Terry and Kathryn are in Arizona this week for the annual NACSA Leadership Conference where they are sharing lessons learned from Fordham's five years as a charter school authorizer in the Buckeye State.
Today Terry joins representatives from Renaissance School Services and Imagine Schools for a sure-to-be lively debate during their session entitled, ???Understanding the Differences: What authorizers and management organizations wish the other would do.????? Yesterday, Terry and James Merriman of the New York City Charter School Center shared the challenges and unintended consequences of charter laws, policies, and authorizer actions in New York and Ohio (we chronicled many of the Ohio ones in book form last summer).?? Meanwhile, Kathryn co-led a session, ???High Stakes Decision Making: A revocation role play exercise,??? in which participants made fast-paced, live-action decisions about whether to close (fictitious) failing schools.?? As an authorizer, Fordham has closed several schools because of faltering academic performance and fiscal instability.
Also yesterday, Terry joined colleagues from Ohio and Minnesota to share how they are using grant dollars from NACSA's Fund for Authorizing Excellence to improve authorizing policies and practices.?? Fordham, in partnership with the Educational Service Center of Central Ohio, is using the funding to do the legwork toward creating a new, independent, statewide authorizer in Ohio.?? Such an entity is much-needed here, and the funding from NACSA has enabled us to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for launching the new organization.?? For a taste of what we've learned so far, check out Terry's presentation, a review of legislative hurdles from Porter Wright Morris and Arthur, and an analysis of large-scale authorizing best practices by Western Michigan University's Louann Bierlein Palmer.
- Emmy Partin
