Editor’s Note: This post was originally published here on November 28th, by Education Dive. It was written by Linda Jacobson, the senior reporter for Education Dive: K-12 based near Los Angeles, California.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Study: Funding gaps between district, charter schools widening in big cities

Dive Brief:

Charter schools in 14 U.S. cities receive on average $5,828 less in per-pupil funding than traditional public schools, with funding gaps growing wider since 2003 in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, D.C. and New York City, according to a report released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Arkansas.
In actual spending, the funding gap between district and charter schools is the largest in Camden, New Jersey, with a more than $14,600 difference. And in terms of percentage, the gap was the widest in Atlanta — a 49% difference in per-pupil funding between $18,276 in traditional public schools and $9,382 in charter schools. The researchers gave Houston an A grade because charter schools there only receive 5% — or $517 — less in funding per student than district schools, the report says.
The team, led by Corey A. DeAngelis of the Cato Institute, a free market-oriented think tank, and Patrick J. Wolf of the university’s Department of Education Reform, also analyzed documents and provided equity grades for schools in Boston; Indianapolis; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Oakland, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. New Orleans, which mostly has charter schools and has received federal funding to help schools recover from Hurricane Katrina, is a unique case and was excluded from the overall analysis. But the researchers still found some large disparities in funding between traditional and charter schools there.

Dive Insight:

Some experts argue that comparisons between district schools and charters are unfair for a variety of reasons. Traditional public schools operate under some different legal mandates and policies than charters, and charter schools serve families who choose to be there, not the general student population. Others also note that public schools serve a much larger proportion of students with disabilities, but the authors of this study argue that except for Boston, special education expenses shouldn’t be an excuse.
“While [traditional public schools] tend to enroll higher proportions of students with disabilities than charter schools, the additional spending required for students with special needs rarely explains all or even most of the inequities in the funding of public charter schools,” they write, recommending that states adopt weighted student funding formulas “and then funnel 100% of public school funding through that formula, regardless of whether the school the student is attending is a public charter or a traditional public school.”
The study is part of the researchers’ continuing work to compare how charters and district schools receive and use funds — data that can help guide policymakers as they make decisions about school funding, how many charter schools to authorize and perhaps how funding should be allocated. In areas where cooperation between charter schools and districts is more likely, these comparisons can also help school administrators learn from each other.
Last year, the team released a study showing that even with in-kind support, such as access to free facilities, charter schools in New York City receive almost 40% less funding per student than traditional public schools. And in February, the team released a cost-effective and return-on-investment analysis showing that for every $1,000 in per-pupil spending, charter school students earn more points in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Other researchers, however, criticized that study, raising questions over the methodology.

If you are trying to meet operational expenses, expand, acquire or renovate your school building, add an athletic department, enhance school safety/security, or buy new technology, complete the online application below and we’ll contact you to set up a meeting. Our team works with you to determine funding and facilities options based on your school’s unique needs.

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Now Accepting Nominations for the 2019 Charter School Honor Roll

We are very excited to announce the nominations are now open for our second annual Charter School Honor Roll! The Charter School Honor Roll honors high-achieving charter schools from across the country.

About the Honor Roll

Currently, in its second year, the Charter School Honor Roll celebrates the outstanding work that charter schools around the nation are doing. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to nominate a school that exemplifies excellence in any of the following categories:

School growth
Student achievement
Community service
School leadership
Positive school climate

Our 2019 Charter School Honor Roll winners will be awarded a special gift package, free admission to the National Charter Schools Conference (in Las Vegas, Nevada June 30-July 3, 2019), and will be honored at an exclusive honoree awards event during the conference.

If you have a school you’d like to be considered, or if you’d like to nominate your own school, please click on the button below. We’re looking forward to reading your inspiring submission!

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California Legislative Update: Conflict of Interest Legislation

Here’s your California legislative update! We try to do our best to make sure you have the most up-to-date information on what pieces of California legislation may affect charter schools.
SB 126 (charter school conflict of interest provisions) is currently speeding through the legislature. The measure passed the State Senate this week and will pass through the State Assembly next week. Then it will head to the Governor for his signature and he will sign the measure. The administration has been very clear that the Governor made a commitment to charter school transparency during his campaign and SB 126 fulfills that commitment.
The measure would apply Government Code 1090, the Brown Act, Public Records Act and the Political Reform Act to charter schools and entities managing charter schools. This is moving faster than anyone anticipated but will impact all charter schools in the State.
To view the bill go to https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov and put in the bill number.

Editor’s Note: This article about Federal charter school funding and its reach, was originally posted here on November 6, 2018 by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and was written by Christy Wolfe, a Senior Policy Advisor for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Charter Schools Program funds are reaching schools in thirty-eight states

Congress appropriated a total of $400 million for these awards for FY 2018, including funds for active awards previously awarded. Due to increased funding in recent years, more states than ever have access to start-up funding—31 states have State Entity grants and charter schools in an additional seven states were successful in receiving Developer grants. Many states are also seeing charter school growth through grants to Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools, but awards were not made for that program during FY 2018.
This year, the program awards are a bit more complicated because, for the first time, two competitions were run under the new requirements in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Let’s take a closer look at where the money went:

State Entity Grants: Funds to Open Charter Schools and Build Statewide Sector Quality

The State Entity grant program plays a key role in not only awarding subgrants to schools, but also providing funding for technical assistance and strengthening the quality of authorizers in a state.

Eight states received awards: Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, New York.
Five states were not successful: Alabama, D.C., Guam, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico.
Two Charter Support Organizations (CSOs) were funded: The new changes in ESSA unlocked CSP funding for non-state educational agency applicants, including CSOs. This year, two funded applicants from Arkansas and Idaho were CSOs.

At the close of this competition, 31 states (including D.C.) have a current CSP grant in their state (14 states with charter school laws are unfunded). Next year, nine states will likely have expired grants, which leaves a potential (although unlikely) pool of 24 applicants. If Guam and Puerto Rico are included, there will be 26 potential applicants.

Charter School Developer Grants: The Safety Net Program

This is the first year the competition has been run since the passage of ESSA. What is new is that there were two sub-competitions: one for replication/expansion grants, and the other for new charter school operators. There were 22 replication/expansion awards and 10 single site applicants. This year there were 32 funded applicants for a total of $30.2 million.
Ideally, this program would be obsolete. It is a safety for charter schools that wish to open in states that do not have a state entity program. If there was enough funding – and state capacity – for every state with a charter school law to have funding, new charter schools could simply apply to their state. Instead, after obtaining their charter contract, schools need to jump through the hoops required by federal grants to access funding. So, until every state has adequate funding for start-ups in their state, this program will continue to play a key role in advancing charter school growth.
BUT—you may have noticed that some developer grants went to states that also got a state-entity award (Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, and New York). The reason for this is, in part, because ED ran the State Entity and Developer competitions at the same time this year, so Developer applicants didn’t know if their state would receive a State Entity grant prior to applying. ED did not deem those applicants ineligible even when their state ended up receiving a State Entity grant. In addition, some developers were awarded a grant for replication and expansion because their state didn’t have a State Entity grant that permits them to make such awards, such as Ohio (NCLB-era grants don’t permit such awards unless a state has an approved waiver).
Of states that don’t have a CSP State Entity grant, seven have schools that received Developer grants: Alabama, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah have charter schools that received Developer grants. Eight states with charter school laws have neither State Entity nor Developer grants (not including Guam and Puerto Rico).

Current Charter Schools Program Grants: State Entity and Developer Grants

Credit Enhancement: Reducing Facility Costs for Charter Schools

The Credit Enhancement program awards grants to organizations to “enhance” charter school credit so that they can access private-sector and other non-Federal capital in order to acquire, construct, and renovate facilities at a more reasonable cost. This year early $40 million was awarded to four entities.
This is a significant decrease from the $56.2 million in awards for 2017. More funds were awarded last year, in part, due to the large pool of high-quality applicants and the needs of the sector. This year, appropriators restricted ED’s flexibility to fund additional applicants, so they were limited to $40 million. Unlike the other CSP programs, Credit Enhancement funds are a one-time allocation so there aren’t any continuation awards—the amount appropriated is the amount that goes out the door.

Dissemination: Advancing Accountability and Facilities Access

Like the Developer program, this was the first competition year for the new National Dissemination program under ESSA. Previously, this program was known as the National Activities program and had a somewhat broader focus. Under ESSA, the program is focused on the dissemination and development of best practices. This year, 8 grants were awarded to organizations and charter school operators for a total of $16.2 million over the grant period. There were two “buckets” of funding to which applicants could apply: charter school authorizing and charter school facilities. For FY 2019, we anticipate that ED will propose new priorities for this program.
The National Alliance is pleased to be a recipient of a Dissemination grant to establish the National Charter Schools Facilities Center to develop and disseminate best practices and reduce the burden of obtaining and financing charter school facilities.

Grants to Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High- Quality Charter Schools: A Delayed Competition

ED did not run a competition for the CMO Replication and Expansion program because the agency is required to propose and take public comments on new program rules under ESSA. Comments for the new competition closed on August of 2018 and the competition will open later this year or in early 2019. Congress knew that ED would need extra time, so FY2018 funds for this program didn’t expire on September 30—ED has until March 2019 to make awards. ED’s “forecast” indicates that the competition for this program will be announced in late November 2018 and applications will be due around the start of the New Year. $120 million is available, and a little more than half of that amount will likely be available for new awards.

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Charter School Financing: Guide to Budget Terminology

Charter school financing can be one very tricky piece of managing your charter school and treating it like a business.
Does budget terminology have you confused? Understanding the complexities of your charter school budget can be a daunting task, whether your school is growing student enrollment, expanding facilities, or implementing new educational programs. But without a fundamental knowledge of at least some financial terminology, understanding the ins and outs can be even trickier. We’ve created this handy budgeting terminology guide to help you navigate through the financial landscape.
We’ve put together this handy guide to help you make sense of it all!

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

Accounts payable is the money owed to your vendors to pay for
services or products you’ve received.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

Accounts receivable are those who need to pay you for your
offering, or the services and products you provide.

BACK OFFICE

The administrative tasks associated with running a school, including
accounting, taxes, and payroll. Can be managed by employees,
contractors, or an outsourced back office provider.

BALANCE SHEET

A worksheet with two sides that lists assets and liabilities. The right
side lists the value of what the school owes (liabilities) while the left
side lists the value of what the school owns (assets). When totaled,
the two sides should always be in balance.

BASE SALARY

A fixed amount of money paid to an employee at regular intervals
on an ongoing basis in return for work performed. Base salary
does not include benefits, off-scale awards, or any other potential
compensation from an employer.

BOTTOM LINE

This is your school’s net income. This is one of the first things
outsiders will look at to judge your school’s financial performance.
To improve your bottom line you can work on generating more
revenue, reducing expenses, or both.

BUDGET

A financial plan for the year that doesn’t change. A budget goes
through many layers of executive approval before it goes into effect.
Budgets include both costs and anticipated revenue.

BURN RATE

The burn rate measures outgoing cash flow and is based on the
amount of money your school typically spends each month. So if
you are spending $100,000 each month you’d have a burn rate of
$100,000. This rate is important for forecasting your income. If your
burn rate is larger than your expected income, or if it doesn’t leave
room for upcoming expenses, you know you need to adjust your
monthly spending.

CAPITAL

Anything a school owns that is considered a financial resource.
Everything from materials to machinery, facilities, and more can be
considered capital because they all add value to the school and its
future growth.

CASH FLOW PLANNING

An estimate of the amount of money you expect to flow in and out
of your business and includes all your projected income, expenses
and other non-income statement items that directly affect cash (i.e.
accounts receivable, accounts payable, financing). A forecast usually
covers the next 12 months, broken out either monthly or weekly.

CASH RUNWAY

A time measurement of how long your school could survive if it
stopped making money and continued spending as it is. This is
easily calculated by dividing the amount of money you have readily
available by your burn rate.

DEPRECIATION

Some assets lose value over time due to use, wear and tear, or
changes in the market. This is known as depreciation and must be
accounted for to help understand how the asset helped the school
earn revenue.

EXPENSES

Your expenses are the costs you pay to run your school such as
paying employees, vendors, rent, depreciation, etc.

FORECAST

Updated monthly or quarterly so a school knows how it will end the
year. Like a budget, forecasts also include costs and revenue; unlike
a budget, a forecast is updated throughout the year.

FIXED ASSETS

Your fixed assets are things you purchase and intend to keep for
a long time. Examples could be land or a facility, furniture, office
equipment, and some types of software.

GENERAL LEDGER

Your school’s general ledger is where all transactions get entered
(recorded, tracked, and posted) and is a useful tool for conducting
internal research/reviews, audits, and budget preparation. The
general ledger typically requires double-entry bookkeeping to
provide the most accurate financials and can be used to prepare
financial statements directly from the accounts, and as a means to
identify errors or instances of fraud.

INTEREST

Interest is the additional charge that accumulates on borrowed
money.

KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL

The intangible assets encompassing your employees’ skills,
experience, on-the-job education, and understanding of your school
and their areas of expertise. Because this asset is so specialized and
unique, it can give your school a highly valuable advantage.

LIABILITIES

The debts and obligations your school owes. These are listed on
the right side of your balance sheet including loans and mortgages,
accounts payable, expenses, and any deferred revenue. These may
sound like a bad thing, but liabilities are often essential to financing
expansions, a new facility, and operational costs.

MARGINAL ANALYSIS

As a decision-making tool, marginal analysis is the process of
weighing the benefits of adding an activity or function with the
added costs. Generally speaking, we perform marginal analysis
in our day-to-day lives, but the effects of these decisions become
much larger with an entire school at stake.

NET, NET INCOME & NET MARGIN

Net refers to a total amount after all deductions are applied
(while gross refers to a total amount before deductions). Your Net
Income is your entire income after overhead, interests, taxes, and
other deductions are taken out. Your Net Margin is a percentage
representing how much of your revenue is turned into cash
profit. This can be calculated using this formula: Net Margin (%) =
(Revenue – Operating Expenses – Interest & Taxes)/Revenue

OFF-SCALE REWARD

A fixed amount of compensation paid to an employee at one time or
over a defined interval, in addition to a salary. Examples of off-scale
awards include performance-based bonuses, extra paid time off,
revenue-based profit sharing, and temporary increases. An offscale award may change from year to year and does not affect an
individual’s base salary.

OPERATING COSTS

The expenses that relate to the function of your school such as
devices, resources, equipment, and facilities. This can include
typical ongoing overhead costs as well as variable expenses such as
materials and one-off purchases.

OPPORTUNITY COST

When you make a choice to prioritize one, you are faced with the
opportunity costs of another. For example, the opportunity costs of
a new playground may mean giving up a new auditorium. A marginal
analysis could rationalize this choice by find a greater potential
income with a new playground (which will benefit everyone and
increase curb appeal) than an teacher’s lounge (which will mostly
benefit teachers outside of class).

OVERHEAD

Your overhead consists of the general operating expenses and fees
required to run your school. When ongoing and predictable, these
costs can help you plan for the future and make smart decisions.

PROFIT & LOSS (P&L) STATEMENT

Shows your revenue, cost to operate, and expenses during any
given period of time. This is one of your most important financial
statements (along with your balance sheet and cash flow) and
provides the best view into your bottom line.
Charter School Capital helps charter schools obtain access to financing for growth so they can:

Enrich education programs
Expand and open new schools
Develop new programs
Provide technology in the classroom
Hire and develop staff
Improve transportation options
Access new facilities
Enhance facilities – with labs, gyms, etc.
Seamlessly address budget shortfalls and delays (deferrals,
holdbacks, etc.)
Support increases in enrollment
Finance furniture, fixtures, and equipment

WANT EVEN MORE BUDGETING INFORMATION?

To read more about these terms in their full context, download The Charter School Leader’s Definitive Guide to Budgeting Best Practices.
Charter School Budgeting Best Practices: Don’t Just Survive–Thrive!
Since the opening of Charter School Capital 10 years ago, we’ve reviewed thousands of charter school budgets. Year after year, we see common mistakes many charter schools make when budgeting for their academic year. Hear from charter school finance experts as they give you a breakdown of budgeting best practices to help you have a financially successful academic year. Don’t just survive — thrive!

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Education Reform: The Lessons Learned and What’s in Store

Editor’s Note: This article discussing the need for a reinvention of public education and education reform was originally published here, by The 74, and was written by Robin Lake, Director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education as well as affiliate faculty at the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell.
Robin shares her perspective (one we agree with) on our mandate as a country to prepare our children for a challenging economic future, enabled by new possibilities for an agile learning system that maximizes the potential of every student. Unfortunately, the current state of education does not support these goals effectively. So what have we learned? What’s working? What’s not? Lake provides some interesting perspective in this article.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.
Read the complete story to learn more.

Robin Lake: On the 25th Anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a Look at Lessons Learned & New Imperatives Ahead

At the Center on Reinventing Public Education, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. We are thinking a lot about our principles and lessons learned.
At our core, we believe schools can make a difference even for the most disadvantaged children. To do that, they must be coherent — meaning they must be grounded in a set of explicit values, hold all students to high standards, provide academic supports, give students opportunities for meaningful relationships with adults, and demonstrate links between school and real life. They must be free to try different approaches and use time, money, and teacher talents differently. Since schools will differ, parents must be free to choose. And governance can and must protect students without making schools into incoherent bureaucracies.
We still believe in these principles and are still working to make them reality. Yet there is an even deeper principle beneath CRPE’s work: We know that no idea is so good that it will work exactly as expected. People who want to make a difference must keep their eyes open, expect surprises, and learn from them.
By following this last principle, we have seen many of our hopes and expectations about the value of charter schools and the power of citywide portfolio strategies confirmed. But we have also learned about their limitations. We see many current efforts to improve public education frustrated by political logjams. More than ever, we are driven by the imperative to prepare children for a challenging economic future, enabled by new possibilities for an agile learning system that maximizes the potential of every student.

Hopes and Expectations Confirmed

Over the past 25 years, we have seen that coherent schools have long-term benefits for students, into and through college. They can make teachers more effective — and happier, too.
A quarter-century ago, charter schools were mostly theoretical. The very first ones were operating in only a handful of states. Once criticized as likely bastions of privilege, they have created coherent educational environments for thousands of disadvantaged children, and thus become lifesavers. In districts with open-minded leadership, they can serve as educational laboratories and sources of innovative ideas, as the original visionaries suggested.
But charter schools do not have a monopoly on excellence. District-run public schools, given the right levels of autonomy and support, can specialize and become excellent.
We have also learned that low-income and poorly educated parents can make good choices. Just like advantaged parents, they seek the school where their child is most likely to be valued and motivated, not the one with the highest test scores. But disadvantaged families also need access to resources, including information and transportation, to exercise choice on an equitable basis.

Factors Limiting Progress

However, as we look across an educational landscape where progress is slowing in many cities and leading education policy thinkers are searching for new ways forward, we’ve also had cause to reflect on the factors limiting reform efforts to date.
In response to signals from funders and state regulators, charter schools have too narrowly focused on average test score gains and college acceptance rates. This has slowed innovation. And charter schools, once established, often begin to act like the status quo, resisting transparency, innovation, and accountability — the forces intended to drive continuous improvement in portfolio school systems.
At the same time, middle-class families often don’t see any personal benefit from charter schools and other forms of public school choice, and they can perceive these things as direct threats to the advantages they currently have. In a related vein, nobody in the school system wants to redistribute money, even when it is obvious that schools serving low-income and students of color get the lowest-paid teachers and meager support from district programs.
All this means leadership matters. Yet superintendents and school board members can simultaneously want coherent schools and take actions that remove school freedoms and reinforce a culture of compliance. Even when city leaders succeed in making progress by replacing weak schools with more coherent ones, continuous improvement cycles don’t necessarily continue forever, and key indicators like student achievement often plateau. This is in part due to political pressure to keep schools open and in part a failure to innovate further by looking at new ways to help students succeed.
A newer wave of efforts to transform public education to more individualized, engaging, and mastery-based classrooms too often fail to truly serve every student’s needs and — as our recent study showed — are stymied by the habits and rules of a system designed for sameness.

New Imperatives, New Possibilities

All told, we have learned that school coherency is necessary but not sufficient. Every student needs a learning environment that makes sense, where the parts add up. But tomorrow’s students will also need access to new skills and forms of knowledge that will determine their ability to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Schools will need to enable individual students to hone their talents and develop the special skills that can define their lives as earners and citizens. Students of every background will need these kinds of opportunities, especially those with the most disadvantages. To create new pathways to upward mobility, we must bridge institutional divisions, especially between K-12 and higher education, teach to the individual rather than the mean, and look outside the boundaries of today’s traditional schools to expand opportunities for students.
Today, we are releasing a volume of essays that begin to explore these new possibilities. We look forward to the conversation ahead.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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Your Funding Journey with Charter School Capital

We are 100% dedicated to the charter school space and measure our success by the number of students we serve.

We’ve created this infographic to show you what a typical funding journey with Charter School Capital looks like. Our team works closely with you to find innovative solutions to your financing challenges. We pride ourselves on having the ability to be as creative, flexible, and innovative as possible to meet your specific needs so you can focus on your mission — educating students. You can download a PDF of the infographic here!

We are so excited to share this new infographic with you, so let us know what you think!

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published here by ExelinEd on October 31, 2018, and written by Claire Voorhees, ExcelinEd’s National Director of Policy. We are focused on helping all students access quality education. So how do we best address underperforming charter schools? Some intervention strategies can certainly help, but what are some other options? Check out this article to learn about some other options.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

#AskExcelinEd: How can states address the challenges of school turnaround?

Three years into the ESSA era, the rubber has finally met the road. All 50 states and D.C. have approved plans, identified their first set of lowest-performing schools and are now undertaking the most difficult – and most important – task of all: school turnaround.
To support states, ExcelinEd has partnered with the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and Chiefs for Change to provide information on leveraging federal funds and promoting rigorous, evidence-based turnaround strategies.
ExcelinEd is excited to release its first contribution from this partnership: School Interventions Under ESSA: Harnessing High-Performing Charter Operators. The brief reasons that states and districts can consider a wide variety of intervention strategies, such as replacing staff, improving curriculum and instruction and providing integrated student supports that address students’ health, emotional and behavioral needs.
However, in districts where schools fail to turn around—or have already been failing for multiple years—states should consider the one option that can give students languishing in low-performing schools a higher-quality option: bringing in high-performing charter schools.
This brief also builds on our earlier findings, How to Recruit High-Performing Charter Management Organizations to a New Region, to highlight strategies states can use to attract high-quality CMOs to districts where schools are struggling the most. These strategies fall into three main categories: leveraging state and federal funding; authorizer quality and operating autonomy; and talent pipelines.
We look forward to working with states as they address the challenge of school turnaround and ensuring their students receive a quality education.

Charter School Capital Financing Helps New Designs Stay On Track for Success

With so many choices for where go to access financial resources for your school, it’s important to select the right one for you. At Charter School Capital, we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education to families across the country. And we’re proud to provide the reliability and stability charter leaders require as they walk their journey to better educate more students today—and in the future.
Please watch and listen as Paul Okaiteye, Chief Executive Director, New Designs Charter School, shares his experience working with Charter School Capital at a very critical time for California schools.
This video was originally published Jul 17, 2014. While we are not currently funding New Designs Schools, we are proud of the way our support helped them meet the needs of their students, parents, and teachers. Our team is dedicated to helping your school become financially stable, successful, and set up for future growth. To learn how other school’s have achieved success by partnering with us, check out our other success stories here and filter by the content type, “School Spotlights”.
Watch the short video to hear Paul’s story and find the transcript below. You can learn more about Charter School Capital here.

New Designs is a charter college preparatory school that is focused on math, science and technology to prepare kids in southern Los Angeles to make sure that by the time students get out of 12th grade at New Designs Charter School, they meet and exceed their requirements for entry into a four year university.
Most of the time when the kids come in, they’re usually two or three grades below where they’re supposed to be. And it takes us to work with them for a year or two—in some cases a little longer to be able to get them to grade level.
We have a fiscal consultant, and he’s the one who first introduced Charter School Capital to us. And it came at a very critical time. It has helped us to stay afloat, to be able to stay in business for our teachers and all the employees to have the confidence that when I go to work I can give my all and know that at the end of the period when I’m supposed to get my check, it will come on time.
So, I would say the Charter School Capital has been a partner to New Designs Charter School. I say that because have gone beyond just giving us money, and to making sure that we can stay in business and they’re also interested in the education aspect of what we do.
Not just in the financial aspect. Anytime I have a question, anything regarding financing with a state or even with any transaction, I’ve had an exceptional response. They’re very professional. They want to get you what you need.
They have been a lifeline because they have come through for us at times when we needed it the most and they have done things that other institutions have not been able to do. And so they have been making sure that the blood keeps flowing through our veins.

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Florida Elections: State of the State

Elections Matter.
For the last several years a common phrase has been used by winning candidates everywhere. Elections matter. And that could not have been any more significant for school choice advocates in Florida than the most recent statewide elections.
In 1996, Jeb Bush partnered with community leaders and opened Florida’s first charter school in Liberty City in Miami-Dade County under legislation signed by then Democrat Governor, Lawton Chiles. Bush, a Republican, would go on to become Florida’s Governor in 1999 and together – with the Republican-controlled state Legislature – would control two of three branches of Florida’s state government for the next nineteen years. This Republican control resulted in legislation advancing school choice, particularly charter schools and charter school expansion.
During this time of Republican control, school choice opponents sought relief in the state’s court system to attack and beat back legislative policies favorable to school choice and charter schools. Over the past several years, the liberal-leaning Florida Supreme Court has been a major stumbling block to expanding school choice and charter schools in Florida. That all changed this past November.
Former Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis was elected Governor in November, and with it came the opportunity to appoint three new members of Florida’s Supreme Court. These appointments resulted from the vacancies created by three justices reaching the mandatory retirement age just as DeSantis was inaugurated as Florida’s newest Governor. These retiring justices were first appointed by previous Democrat Governors and helped keep the Court a more liberal body that routinely sided with school choice opponents in a number of high-profile cases it heard.
Most recently, the Court struck down a proposed constitutional amendment that would have set term limits on elected school board members. The amendment would also maintain the school board’s duties to public schools it establishes but would permit the state to operate, supervise, and control public schools not established by school board (charter schools or other schools of choice).
Shortly after his inauguration, Governor DeSantis appointed three very qualified, conservative justices to the Court, and as some observers have said, created one of the most conservative state Supreme Courts in the country.
When speaking about these appointments, newly elected Lt. Governor Jeanette Nunez said, “(these appointments) will single-handedly be the most important thing for the future of this state that we have ever seen.”
Shortly after naming the three new justices, Governor DeSantis also selected former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Richard Corcoran, a staunch charter school proponent, as the new Commissioner of the Florida Department of Education.
These executive appointments signal a sea change in the state’s political landscape and send a clear message that Florida’s new Governor is serious about K-12 education, and even more serious about advancing school choice options in the state. His rhetoric on the campaign trail has translated into action, and charter school proponents in Florida should be very pleased with what they see over the next several years.
The recent Florida elections – and subsequent changes in leadership – are a great example of how much elections indeed matter.
About the Author: Larry Williams is the owner/principal at Larry Williams Consulting LLC. They offer comprehensive consulting and lobbying services in the legislative and executive branches of state government as well as state agencies. Larry Williams Consulting LLC has established a network of relationships within the legislative, executive, cabinet and government agency arena as well as extensive knowledge of the issues.

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