Carol Ascher et al., Institute for Education and Social Policy
2003
A comprehensive look at New York state's charter school authorizing and accountability practices, this report is complete with everything from auditing timelines established by authorizing agents; to comparisons of test scores from regular public schools, schools under registration review, and charter schools; to office profiles of the authorizing agents. It helps shed light on New York's complicated double authorization system, which requires many charters to be authorized both by the State University of New York (or New York City) AND by the Board of Regents, leading to extra inspections and a plethora of administrators for relatively few schools. Mostly, it calls for more rigorous accountability and oversight by authorizers. See for yourself at http://www.nyu.edu/iesp/publications/charter/PDF-2003accountability.PDF. Or, for a briefer review, and to compare New York's authorizing practices with other states' methods, take a look at the recent Fordham study Charter School Authorizing: Are States Making the Grade? at http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/Full_report_no_embargo_notice.pdf.
