their charter term. Among authorizers responding to this survey, only 6.2 percent of charters reviewed for renewal were closed during the 2010-2011 school year, down from 8.8 percent in 2009-2010 and 12.6 percent in 2008-2009. NASCA believes that it is too soon to know whether this is a short-term anomaly or a larger trend. Also unknown is whether the decline reflects a change in authorizer practices, an improvement in school quality, or other factors. This year's report adds a new emphasis, presenting data on NACSA's "Index of Essential Practices". This resource summarizes authorizer implementation of practices ranging from having established application criteria and interviewing applicants to having established charter renewal and revocation criteria. More than the type or size of an authorizer, the implementation of key practices and how well they are executed likely influence whether authorizers approve strong applicants and close underperforming schools. Appended are:(1) Survey Methodology; and (2) NACSA Resources for Authorizers. (Contains 4 tables, 13 figures, and 13 endnotes). [This report was written in close collaboration with Alex Medler.]

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.)

The Internet has had a profound effect on everyone's lives, work, politics, and commerce--and increasingly, on the schools. Virtual schools have arrived, creating new opportunities for students, and also a set of challenges to the notions about schooling and the policies that govern public education. The potential application of technology in education may change the way that current versions of schools and schooling are limited in time and space. Will future technological innovations revamp educational conceptions of time, like class periods, grade levels, six-hour school days, and 180-day school years? These units of time, as well as physical school buildings, classrooms, and district boundaries, still define "school" for the vast majority of students. Will this change in the coming years? These are no longer unusual questions. Online and blended schools challenge some of the most basic assumptions about schooling. They no longer place groups of children of the same age in an assigned grade with a teacher and chalkboard in a room for 50-some minutes at a time in 180 six-hour days. With virtual schools, there has been a move to learning that is not bound by time, space, and pace, liberating education systems from the confines of rigid blocks of time and uninspired configurations of space to better meet the needs of students. While the potential for true educational transformation is great, one must begin by creating a shared understanding of what online and blended learning is, and how it is best implemented. This is the first in a series of briefs aimed at improving authorizer practices for virtual charter schools. This paper will define concepts in online learning, including full-time and blended learning, and will discuss recent trends in growth and governance of various types of online learning and virtual charter schools. (Contains 3 figures, 4 endnotes, and a glossary of key virtual school terms.)

Educators, school administrators, policymakers, and community members are responsible for providing a quality education for all students in the nation's public schools. Traditional and charter schools bear the duty to ensure that special populations of students have access to the best education possible. This responsibility makes it essential for charter school authorizers to not only have knowledge of these diverse student groups, but also to ensure that charter school operators are fulfilling their responsibility of providing quality education for all students. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to provide charter authorizers and school leaders with information about the education of English Language Learners (ELLs), illuminating the legal requirements and sound education practices for these students. This brief will provide authorizers with background information related to ELLs, the state and federal laws that affect the education of ELLs, and the education needs of these children. After reading this brief, authorizers will have a greater understanding of this unique student population and be better prepared to provide oversight to charter schools serving ELLs. (Contains 1 table and 7 endnotes.)

Charter school closure, though sometimes challenging and emotionally charged, is an essential aspect of the charter school movement. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to provide a practice-oriented resource for authorizers and other charter school stakeholders to navigate the closure process after the decision to close a school has been made. In order to navigate the closure minefields, the authorizer must understand why the process is painful for each stakeholder and anticipate the information that each stakeholder group will need throughout the school's wind-up. During the closure process, the authorizer will encounter the effects of pain and uncertainty as it hears from angry, anxious constituents. In particular, the authorizer should anticipate the following: (1) Students will be displaced; (2) Parents will be concerned about where their children will attend school; (3) Staff will be worried about losing their jobs; (4) Leaders/Founders are emotionally invested in the school; and (5) Board members, like the school leaders, are invested in the school emotionally and often, financially. (Contains 7 endnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Parker Baxter, Jonas Chartock, Ralph Rossi, and Justin Testerman.]

Online charter schools are one key subset of the K-12 online education landscape, which also includes state virtual schools, district-level online programs, private providers of both individual courses and entire schools, and others. As of late 2010, online and blended charter schools existed in more than 20 states, serving more than 100,000 students. Growth has been rapid, in the range of 15 percent to 25 percent annually, as parents and students seek new educational options. Despite the presence and growth of online charter schools, little research has been done regarding the practices of online charter school authorizers. Policymakers recognize that online charter schools present unique challenges for authorizers, but few best practices for authorizing online charter schools have emerged. Many online charter schools have been operating for five years or less, and some states are just beginning to open their first few online charter schools. In many cases, authorizing processes have not kept up with the rate at which online charter schools have opened, as most states are still in the early stages of developing authorizing procedures for online schools. To address this gap, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has begun a multi-phase project to review online-school authorizing practices and make recommendations to authorizers. The purpose of this initial stage of research was to conduct a preliminary environmental scan in order to identify key issues that authorizers of online charter schools experience. NACSA engaged with the Evergreen Education Group and Donnell-Kay Foundation to accomplish the first stage of work, which included in-depth interviews with seven key authorizers from across the country to identify similar key issues they are working to address. The key findings generated from the interviews are outlined and explained in greater detail throughout this paper. They are: (1) Charter school authorizing is still in its early stages of development; (2) Online charter schools present opportunities and challenges for oversight; (3) Accountability for student achievement in online environments can be unique; (4) Governing board expertise may be lacking; (5) Online special education can be a serious challenge; (6) Building process and capacity in authorizing offices is critical; and (7) Appropriate funding levels are still under debate. Online and blended learning have created new opportunities for hundreds of thousands of students across the United States. Online learning, however, is still new enough that practices are outpacing policies and, in many cases, oversight. The sustainable, long-term growth of online and blended schools requires that policy frameworks keep pace with educational practice. "Research Methods" are appended. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)

During this decade, American education will shift from print to digital, from flat and sequential content to engaging and adaptive, and from batch processing to personalized learning. There will also be a slow enrollment shift from traditional district-operated schools to schools and programs operated by organizations authorized under contracts or charter. As chief executive officer and chair of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), the authors believe that one of the most important drivers of this historic shift is online learning. It is growing by more than 40 percent annually and creating new full- and part-time options for students and families. This paper refers specifically to online schools where instruction is delivered remotely by live teachers on a full- and part-time basis, also known as virtual or cyber learning. In many states, online learning began as a state-sponsored program with dedicated line item funding that became unsustainable with growth (because students were being double funded). To provide scalable, quality full- and part-time options, more than half of the states have authorized statewide charter or contract schools. However, most charter school legislation was drafted in the early 1990s and did not contemplate online opportunities. This paper deals with the three key questions that state policymakers and authorizers need to answer: (1) Who will operate and authorize online schools? (2) How will students be enrolled? and (3) How will they be funded? It concludes with advice on innovation and quality in online learning.

Authorizers are as varied as the schools they oversee. Some are responsible for just one charter, while others monitor hundreds of charters serving tens of thousands of students. Some are school districts, while others are independent statewide boards, universities, not-for-profits, or state education agencies. Regardless of their size and type, authorizers must do the important work charged to them by law: deciding which schools should open, monitoring and supporting their progress, and closing those that fail to serve students adequately. There is an emerging consensus on specific authorizer practices that are necessary to do the job well. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has created and refined "Principles & Standards" that reflect this consensus. Drawing from that, NACSA has crafted a 12-item "Index of Essential Practices" that provides a baseline measure for authorizers. An individual index score (from 0-12) is a diagnostic tool, and can be used to scan the work across the entire sector. The index score communicates to authorizers if they are doing these essential, key pieces of work. This information can then help begin a dialogue about improving practice. Appended are: (1) Methodology; and (2) NACSA Resources for Authorizers. (Contains 4 footnotes.)

Both the charter school and universal pre-K movements have grown substantially during the past 10 years. Nearly 5,000 charter schools now exist in 40 states and the District of Columbia, serving some 1.6 million students--up from 2,300 schools serving 580,000 students only a decade ago. The growth in state pre-kindergarten enrollments has paralleled the growth of charter schools. From 2001-2009, the number of children enrolled in state pre-K programs rose from 700,000 to more than 1.2 million, and state spending on pre-kindergarten more than doubled, from $2.4 billion to $5 billion. The charter and pre-K movements have progressed on largely separate tracks. A silo effect in our education policies and institutions tends to segregate issues related to the education of our youngest children from those related to the K-12 public schools. There is limited overlap between the organizations and leaders who champion charter schools and those who advocate on behalf of pre-K programs. This is unfortunate, because the charter school and universal prekindergarten movements actually have a great deal in common. Both the charter and pre-K movements seek to improve children's educational outcomes and close achievement gaps for low-income and minority youngsters. More fundamentally, each of these movements seeks to expand the boundaries of public education--the charter school movement by enabling new providers to deliver public education, and the universal pre-K movement by extending public education to 3- and 4-year-olds. And both movements face similar challenges related to accountability, ensuring quality across diverse providers, building supply, and accessing funding and facilities. This paper explores how natural synergies between the charter and pre-K movements can help both movements to be even more effective in improving public education. (Contains 5 endnotes.)

This report provides essential new information on the relationship between the location of and enrollment in Denver public schools that meet the 2009 School Performance Framework (SPF) standards. Funded by the National Association of Charter School authorizers (NACSA), this research is designed primarily to identify and highlight those areas with the largest numbers of school-age children and the fewest seats in schools that meet SPF standards. The report details how many of the 75,000 Denver Public Schools (DPS) students are enrolled in these schools and where these schools are located. Then it ranks or prioritizes the need for better performing elementary, middle and high schools within Denver's neighborhoods as measured by DPS' high school zones, the geography on which this analysis is based. This leads to a clear set of priorities for school transformation, new school creation, and reform. In addition to the needs assessment, "Locating Quality and Access: The Keys to Denver's Plan for Educational Excellence" provides a comprehensive analysis of Colorado's Schools of Choice Program in Denver (Choice Program). This report compares students in their neighborhood or attendance schools with students choosing to attend other neighborhood and non-attendance area schools. The description of these students at the city and neighborhood level includes a breakdown of the students by the type of school, free and reduced price lunch eligibility (FRL), ethnicity, and school performance. The research for "Locating Quality and Access" was conducted by IFF, a nonprofit and community development financial institution that engages in independent external research, finance, and real estate consulting. The analysis uses a methodology that IFF developed in 2003 to analyze Chicago's Public Schools and make recommendations on where charter schools should be located in the city. This is the first time the method is being applied in a district outside the Midwest and in a state with a school choice program. It is clear that in Denver and DPS there is a commitment to using data not only to guide the work of DPS, but to educate stakeholders and families. As a national voice for charter schools, NACSA recognizes the value of this educational needs assessment and of making available detailed data on students, school location, and school choice. By sharing the data and profiles in this report, not only with DPS, but with fellow stakeholders, NACSA strengthens the ability of the entire educational community in Denver to take advantage of opportunities to achieve the district's improvement goals. Appended are: (1) Detailed Methodology; (2) Ethnicity of DPS Students Compared to Denver Population; (3) Elementary School Zone Summary; (4) Middle School Zone Summary; (5) High School Zone Summary; (6) Students Enrolled in Each Zone by School Type and Choice Status; (7) Students Enrolled in Each Zone by Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRL) Qualification and Choice Status; and (8) Students Enrolled in Each Zone by Choice Status and FRL Qualification. (Contains 9 tables, 8 figures, 8 maps, and 3 endnotes.)

As schools are in the business of educating students, academic performance should be the primary outcome by which a charter school is evaluated. But a charter school cannot provide students with a good education if it cannot meet payroll, afford to keep the lights on in the building, or worse yet, improperly uses public funds that should be spent in the classroom. Clearly, fiscal health is a key indicator of charter school success, and monitoring financial performance and position is inherent to quality charter school authorizing. The portfolio nature of charter school authorizing, relatively standardized accounting practices, and wealth of publicly available financial data create an ideal information ecosystem for authorizers to evaluate fiscal health of schools they charter. And although most charter school authorizers--like the leaders of the schools they oversee--are not drawn to the education world nor inspired by its implicit financial responsibilities, there are several relatively simple duties that authorizers must execute to effectively evaluate a charter school's financial health: (1) Reading and interpreting charter school financial statements; (2) Knowing if a school's resources have kept pace with expenses; (3) Tracking financial trends; (4) Spotting characteristics of financial health, as well as warning signs and red flags; and (5) Identifying if a charter school is gaining or losing financial ground. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to provide simple guidance, in layman's language, to support authorizers in understanding and conducting the financial due diligence and oversight responsibilities inherent to the authorizing function. (Contains 1 endnote and 4 resources.)

Charter schools emerged in the early 1990s as a strategy for improving student learning and increasing quality educational options, often for underserved students and communities. The charter school idea centers on the promise of increased autonomy for accountability for results. Thus, the charter movement has helped to lead the charge--and has provided valuable models and lessons--for greater accountability in public education. Performance accountability for charter schools means accountability for both academic and operational performance, focusing on objective outcomes rather than inputs. It includes, but goes beyond, legal and regulatory compliance. In a well-designed statewide accountability system for charter schools, the state establishes minimum standards and essential elements to guide charter school evaluation generally, while enabling authorizers to develop the details of the contract in conjunction with the schools they oversee. Operational accountability for charter schools includes both financial management and legal compliance. State charter school laws should (and most do) explicitly state that financial mismanagement or material violation of applicable laws is grounds for revoking or not renewing a contract. These domains are generally straightforward for authorizers to assess through objective means such as regular financial audits and compliance audits. In contrast, academic accountability is often inadequately addressed in state charter school laws, and thus thornier for authorizers to enforce. Policymakers can improve state law and policy to help authorizers make educational judgments that are grounded in sound data, firmly defensible, and less vulnerable to endless debate and controversy. This policy guide provides background on charter school performance accountability, key considerations for policymakers in structuring sound performance accountability for charter schools, and recommendations and best practices for state policy on performance accountability. A list of resources is included. (Contains 7 endnotes.)

This report compares the demand for public education in St. Louis during the 2007-08 school year with both the supply and location of public schools operated by St. Louis Public Schools and charter schools. The geographic areas of analysis are the city of St. Louis and its zip codes. The first four sections of this report contain background information necessary to understand the results of the research and the key findings. This background includes the Introduction, the History and Role of the Voluntary Interdistrict Coordinating Council (VICC), a Demographic and Enrollment Overview, and the Methodology and Glossary of Terms. The results of the research begin on page 17. Seven appendixes include: (1) Detailed Methodology; (2) Elementary School Current Enrollment Service Level and Service Gap Based on Tier 1 Neighborhood Capacity; (3) Middle School Current Enrollment Service Level and Service Gap Based on Tier 1 Neighborhood Capacity; (4) High School Current Enrollment Service Level and Service Gap Based on Tier 1 Neighborhood Capacity; (5) Overall Current Enrollment Service Level and Service Gap Based on Tier 1 Neighborhood Capacity; (6) VICC Enrollment as a Percent of Public School Enrollment by Zip Code and Grade; and (7) Attendance Areas of Tier 1 Neighborhood Schools. (Contains 14 endnotes, 4 figures, 9 tables, and 5 maps.) [Research for this report was conducted by IFF.]

Over the past several years, student growth and growth models have received a lot of attention, in both the charter school sector and the larger education community, as an important indicator for measuring school quality. Educators and policy makers alike have been won over by the argument that because measures of student growth examine the changes in performance of the same students over time, they tell more about how well schools are educating the nation's students than do measures of student achievement, or status. Several states now have "federally approved" growth measures as part of their statewide accountability frameworks, but the methods for computing student growth are many and each method tells something different. Understanding exactly what the data is telling is critical if growth models are to have value in evaluating the quality of a given school. The purpose of this "Issue Brief" is to guide authorizers in the effective use of growth data by outlining the different models for measuring student academic growth and explaining the questions that can be answered by, and the potential limitations of, each type. In addition, this Brief explores key considerations for authorizers as they evaluate their portfolio of schools using a balanced body of evidence, including growth information, and provides examples of authorizers that have effectively incorporated growth measures into their accountability systems. (Contains 1 figure and 8 endnotes.)