What is the role of authorizers in charter school policy? It’s a question that the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) dive into in this new brief. Based on the assumption that authorizers should be accountable for the quality of schools they authorize and that “authorizer accountability and school accountability are inextricably linked,” NAPCS and NACSA examine recent developments in four states: Colorado, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Fordham’s beloved Ohio (sometimes called the Wild West of charter schools).
In Ohio, a 2012 law mandated that every authorizer would receive an annual performance rating—we were judged an “exemplary” authorizer—based on three components: academic performance of the authorizer’s charter schools, adherence to quality practices, and compliance with laws and regulations.
Policy recommendations include sanctioning and terminating authorizers that fail in essential duties, defining more clearly what happens when a state terminates an authorizer, and detailing the fate of schools “orphaned” by authorizer termination. These policies are critical and ensure that parents and students are not left in the dark when a charter school loses its authorizer; they also help prevent “authorizer hopping,” whereby schools set for closure (either by their authorizer or an automatic closure law) switch to a new authorizer, stay open, and continue to provide a less-then-stellar education to kids.
This brief offers intuitive reforms that states can take to rein in misbehaving authorizers, along with examples of states already taking positive steps.
SOURCE: Margaret Lin, "Holding Public Charter School Authorizers Accountable: State Experiences and Policy Recommendations," National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and National Association of Charter School Authorizers (May 2015).
