Seven Things to Know About Charter Schools
Find out the key things you need to know when researching charter schools.
1. Charter schools are public schools.
Charter schools provide alternatives to "regular" public schools. Students may choose to enroll in a charter school instead of the school they were assigned to by their local school district. Unlike most public schools, charters don't usually have an enrollment boundary and can recruit students from a larger geographic area. You can consider any charter school in your district (or even outside of it, depending on your state) for your child, regardless of where the school is located.
Charter schools can't discriminate in their admissions process. But it is not always easy to enroll in a charter school. Popular charters are often oversubscribed and utilize a random method of choosing students, such as a lottery. When you apply to a charter school, ask about your chances of being admitted.
2. Charter schools deal with less "red tape" than regular public schools and have more opportunities to be innovative.
A charter must meet major state public school regulations as well as meet the expectations set up in its charter, but a charter school is freed from many of the "red-tape" regulations governing regular public schools. However, the degree of freedom a charter school has varies greatly by state. In some states charters face many of the same regulations as regular public schools.
For example, teachers in charter schools may still be subject to the collective bargaining agreements of local teachers' unions. In California and Colorado, the drafters of a school charter decide whether teachers will work independently or engage in collective bargaining with other teachers in the school district. Other states, such as Hawaii and Kansas go further, requiring all charter schools to be bound by district collective bargaining agreements. Charters in states such as Georgia and New Mexico do not engage in collective bargaining and can set up their own work agreements with teachers.
Because charters are generally granted more flexibility than regular public schools, they tend to be more innovative and responsive to student needs than regular public schools. They are accountable to their authorizers for results but are free to try different ways to meet students' academic needs and help them to achieve at higher levels.
3. Charter schools come in many different shapes.
Some charters cater to specific populations, such as students with learning or behavior challenges, those who are academically oriented or students interested in the arts. Others offer a thematic or specialized curriculum. There are also charters that do not have any special focus, but simply provide an alternative to the regular public school.
Charters are more likely to be found in urban areas, and they are three times as likely to be located in big cities. In general, charters serve more low-income and minority students, although individual school populations vary from one community to another and from one state to another.
4. Charters are run by large and small companies, parents, teachers, community groups and nonprofit organizations.
Charters can also change management and might be started by one group and operated by others over time. When researching a charter school, it's important to know who started it, who currently runs it, its philosophy and financial status.
Most charter schools are new and small. The charter school movement began in the 1990s and has grown rapidly. Many charter schools are less than five years old. Most are small in size, serving fewer students and offering smaller class sizes than regular public schools.
There are now charter school laws in 41 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and more than 1 million students are currently enrolled in more than 3,600 charter schools.
5. Charter schools don't necessarily produce better academic results than regular public schools.
The research about charter school results is somewhat mixed. Some studies have shown that students make greater academic gains in charter schools; other studies have not. Charter school regulations vary from one state to another as do state-level achievement tests, which make it difficult to compare school results or draw conclusions on a national basis. Many people embrace the idea of charter schools because they give parents more choice, and are less concerned with whether this choice brings about any different results for students. Parents who choose charters are often drawn to their small size and personalized learning environments, regardless of what the numbers say about academic performance.
6. Charters receive funding from the state, generally based on their enrollment.
Similar to regular public schools, this funding is based on a formula for each child enrolled in the charter school. However, funding formulas vary from state to state and from school to school.
In some states, such as Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota and New Jersey, charters do not receive exactly the same amount as other public schools because states and districts
withhold administrative fees. In some states, like California, additional funds are made available to charters to cover facilities and start-up costs.
Many charters have ambitious programs that are not fully funded by state/district formulas and engage in their own fundraising to obtain grants and additional donations. There is also a limited amount of federal funding to help start new charter schools.
Funding for facilities can be a challenge for charter schools. In some cases, districts provide free space for charters and/or provide funding for charters to pay for facilities. But even with this support, charter schools often end up moving multiple times due to the difficulty of finding a permanent home. As you look at a charter school, be sure to ask about its facility status and whether it will need to move again in the future.
7. Charter schools can be closed down by their authorizers.
Authorizers are the entities that grant schools their charter, or agreement to operate, and monitor their performance. The authorizers vary from state to state and may include charter boards, school boards and universities. While each state's charter law is a bit different as to what can cause a school to be shut down, the
key reasons schools close are:
- They can't recruit enough students.
- They can't find a stable space to operate.
- They can't manage their finances.
Updated April 2008
