Charter school News and Trends Archives

We know that summer is a busy time for educators, and when you’re trying to manage staffing, budget for your school’s needs, develop organizational strategies, and have some summer vacation time, there isn’t a lot left over to keep-up with updates in charter school news. So, we’ve decided to compile our top picks for this week. Happy reading!

The Productivity of Public Charter Schools

The University of Arkansas just released a report on the productivity of public charter schools and district schools, looking specifically at cost effectiveness and ROI. Key finding indicates that charter schools nationwide are 40% more cost effective than district schools.
To read the whole report, click here.

__________________________________________________

Sixty Year Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education – Are Charter Schools Achieving Brown’s Vision?

In a Huffington Post article this week, Deborah McGriff, Chair of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, writes: “Sixty years ago this week, my family and other Black families across the country were wondering how the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision would impact their children’s education. How long would it take for the promise of a great education to become a reality?”
McGriff goes on to point out how charter schools are offering hope to low income and working class students that they will finally receive a high-quality education. She points out that in some cases “public charter schools are actually flipping the achievement gap – helping Black and Latino students outperform affluent, white students across their states.”

__________________________________________________

NPR: High Performing Charter Schools May Improve Students’ Health

Research from UCLA and the Rand Corp. indicates that students at academically better schools were less likely to indulge in high-risk behavior, like smoking cigarettes, using marijuana, drinking, participating in gang activity, or having unprotected sex. The survey was made up of 521 Los Angeles charter school students and 409 local neighborhood schools.
To read the full NPR blog post, click here. The actual report can be found here.

Last week, at the National Charter School Conference in Las Vegas, we announced an innovative $500 million charter school facilities program to help charter schools nationwide address one of the charter school movement’s biggest challenges – securing facilities that meet the growing needs of charter schools. The formation of American Education Properties, LLC (AEP) brings together Charter School Capital and investment firm, American Infrastructure MLP Funds (AIM) to help solve the growing facilities needs of America’s charter schools.
The offering is unlike any other facilities financing options available on the market today. Charter schools will now be able to determine their own long-term facility needs and maintain full control of their buildings. This represents a major improvement from the year-to-year lease renewals that many charter schools currently experience. By providing long-term facilities security and an investment partner interested in charter school expansion, charter schools now have the ability to expand their enrollment and educational offerings with confidence.
What does this mean to charter schools?

Charter schools now have the opportunity to provide the best facilities to match the needs of their educational programs as well as determine long-term facility needs while maintaining full control of their buildings.
Schools will be empowered with the flexibility to make choices about what to do with their space so it best suits their faculty, staff and student community.
Charter School Capital will work with all charter schools to facilitate the origination and sourcing, underwriting, asset administration, and property management.

Charter School Capital President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, noted, “The dramatic growth of charter schools – 13 percent in 2013 alone – makes it clear that facilities financing, which is already one of the industry’s largest challenges, will become an even more pressing issue during the coming years. In 2012, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) found that more than half of charter schools would outgrow their current facilities within five years. Collaborating with AIM in the formation of American Education Properties allows us to serve a broad array of charter schools nationwide by freeing-up resources that schools are then able to allocate to classroom instruction or other operational needs.”
The news has charter school advocates celebrating. “Nearly one million students nationwide are on charter school waiting lists. Charter school educators are eager to meet that demand. Fortunately, Charter School Capital has stepped up and created a solution to help parents,” states Caprice Young, President, Education Growth Group and founder and former CEO of the California Charter Schools Association. “These resources will open doors like never before! Public charter schools are now able to expand, offer new programs and customize their space to create the learning environment that best matches student needs.”
Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools added, ” By providing charter schools security in their facilities, this effort helps lift a burden many schools face and will enable schools to focus, as they should, on their students and their academic results. School administrators will be better able to direct their scarce resources and time toward educating students rather than worrying about real estate needs.”
“We are pleased to be partnering with Charter School Capital on this important initiative,” said Bob Hellman, CEO of the American Infrastructure MLP Funds. “Our goal is to help solve America’s infrastructure needs with innovative capital solutions, and we believe that charter schools represent a critical and growing piece of this infrastructure puzzle. We look forward to working with schools and communities in need of secure, long-term facilities to provide the resources to help them continue to grow and thrive.”
Since we made this charter school facilities announcement, the availability of funds has been mentioned in several news media including the Portland Business Journal and Reuters.
What are your facility challenges? Has the inability to secure the right type of facilities impacted your charter school’s ability to enroll and educate more students in your community? Share your experiences with us below or email our team at GrowCharters@charterschoolcapital.com.

In our ongoing effort to provide CA budget updates, here is the most relevant information for charter schools in California.

On Wednesday last week, the Budget Conference Committee met and heard all open items and items that had not been previously discussed during the budget hearings. They are attempting to ‘close’ out the budget and forward it to both houses of the legislature for a final vote before the June 15^th deadline. If the budget is not passed by the legislature by June 15^th legislators will cease to receive their paychecks. The Conference Committee adopted several pieces of compromise language to the Proposition 98 package. Here are the highlights from the education package that was adopted:

Assumes the Governor’s revenue projections, which provides an overall Proposition 98 funding level of $60.9 billion for 2014-15.
Reduced deferral payments by $897 million, but included trigger language to make the payment if revenues are sufficient.
Provides $450 million to pay down the K-14 education mandates backlog, with the intent that monies freed up from this payment be dedicated to implementation of the Common Core State Standards. Includes $26.7 million for the K-12 High Speed Network for improving internet connectivity in our K-12 schools.
Provides $250 million in one-time funding for Career Technical Education (CTE) through the Career Pathways Trust competitive grant program.
Approves Supplemental Report Language directing the Department of Finance to report to the Legislature, concurrent with the release of the Governor’s 2015-16 January Budget, with recommendations for future treatment of funding for any former categorical education program, including but not limited to Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCPs) and Beginning Teacher Support and Assistance (BTSA).
Increases funding for Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) implementation by $250 million above the Governor’s proposed $4.5 billion, additionally, makes the following changes related to LCFF:

Providing a quality education to at-risk students often requires multiple resources. One-on-one teacher instruction, access to current technology and customized lesson plans for students with special needs are just a few of the tools necessary to help children from underserved communities reach their potential. This formula has lead to success for Skyline Education, a charter management organization in Arizona.
The multi-disciplined approach to education that Skyline’s six campuses provides “comes at a fairly high up-front expense,” says KJ Weihing, vice president of finance at Skyline Education. “We wanted to make purchases but didn’t have the up-front funding. That’s why we called Charter School Capital; they helped us get that short-term funding.”
Skyline opened its first campus in 2000, but it wasn’t until 2009 that organization began to experience rapid growth, adding five new campuses from 2009 to 2012. Skyline now serves more than 1,000 students in socially and economically diverse communities, including the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.
Such dramatic growth created a real need to access working capital funding, explains Weihing. Skyline Education knew that it would be receiving its funding, but given the uncertain payment schedule from the State of Arizona, they didn’t know when. Skyline administrators knew they needed some form of help to even out their budget throughout the year but were very wary of outside funders until they met Charter School Capital.
“I was impressed with them and their fee structure,” says Weihing. “A lot of times there are organizations that will lend for high interest because they know you can’t get funds anywhere else. Charter School Capital’s fee structure was not outrageous [like that].”
The relationship Skyline has developed with the Charter School Capital team is rooted in much more than just financial terms. Weihing would recommend to any charter school needing funds to start-up or for growth, that they just “start the process,” stating that the two organizations have formed a real partnership dedicated to the success of all Skyline Education’s schools.
“Last year, we wanted to make new computer purchases for one of our schools, but we didn’t have the current funding on hand to make that happen. So we worked with Charter School Capital to provide us with the funding in order to get those computers into the classroom sooner than we would have been able to if we were waiting on funding,” concludes Weihing. The whole process has been “extremely seamless, quick and easy; I’m glad we did it.”

The team at Charter School Capital is hosting our next webinar on charter school growth strategy, featuring the stages of growth from start-up to expansion on to a mature school. There’s great information for everyone involved in the planning and operations of charter schools. Marshall Emerson, CEO and Co-founder at I CAN Schools will join Stuart Ellis, our President and CEO to walk through the stages of growth and the key issues at each stage including charter school funding, operations, facilities, and other key topics.
There are still spaces available for this informative webinar. Register today!

Zalika Gardner, co-founder of KairosPDX and Director of Learning for the Early Learning Center, spoke on April 12th at TEDx Portland 2014 conference. In December 2013, KairosPDX became the first unanimously-approved charter school in Portland, Oregon; a feat made possible in part thanks to a letter of intent supplied by Charter School Capital guaranteeing funding support. Charter School Capital co-founder and CEO Stuart Ellis sits on the KairosPDX board.
Listening. It’s a basic concept in education. Students listen to their teachers, and learn valuable lessons that will serve them as they grow to be adults.
But what can teachers learn when they listen to students?
Zalika Gardner’s speech at TEDx Portland served not as a platform to present a radical new idea, but rather to inspire new thought about a very old one: listening, and how our own internal barriers often prevent us from doing it effectively.
Gardner notes that, of all the populations in the world, the one group that always stands at the ready to make a difference, to envision a better future, is our children. Children are not yet shaped and defined by a lifetime of experiences; they don’t accept things for being ‘the way they are.’ Instead, they have the unique ability to see what could be over what is, and every adult – teachers, parents, everyone – has the responsibility to encourage and empower children to believe in themselves and their own thoughts and ideas.
However, we often do not do that. Without even knowing it, each of us often judges what another has to say before we even hear it. The certainties that exist in our own minds prevent us from truly listening, especially to children who we view not as potential teachers but as those needing to be taught.
The three barriers to listening that Gardner identified are:

Assumption – I know your type. I have a label, and I’m not afraid to use it.
Arrogance – I have already decided that what you have to say is irrelevant.
Fear – I’m afraid that listening to you may require something of me. I may feel guilty or judged, or your experience may challenge mine. I see a risk in listening, and so I won’t.

The risk we face when we don’t listen isn’t just to ourselves either. Not only do we isolate ourselves from new thoughts and ideas, we also dismiss and diminish the person we refuse to hear. Children are particularly susceptible to feelings of rejection and often lose faith in their own ideas as a result of not being heard.
Gardner closed her speech with a story, recounting how she asked her first grade class the question, “What’s in charge out there?” and one student replied “Imagination. Because if you can’t imagine it, it’s very hard to believe in it.” Ms. Gardner uses this insight to challenge us then to imagine a world where we all listened differently, a world where every child knew that they mattered, that they were important, and that their voice was heard.
What would that world be like?
The full video of Ms. Gardner’s speech can be found here: http://new.livestream.com/tedx/TEDxPortland2014/videos/47879614
Additional speeches from TEDx Portland can be found here: http://new.livestream.com/tedx/TEDxPortland2014

Charter School Capital is getting ready to head to San Jose for the 21st Annual California Charter Schools Conference. This year, we’re proud to support the conference as the Platinum Sponsor, one of the lead sponsors of the conference.
This year’s focus on innovation couldn’t be more appropriate, especially with continued growth in charter schools across the country – 13 percent according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools‘ recent report. There are now approximately 6,400 public charter schools with more than 2.5 million students across the country, with California charter schools at the forefront of this growth and innovation.
Our team will be heading to San Jose the first week in March and we hope to see you at the conference. Stop by and say “hi” at Booth #625 and ask us how we can help fund your charter school.
One of our team members will be happy to meet with you or feel free to schedule a meeting in advance of the conference with us. We’ll also be providing additional information related to the conference, so check back in the coming days and weeks leading up to the conference the first week in March. Or, simply subscribe to our blog.
We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

The Charter School Capital team’s bags are packed and we are heading to DC for the 2013 National Charter Schools Conference. We’re proud to be sponsoring this year’s conference as an Operations Strand Sponsor and are looking forward to a lively panel discussion while there.

On Monday, July 1^st, we will share the stage with three charter school leaders in our breakout session, Building a Growth Strategy. Our panelists will map out the three stages of charter school growth from start-up and expansion to sustainability and efficiency. This in-depth discussion will include the challenges charter schools face at each stage, how these organizations overcame those challenges, and best practices to avoid pitfalls and achieve success.
Our distinguished panelists includes:

Michael Connelly, CEO, Mosaica Education
Marshall Emerson, CEO and Co-founder, ICAN Schools
Manny Rivera, CEO, Believe to Achieve
Stuart Ellis, CEO and Co-founder, Charter School Capital

Following our breakout session Monday morning, we will be sharing the presentation on our blog. If you haven’t signed up for our blog yet, please be sure to do so here. We will also be sharing updates, photos, and other breakout session recaps.
For more information about the conference, please click here. If you are attending the conference and interested in checking out some of the local attractions, you can find more information at the DC Convention Center page dedicated to the National Charter School Conference.

Charter School Capital was excited to learn that San Tan Learning Center was presented the Large Business of the Year Award by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce.
The San Tan Learning Center, founded by Kristopher and Rita Sippel, has experienced growth of more than 1200% since 2006; expanding from 45 students to 550 students. The charter school has also nearly doubled its budget, at $3.1M, and now serves pre-K through middle school students.
According to the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, “San Tan Learning Center finds uniqueness in the system that allows their teachers to instruct each child as an individual at his or her own level of mastery. Parents are considered to be partners in education and regular communication and goal-setting are part of the school’s culture.”
Charter School Capital first began working with San Tan Learning Center in 2011 and has been impressed with their dedication to the advancement of their programs and focus on the student educational experience. Congratulations San Tan Learning Center!
View the original article in AZCentral.com.

This week America honors charter schools and the tremendous contributions they make to the education landscape. “Delivering on the Dream” is the theme of the 2013 National Charter Schools Week, with events large and small being held across the nation May 5 – 12.
Approximately 5% of all of the nation’s schools are charters, serving over 2.3 million students. The movement has seen rapid growth, and states from California to Florida are embracing charters as an integral part of a modern education system.
In a May 3 statement, President Obama recognized charters as learning environments that “give educators the chance to try new models and methods that can encourage excellence in the classroom and prepare more of our children for college and careers… We should share what they learn with other public schools and replicate those that produce dramatic results.”
Charter School Capital is happy to take part in this celebration of charters this week alongside its partner schools. We commend parents, teachers and school administrators for the many accomplishments the movement has made on behalf of students, and declare continued support for the road ahead.
Supporters and advocates should use the opportunity of National Charter Schools Week to contact their local or state charter association to learn about upcoming public events or rallies happening in their state. Individuals are also encouraged to contact their state legislators to declare their support for charters.
“I commend our nation’s charter schools, teachers and administrators, and I call on states and communities to support charter schools and the students they serve,” stated the President. At Charter School Capital, we couldn’t agree more.
Helpful Links to get started with National Charter Schools Week: