National and Ohio charter school management structures
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) released their annual report, National Charter School Management Overview, which includes updated statistics on the management structure for every charter school in the country. In 2016-17, Ohio had 365 charter schools; 46 percent of those charters were operated independently, 26 percent were part of a Charter Management Organization (not-for-profit), and 28 percent were part of an Education Management Organization (for-profit).
What do Perkins Act changes mean for charter schools?
On August 1, President Trump signed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which renews the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The bill (passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate) authorizes more than $1 billion for states to use towards secondary and post-secondary training. NAPCS’s Senior Policy Advisor, Christy Wolfe, explains what this means for charter schools here.
A New Orleans charter school is graduating students who go straight to $20/hour jobs
Rooted, a charter public high school in New Orleans, has only been open for one year. And it’s already challenging traditional notions of what high school might look like in the future. It’s the only “rookie” school in New Orleans public schools that beat the state school performance average in 2018 and 84 percent of the founding freshman class completed industry-grade tech certifications in web design. Matt Candler, CEO of 4.0 Schools, writes about Rooted’s success and explains how many of its graduates have gone on to earn $20 an hour in the fast-growing New Orleans tech scene.
Can charter-lite schools produce charter-like performance?
As we mentioned last week, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) recently released a report comparing the performance of district-operated autonomous schools in four cities (Boston, Memphis, Denver, and Los Angeles) with local charter schools. In a new piece, Fordham’s Jessica Poiner takes a look at the report and explains the findings in detail here.
Upcoming events
You might want to mark your calendars for a couple events in September. On September 13, the School Performance Institute will host their upcoming workshop and on September 14, Education Next will host an event in Washington, D.C. to discuss the results of this year’s survey of American public opinion on education. You can watch a livestream of that event here.
