Elizabeth G. Hill, Legislative Analyst???s Office
January 2004
This report to the California legislature summarizes key points from a recent RAND analysis, (see our earlier coverage of that piece at http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=108#282) in order to provide policy recommendations about the Golden State's charter schools. It notes that the state's 409 charters generally perform as well academically as traditional public schools, and that, because they receive fewer state and federal dollars than public schools, they are "cost effective." (Charter people might prefer the term "starved.") The Legislative Analyst then recommends that the state lift the cap on the number of charter schools allowable (currently set at 750), as charters "remain neither new . . . nor untested," which was the rationale for setting a cap in the first place. The report also makes many specific recommendations designed to remove bureaucratic hurdles in charters' way, including the "complex" and "opaque" funding system and the inflexible authorizing process. Currently, California charters may generally be sponsored only by local school boards, which is a recipe for disaster (they often lack the capacity to be good authorizers, and may not have the incentive to try); instead, the LAO argues that a wide variety of organizations should be eligible to become authorizers. In addition to addressing these California-specific issues, and offering a nice summary of the RAND work, the report explains several national trends in charter school legislation and authorizing that even those on the right coast might find useful. It's a short, accessible report that you can find online at http://www.lao.ca.gov/2004/charter_schools/012004_charter_schools.htm.
