Category: Charter school News and Trends

 

National Charter Schools Week

It’s Almost National Charter Schools Week—Are You Ready?

Get ready for it! National Charter Schools Week is May 12-18, 2019 and we’re excited to take this opportunity to help recognize and raise public awareness for charter schools, school choice, student success, and the charter school movement as a whole. This is a time for charter school leaders, students, parents, and advocates to come together and showcase the amazing things that charter schools are doing.

About the Charter School Movement

The charter school movement has been growing steadily since the first charter law passed in 1991 in Minnesota and the first charter school opened in 1992. To date, 44 states (D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico) have charter laws, 3.2 million students attend charter schools, and there are over 7000 public charter schools nationwide receiving $400 million in Federal CSP Funds. Charter schools currently employ 219,000 teachers.

This Year’s Theme

This year, during National Charter Schools Week, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools theme is “Charter Schools Are…” because each charter school is unique in how they serve their students, families, and communities—and because we all have a different definition of what charter schools mean to us.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is encouraging schools and advocates alike to join in the celebration by hosting/attending local rallies, inviting elected officials to classroom visits, and sharing your voice through blog posts, media outlets, and social media posts. Learn how you can get involved with some great ideas and templates from the National Alliance here.
Get some shareable facts and learn about the state of the charter sector in this recent information-packed blog post!

Get Social and Start Sharing!

Our team will be following along and featuring some of these National Charter Schools Week activities on our social channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
We invite you to join the conversation as well by using the hashtags #CharterSchoolsWeek and #WeLoveCharterSchools so we can help amplify your voice and the voice of the movement!

Charter School Capital logoSince 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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charter school facts

Charter School Facts: The State of the Charter Sector Today

Editor’s Note: Bellwether Education Partners published the first The State of the Charter Sector in 2015. They have just recently completed the second edition, The State of the Charter Sector: What You Need to Know About the Charter Sector Today, in January of this year. It includes the latest available information on the charter sector (data on growth, geographical trends, school performance, etc.)
Because charter schools and the charter school movement continue to be a topic widely debated across the country, we are consistently working to dispel myths by sharing the facts. Similarly to the sentiments of the team at Bellwether, “Our goal is not to persuade but to inform. Rigorous debate — based on accurate information — is necessary for thoughtful policymaking and, ultimately, to ensuring all students have access to a high-quality education.”

The State of the Charter Sector: What You Need to Know About the Charter Sector Today

General Summary

  • Schools: There are 7,039 charter schools
  • Enrollment: 3 million charter students
  • Enrollment Share: 6% of total public school enrollment are charter students
  • State Charter Laws: 44 states and D.C. have charter school laws

Growth

  • After years of rapid growth, the number of charter schools and students is starting to level off, though school closures understate the pace of new school openings
  • The majority of schools opened since 2005 are in 16 states; 40 percent of all new school growth during that time occurred in California, Texas, and Florida
  • Growth in high-performing CMOs far outpaces overall sector growth

Performance

  • The latest available research shows that, nationally, charters outperform traditional public schools in reading and underperform in math
  • National performance masks strong performance across many regions, locales, & student groups
  • Charter performance is improving over time
  • More recent sector-wide research is necessary to understand charters’ impact nationally

Challenges

  • Charter schools face challenges in seven areas: state policy, authorizers, facilities, human capital, funding, public opinion, and
  1. State laws do not allow or set a cap on charters, restrict authorizers, and limit access to funding and facilities
  2. Authorizers are a key driver in charter performance, but there is wide variation in effectiveness
  3. Charters have limited access to appropriate facilities, but some state and federal policies help
  4. Charters face human capital issues, including shortages of teachers of color, unequal compensation, and low staff sustainability
  5. Charters receive 27 percent less in per-pupil funding than TPS
  6. Public support for charters has gone down in recent years
  7. Charters, like many TPS, struggle to ensure that all students have equitable access to high-quality schools and experiences once enrolled
  • The sector has made progress on these challenges in recent years, but none have been truly solved

For the purpose of this blog post, we’ve just highlighted some top-level numbers and facts, but you can read the complete report here.

Charter School Capital logoSince 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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Charter School Funding

Charter School Funding: Why Do Charters Get Less Per Pupil?

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published here by The 74 on January 8, 2019. It was written by Patrick J. Wolf, a distinguished professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas. Corey A. DeAngelis is an education policy analyst at the CATO Institute. Larry D. Maloney is president of Aspire Consulting. Jay F. May is founder of and senior consultant to EduAnalytics.
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.

The Shortchanging of Public Charter School Students: Why Do They Get So Much Less Per Pupil Than Students at Traditional Schools?

In December, we released our study Charter School Funding: (More) Inequity in the City. We meticulously tracked all public school revenue — including federal, state, local, and nonpublic dollars — during the 2015-16 school year in 14 cities with high concentrations of public charter schools.
Charter schools in those cities received on average 27 percent less total revenue per pupil than traditional public schools, a gap of $5,828 per student. The cities with the largest gaps were Camden, N.J., at $14,671 per student, and Washington, D.C., at $10,258 per student. Charter school students in Atlanta, Georgia, received an average of 49 percent less per pupil in revenue than students in traditional public schools. In Little Rock, Arkansas, charter students received 39 percent less.
One critical feature of our public school funding studies is that we focus on revenue. We think it’s important to know how much money is being provided to the public charter and traditional public school sectors. It represents the resources committed to educating students. (School expenditures, while interesting, are a different topic.)
Second, we count everything. Public schools receive funds from federal, state, and local governments as well as philanthropies, parents, and valuable in-kind services such as student transportation and access to school buildings. We identify and record every dollar, and the dollar value of in-kind benefits, directed to the public charter or traditional public schools in each jurisdiction, regardless of its source. When traditional public school districts pass through money to charter schools or receive funds to provide services to charter students, we count that as charter school revenue.
Money passed through traditional public school districts to charters also is counted on the charter side of the ledger. We then divide the total revenue received by the public charter sector by its total per-pupil enrollment and do the same for traditional public schools. Our method generates a complete measure of per-pupil revenue in each sector.
Some analysts say our method is flawed because it is too complete. Certain revenues, they argue, should be excluded from school funding totals because they come from special sources or are intended for specific purposes. Only the school revenue that runs through the official funding formula in a given state should be counted as “per pupil” revenue, they claim. By excluding large categories of school funding, researchers adopting this approach generate smaller per-pupil funding amounts, especially in the traditional public school sector where much of the revenue comes in the form of categorical grants, not formula funding.
By excluding school revenue categories, our critics suggest that only some K-12 school funding is intended to support students. Our challenge to them is this: If large categories of school funding are not intended for students, then whom are they for? If the reason for providing any and all revenue to schools is to support students, in direct and indirect ways, then why exclude any school funding from per-pupil calculations? Our critics have difficulty answering those questions.

RELATED: The Charter School Funding Gap: Why Are District Schools Getting More?

A great example is facilities funding. Traditional public schools receive facilities funding mainly through local property taxes or bond issuances, sometimes supplemented by state categorical grants. Whatever the source, traditional public school systems handle facilities funding through a capital budget that is separate from their operational budget.
A separate set of books reports capital revenue and capital spending. Public charter schools receive facilities funding from a great variety of sources, including (sometimes) a fair share of local property taxes, the in-kind benefit of co-location in a traditional public school building, state categorical grants, or state per-pupil allotments.
We track all of these revenue amounts in our study. Many public charter schools have no access to any revenue sources dedicated to facilities. They have to fund their facilities out of operational monies, by paying rent.
Some critics of our comprehensive approach argue that all capital funding should be excluded. After all, it pays for buildings, not educating kids. But don’t school children benefit from having a facility built and maintained for their education? If so, capital revenue should be counted in any true measure of total per-pupil revenue.
Charter school students need buildings, too. Since one sector finances buildings as a capital expense and the other funds it as an operational expense, any comparison that excludes capital revenue will be biased, reporting a deceptively low funding total for traditional schools. We refuse to introduce that bias into our calculations. We count all revenue received by all schools in both sectors, whether intended to support school buildings or school operations.
A final possible objection to our inclusion of capital revenue is that it distorts funding totals in the year in which funding is received and counted. Facilities are funded and built in a specific year but benefit students across decades. A better approach, some argue, would be to depreciate the value of school buildings across their useful life. Certainly, that would be true if we were studying individual schools in isolation. We are not.
We are studying large school sectors — charter and traditional — with capital needs that are smoothed across time simply because not every school in the sector needs a new building every year. When one charter or traditional school receives funding for a new building, that revenue influx is averaged across the group of schools in the sector for that year, because some day they all will get theirs. Moreover, depreciating the value of each school building requires making a host of economic assumptions. We prefer our method, which relies on actual dollars in specific years, over approaches that speculate about the future.
In sum, our comprehensive school revenue reports raise hackles with some people because we count everything. We think completeness is a virtue, especially when the education of students — all students— is at stake.

Charter School Funding
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.

Charter School Capital logoIf 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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charter-like schools9 Tips For How To Create More Successful Charter-Like Schools In Urban Districts

Editor’s Note: This article from The74, was originally published here on September 19, 2018 and was written by David Osborne and Emily Langhorne. David directs the Progressive Policy Institute’s education work and is the author of Reinventing America’s Schools: Creating a 21st Century Education System. Emily Langhorne, a former English teacher, is an education policy analyst and project manager with the Progressive Policy Institute.
This article highlights how, over the past 15 years, the fastest improvement in urban public education has come from cities that have embraced the key tenants that have led to charter schools’ success — autonomy, choice, diversity of school designs, and real accountability for performance. In order to compete, many districts have recently tried to spur charter-like innovation and increase student achievement by granting their school leaders more autonomy.
Interestingly, studies in Boston, Memphis, Denver, and Los Angeles showed that public charter schools outperformed both traditional public and in-district autonomous schools on standardized tests in three of the four cities studied. But getting a charter isn’t always an easy road in today’s political landscape. In this case, in-district autonomous models may be the second-best option. Learn how districts can increase the success of these schools if they take guidance from these nine lessons learned from districts already embracing this new charter-like model.

Osborne & Langhorne: Where Politics Make Charters Difficult, 9 Tips for How Urban Districts Can Create Charter-like Schools — and Improve Their Success

charter-like schoolsOver the past 15 years, the fastest improvement in urban public education has come from cities that have embraced charter schools’ formula for success — autonomy, choice, diversity of school designs, and real accountability for performance. To compete, many districts have recently tried to create charter-like schools to spur innovation and increase student achievement by granting their school leaders more autonomy.
District-run autonomous schools are a hybrid model, a halfway point between charters and traditional public schools. They’re operated by district employees, but they can opt out of many district policies and — in some cities — union contracts.
Our recent analysis of state exam scores from 2015 and 2016 in Boston, Memphis, Denver, and Los Angeles showed that public charter schools outperformed both traditional public and in-district autonomous schools on standardized tests in three of the four cities studied. In the one exception, Memphis, the district concentrated its best principals and teachers in, and provided extra funding and support to, its autonomous iZone schools.
However, when the political landscape makes chartering difficult, in-district autonomous models may be the second-best option. Districts can increase the success of these schools if they heed these nine lessons learned by the four cities in our study.

1. Protect unrestricted autonomy

When autonomy is limited, so is principals’ ability to meet students’ needs. Districts need to give these schools unrestricted staffing and budgeting authority.
Staffing autonomy allows school leaders to hire effective staff who believe in their school’s vision and to evaluate staff based not only on performance but also on cultural fit. Forced placement of teachers not only harms student learning; it can also undermine a school’s culture. As one autonomous school principal in Los Angeles said, sometimes a principal needs to “lose a teacher and save a school.”
Budgeting autonomy enables principals to hire staff according to their schools’ unique needs — for example, bringing on additional guidance counselors rather than a dean. Leaders who control their own budgets can fund hands-on learning, purchase tablets for blended learning, hire a full-time substitute teacher, or employ any of a hundred other innovations.

2. Create a district office or independent board to support and protect autonomous schools

Autonomous school leaders spend a significant amount of time fighting to exercise the autonomies they have been promised. Sometimes, they get so frustrated, they leave. Districts with autonomous schools should create a central unit dedicated to supporting them, defending their autonomy and advocating on their behalf when disputes arise.
An alternative is to create a 501(c)3 nonprofit board, as Denver has. These boards are appointed, not elected, so they are free to make decisions that benefit students and schools without fear of political backlash. The boards oversee school progress, provide financial oversight, select school leaders and evaluate their performance, and protect them from district micromanagement.

3. Articulate a district-wide theory of action and secure buy-in from central office staff

Changing the mindset of the central office requires a huge cultural shift. Autonomous schools necessitate that many parts of the central office do things differently, so employees need to believe in the connection between school autonomy and student success, rather than seeing autonomous schools as an inconvenience and/or a challenge to centralized authority. District leaders need to openly discuss why they believe school autonomy will produce better performance, share this information publicly with school leaders, central office employees, teachers, and the community — and constantly reinforce the message.

4. Turn some central services into public enterprises that must compete with other providers for schools’ business

The fastest way to change the mindset of central office staff who provide services to schools — such as professional development, food, maintenance, and security — is to take away their monopoly. When internal service shops have to sink or swim in a competitive market, they almost always swim, because they are much closer to their customers than private competitors are. But, in the process, they increase their quality and reduce their costs.

RELATED
Five Reasons Independent Charters Outperform In-District Hybrid Schools

5. Authorize district-run autonomous schools like charter schools

Rigorous authorization has been essential to the success of strong charter sectors. Districts should use similar processes to authorize their own autonomous schools — allowing only the most promising applicants to open schools and removing those that prove ineffective. A careful authorization process weeds out weak proposals at the beginning reviews performance along the way and replaces schools that fail with stronger operators.

6. Ensure continuous improvement by using a clear system of accountability to close and/or replace failing schools

A common shortcoming among districts with autonomous school models is their failure to impose consequences that create real urgency among teachers and principals — closing and replacing failing schools. Every district should implement a performance framework that requires schools to show academic growth. If they fail, the district should provide additional supports during a probationary period but replace them if they still don’t meet targets. If a school is successful, the district should provide resources and incentives to encourage it to open another campus, as Denver does with its Innovation Schools.

7. Invest in developing autonomous school leaders

Giving schools autonomy does nothing to help student achievement if school leaders follow district procedures rather than looking for ways to be innovative. Districts need to invest in developing school leaders so they can take advantage of their freedoms. Careful selection of and support for principals has been a large part of the Memphis iZone’s success. Novice principals there are placed in partnerships with experienced principals, meeting over the summer and throughout the year to collaborate on strategies for leveraging autonomy to achieve results.

8. When possible, give families a choice of autonomous schools

Families and students who can choose their school tend to show more commitment than children who are assigned to one. Choice empowers them, and people who feel empowered are more likely to give their best efforts. In addition, systems of choice allow for the creation of schools with a variety of learning models, so students can select a school with the culture and curriculum that best fit their needs.

9. Explore district-run autonomous models from other cities

By examining a variety of successful strategies, districts can find and adapt the model that best fits their political climate and meets the needs of their community.
In addition to the four cities we studied, Springfield, Massachusetts, and Indianapolis, Indiana, have launched interesting in-district autonomy strategies.
The Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership, created as an alternative to a state takeover of several schools, contains nine struggling middle schools and one high school that have been given significant autonomy, overseen by a seven-member board of four state-appointed officials and three locally appointed members. The teachers union negotiated a new contract that includes longer hours, increased pay, and some compensation based on performance.
Indianapolis’s Innovation Network Schools, which start with full charter-like autonomy rather than with waivers from district rules, are the fastest-improving in the district. They have the same exemption from laws, regulations, and contract provisions as charters, and while the schools operate in district buildings, the principals and teachers are employed by the nonprofit corporation that operates the school. Each school’s board hires and fires the principal, sets the budget and pay scale, and chooses the school design. The nonprofits have five- to seven-year performance contracts with the district. If schools fail to fulfill the terms of their contracts, the district can refuse to renew them; otherwise, the district cannot interfere with their autonomy.
By following the recommendations above, districts can create self-renewing systems in which every school has the incentives and autonomy to continuously innovate and improve. At the same time, they can offer a variety of school models to families, to meet a variety of children’s needs.
Whether school boards will have the courage to close failing autonomous schools full of unionized district employees will always be a question. The long-term sustainability of in-district autonomy after the leaders who championed it have left is another Achilles’ heel. But if done well and sustained, such schools have the potential to improve public education in urban America

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Charter School Capital is proud to deliver access to growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. In the past 10 years, Charter School Capital has invested more than $1.8 billion to 600+ charter schools, helping them provide a high-quality education to more than 1,000,000 students across the country. 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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public charter schoolsNew 2018 Survey Shows Support for Public Charter Schools is Strong

Note: This post from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools was originally published on December 5, 2018, and can be found here. It is a summary of a new report “2018 Schooling in America Survey” by EdChoice. We thought sharing it was a great way to wrap up this year!
This annual survey—developed and reported by EdChoice and interviews conducted by their partner, Braun Research, Inc.—measures public opinion and awareness on a range of K–12 education topics, including parents’ schooling preferences, educational choice policies, the federal government’s role in education and more. They report response levels, differences (“margins”) and intensities for the country and a range of demographic groups. And this year, the survey includes an additional sample of current public school teachers to gauge whom they trust and how they feel about their profession, accountability, standardized testing and more.
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.

61 Percent of Americans Support Public Charter Schools in “2018 Schooling in America Survey” by EdChoice

*Today [*on December 5, 2018] EdChoice released the 2018 Schooling in America Survey, which measures public opinion, awareness and knowledge of K-12 education topics and reforms.
This year’s results confirm that support for charter schools is strong. While parent satisfaction among home school, private school, and district school students decreased, satisfaction increased among charter school parents. Additionally, 43 percent of parents surveyed indicated that they were “very satisfied” with charter schools, compared to just 26 percent of parents at district schools.
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools President and CEO Nina Rees said,
“The EdChoice survey findings put data behind what we hear from parents all the time: They love public charter schools and they want more children to have access to them. Seeing that six out of 10 Americans (61 percent) support public charter schools, while just 29 percent oppose them should convince lawmakers at every level of government to work together to ensure that students have access to high-quality, free public-school options.”
About 62 percent of parents surveyed would rate their local charter schools with an A or B grade, 10 percent higher than the rating parents would give to their local district schools. Furthermore, 13 percent of current and former school parents said they would prefer to send their child to a public charter school if it was an option. Among the surveyed teachers, 61% of teachers favored charter schools when provided with a basic description of a charter school. The report findings clearly indicate that parents want to have the opportunity to choose the best school for their child, and that the majority of public school teachers recognize charter schools put kids first.

Charter School Capital logoSince 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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charter school funding

Charter School Funding Reaching Schools in 38 States

Editor’s Note: This post on charter school funding originally ran here, on November 6, 2018. It was written by Christy Wolfe, a Senior Policy Advisor for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS)and was published by The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. We are always inspired by the outstanding content disseminated by the NAPCS and are proud to share their valuable information.
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.

FY 2018 PROGRAM UPDATE: CHARTER SCHOOLS PROGRAM FUNDS REACHING SCHOOLS IN 38 STATES

In September, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded grants in four of the six Charter Schools Programs (CSP): State Entities, Developers, Credit Enhancement, and Dissemination.
charter school funding map
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

Charter School Funding

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.

Charter School Capital logoAt Charter School Capital, our dedicated team of finance professionals works with you to determine funding and facilities options based on your school’s needs. 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.


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charter school facilities fundingCharter School Facilities Funding: It’s Time to Fill the Gap

Editor’s Note: This content originated here and was posted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Across the U.S., facilities are, by far, the greatest challenge faced by charter schools and accessing a school building is often the biggest obstacle in expanding charter school options. And, it’s one of the main reasons we have over one million students sitting on charter school waiting lists. Most charter school leaders have to jump over serious hurdles to cobble together the charter school facilities funding to provide their students with an adequate school building. It’s time to fill the gap in public school funding.

charter school facilities funding

Note: The following content is also from The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools on September 18, 2018, and was originally published here.

Here are the five things we think you need to know about charter school facilities:

Charter schools rarely have access to taxpayer-funded facilities, even when they’re vacant.
Taxpayers own public school buildings and they should be available to all public school students, but that’s not the reality. Unlike district schools, charter schools don’t have an inventory of buildings to choose from. And in many places – like Detroit, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis – districts refuse to allow charter schools to lease or purchase buildings even when they’re vacant. As a result, you can find charter schools operating in shopping malls, office buildings, repurposed factories, or co-located with other schools.
Charter schools on average spend about 10% of per-pupil funding on facility space.
While some charter schools access federal or state programs these initiatives have limited funding and reach. They don’t work for all charter schools. Moreover, many of these programs simply reduce the cost of borrowing money – schools still need to cover the debt which shifts much needed funds from the classroom and to the building.
Charter school facilities often lack amenities like gymnasiums, libraries, or science labs.
Specialized instructional spaces, such as science labs, libraries, and computer labs, are an important part of a comprehensive educational program, but about 40 percent of charter schools do not have the right amenities or specialized classrooms to best implement their educational model.
Access to school buildings is one of the biggest obstacles to expanding charter school options.
Charter school leaders report that lack of access to adequate facilities is one of their primary concerns and one of the biggest barriers to growth. In fact, nearly one in five charter schools had to delay their opening date by a year or more due to facilities related issues. Even celebrities can’t avoid the facilities challenge.
5 million parents want to send their child to a charter school, but don’t have the option.
Based on parent demand, estimates suggest that the potential number of charter school students is 8.5 million – almost three times larger than today’s actual enrollment. Thirty percent of parents surveyed would be interested in sending their child to a charter school, with 10 percent saying that a charter school would be their top choice. Of interested parents with charter schools in their community, over half cited access problems – such as the school is too far away or has a wait list – as the reason their children do not attend a charter school.
Learn more about the facilities challenge many charter schools face and help ensure charter schools can open their doors to students!


The Ultimate Guide to Charter School Facility Financing:
Thinking about a new facility for your charter school or enhancing your current one? This guide shares straightforward and actionable advice on facilities planning, financing options, getting approved, choosing a partner, and much more! Download it here.

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public charter schoolsUnderstanding The Value And Importance Of Public Charter Schools
Todd Feinburg with Amy Wilkins

In this informative podcast, Todd Feinburg from Radio.com interviews Amy Wilkins, Sr. Vice President Advocacy National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
They answer the question if charter schools are the only alternative for poor, minority and urban students to find alternatives to public schools, why aren’t there more of them, and why don’t Democrats fight for them? They go on to discuss the need for more charter schools as well as the benefits of charter schools in a failing public school system. Finally, they’ll dispel some common myths around charter schools and the charter school movement.
Please listen to the podcast or read the transcript below to learn more.
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.

TRANSCRIPT
Todd Feinburg:  WTIC. You know I love Charter Schools. I want everybody to get a great educate in America and we are far from that point. Joining us now to talk about it is Amy Wilkins, Senior Vice President at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. How about that? Amy, welcome to WTIC. Thanks for talking to us.
Amy Wilkins: Hi, Todd, how are you this afternoon?
Feinburg: I’m psyched to have you here, so let’s talk Charter Schools and what’s going on. What are the trends going on in the choice world in providing alternatives, particularly in poor communities where it would be nice if people had Charter School options and more choices for their kids for schools. What’s your assessment of where we’re at right now?
Wilkins: Demand far outstrips supply, especially in communities of color. There are far more families who would choose Charter Schools for their kids than currently can, just because of limited space and really, the biggest obstacle we face, to opening more high quality Charter Schools for kids, whether they’re low income, urban, rural, wherever they are, is the facilities question, the school building question. You know, if you’re a district-operated school, the district just gives you a building, right? You get a school building. Charter Schools have to finance their own buildings and finding appropriate and adequate space is really among the things that are holding back growth for these much-needed schools.
Feinburg: And what is the … well, before I ask you that, I’m surprised by what you’re saying about the facility. I understand. I’ve seen Charter Schools that are in church basements and in what were industrial buildings, where they throw up some dividers and make classrooms and those aren’t ideal, but what you find out when you see those schools in action is that the facilities maybe are over-emphasized in our public schools. And what’s really important is having a great education in whatever kind of walls you can find.
RELATED ARTICLE: BEST PRACTICES FOR CHARTER SCHOOL FACILITIES FINANCING 
Wilkins: Oh, absolutely. You know, what matters most, what is the heart of any school are the teachers and the curriculum, I would agree with you 100% on that, Todd. But, I also think the kids whose families choose Charter Schools deserve libraries, labs, playing fields, all of those facilities as well. So, yes, better to go to a strip mall and get a really strong educate, than to go to a palace where you get a not so strong educate. In the best of all worlds, you go to a high-quality Charter School that has a lab, a library, a playing field, all of those facilities.
Feinburg: So, how do Charter Schools get the buildings?
Wilkins: Well, you know, too often they have to buy a building and then they face the same mortgage problems that all of us face when we want a mortgage and the problem, as you know, is Charter Schools, when they’re looking for a building, are often brand new and don’t have much of a track record to stand on, so it’s hard for them to get financing or they pay rent for a building. And what happens then, as you know, you have district-operated schools where their building is just free, it’s given to them by the district. Charter Schools, when they’re paying rent or financing a mortgage are having to take funds that would otherwise be directed to their instructional programs and pay building costs.
Feinburg: Have Charter Schools proven to be worth the investment? We hear all this conflicting information about whether they’re actually a successful alternative or not.
Wilkins: I think like anything, we have some really great Charter Schools and we have some Charter Schools that I think should be closed. But, in general, the general trend suggests particularly for urban kids and for kids of color, Charter Schools are their very best bet. We have solid evidence that kids, those kids in particular, gain months of learning over their peers in district-operated schools. So, the trend seems to be telling us, yes, this is really important from a data point of view, from a student achievement point of view, they are absolutely the right answer. From a parenting point of view, they are the right answer as well. I mean, parents deserve a choice. Not every school fits every child, you know? You may want a different type of curriculum for your child. Your child may have special needs that the district schools are unable to meet. So, both from an academic point of view and from the point of view of parents having some control over the kind of educate their kids get, Charter Schools are absolutely a vital part of kind of a healthy public education ecosystem.
Feinburg: We’re talking to Amy Wilkins on Charter Schools. I love talking about Charter Schools because my belief is, particularly in urban areas, that there is a crisis going on, and I don’t feel, Amy, as a country that we can afford to have millions of kids, rich, poor, minority, white, whatever … we can’t afford to have millions of kids not getting a great education.
Wilkins: Absolutely not. I mean, at bottom, it’s sort of inhumane and, you know, no adult should look at a child who’s not getting an education and feel good about it. But, I mean, there are certainly strong implications for our future economy, including who’s going to pay your Social Security and mine, Todd. There are big implications for national security. Educating our kids is the foundation of our future and Charter Schools are a proven sort of winner in that for our kids and so, to me, it’s a no-brainer, that we just have to do it. We have to do well and we have to do more of it.
Feinburg: Do you see a way to make this argument, though, for cities? So, in Connecticut, we have so many cities and they’re not particularly large, but they are part of a pattern of a city being a place where minority kids, poor kids are essentially stored and not given an opportunity to get out. It just strikes me, as you say, as some kind of human rights violation, if you want to argue from the humanity point of view, that the system is rigged to be mediocre, at best and oftentimes worse and there’s no economic opportunity. There’s really not a way out and that drives a lot of minority kids into gangs and bad behavior that puts a lot of boys into prison. And how does that pattern get broken through education, because that’s the only tool I think we have available?
Wilkins: No, you’re absolutely right. Education is the surest way out of poverty and the strongest weapon, I think, we have against racism. It really is up to … I hate to say this, it’s up to communities. You know, they have to stand up on behalf of their kids and demand something better, demand something different. Now, you could also … I don’t know, this is like being really kind of out there … you know, you saw the kids at Parkland saying, “We’re not happy with the kind of safety of our schools and we’re afraid of guns in our schools.” I think, you know, the kids know when they’re being short-changed. We really sort of have to start talking to the kids about how they feel about the schools they’re going to and, unfortunately, they’re not old enough to vote, but I think conversations … if elected officials had conversations with kids at some of these schools, some of the kids I talk to and hear what goes on in their schools, I think that would spur some action that we’ve yet to see.
Feinburg: Have you ever seen that kind of thing going on where there are public displays of rebellion or unrest over the idea that oppression, the educational oppression of minority students?
Wilkins: Well, I don’t know if I would call it unrest. I have seen groups of students in various parts of the country … I know it’s happened in Wisconsin. I know it’s happened in California, who do lobby days and go to their state legislatures to lobby and testify about the conditions in their schools. One could certainly see the same things happening at School Board meetings and City Council meetings in Connecticut, if there were folks willing to help these kids begin to organize.
Feinburg: Yeah, but there has to be a spark of something bigger because the rigged education system, the partnership between the Democratic party and the Education Unions, there is this fixed system that says this is the only way education can happen, and we live in times where we need educational agility, where policy can change quickly, where schools can adapt over the very short term to the needs of the kids. How do we get from here to there if there’s no model if there’s nothing for people to look at and say, “We want that.”
Wilkins: Well, there are models. I mean, that’s the thing. In Connecticut, for example, you have the Amistad Charter Schools which are among the best in the country and people should really go see them. They have done a wonderful job with those schools. So there are things … part of this … part of the challenge here is people don’t … and I’ve been doing education for years, and years, and years. What’s so sad is that people really don’t see schools beyond the schools that they attended and the schools their children have attended and they don’t know that something else is out there, that something else can be better and you know, part of the responsibility of groups like mine, in doing interviews like this one, is to let people know there are better alternatives and to say that it’s easy to create one, it’s easy to sustain one, I would be lying. But you know, there are better things, but like most better things, they require work and commitment.
Feinburg: Amy Wilkins is the Senior Vice President at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. So, what exactly do you folks do?
Wilkins: We represent in Washington, primarily. The Charter Schools out there in America, we lobby Congress to ensure that there’s funding to start more and better Charter Schools.
Feinburg: So, the Federal dollars are a critical part?
Wilkins: The Federal dollars really are start-up dollars. Once you’ve started, then you really are reliant on state and local funding, but the Federal government does supply … it’s a program called the Charter Schools Program and it supplies seed money for new Charter Schools to get started.
Feinburg: What are the … can you shoot down the basic arguments against Charter Schools, the kind of superficial ones that have appeal to people who aren’t very involved, and they hear about how, for example, that Charter Schools are taking dollars away from the public schools, it’s an attempt to destroy the public schools.
Wilkins: Well, that just doesn’t make any sense because Charter Schools are public schools. Charter Schools are part of the public school system, so I don’t understand how they could take money away from a system that they’re already a part of. It’s just a nonsensical argument that the Teacher’s Unions have sort of … it’s a catchy phrase, but it means nothing.
Feinburg: How about Charter Schools just have to … they get to pick whatever kids they want. They don’t have to worry about the special ed kids?
Wilkins: That’s not … in fact, Charter Schools currently are serving a slightly higher percentage of special needs kids than our traditional public schools, so that’s just not true. Charter Schools serve as many and, in some cases, a few more special needs kids than do traditional public schools.
Feinburg: I forget what else the arguments are. Is there one more you can give us?
Wilkins: Yeah, that they’re a plot to tear down the traditional public school system. At this point, Charter Schools make up less than 5% of all schools in the country.
Feinburg: So it’s a failing plot?
Wilkins: Yeah, we’re doing a pretty bad job. I mean, if the traditional public schools, which are educating 95% of the children are so scared of something that only represents 5%, there’s something deeper going on there, you know? And I think that that’s one of the things we really have to understand about Charter Schools. The demand for Charter Schools, to me, reads like an indictment of the traditional public school system. If everything were hunky-dory in traditional public schools, there wouldn’t be this enormous demand for Charter Schools. And so when the traditional public schools point to Charter Schools and say, “Oh, they’re a problem, they’re a problem, they’re a problem,” they really should turn and look more in the mirror to say, “Why are these schools even existing? Why do people demand them?” They demand them because public schools have fallen so far short for so many kids.
Feinburg: Amy Wilkins, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. What’s the website?
Wilkins: It’s www … I have to get some help here, www.publiccharters.org.
Feinburg: What is it?
Wilkins: It’s publiccharters.org.
Feinburg: Publiccharters.org. Amy, thank you so much. Great to talk with you.
Wilkins: Thank you so much. It’s great to talk to you. Have a good afternoon. Bye-bye!
Feinburg: Bye-bye. I hit her with a tough surprise question at the end.

The 5 Essential Steps to Charter School Facilities Planning

Charter school facilities planning can be daunting. If you think that finding the perfect facility for your charter school seems like a huge, complicated undertaking, you’re in good company. This handy, information-packed guide, will help as you move towards realizing your facility expansion or relocation goals.
In it, we cover these five essential charter school facility planning steps—in detail:

  1. Charter School Facilities Planning Plan – Begin planning at least one year in advance
  2. Fund – Understand your options to make savvy decisions
  3. Acquire – You know what you can afford and how you’ll pay for it … now go get it
  4. Design – Partner with experts to design your new space
  5. Execute – Let the construction begin and get ready to move in
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charter school performanceCHARTER EDtalk: How to Measure Charter School Performance and Achievement

In this CHARTER EDtalk, Charter School Capital’s Chief Marketing Officer, Janet Johnson, and Chief Operating Officer, Kirt Nilsson, were privileged to sit down with the “father of the charter school movement”, John Cairns.  John shares his perspective on how to best measure charter school achievement and performance. He also provides some thoughts on what steps he believes should be taken if a school is found to be underperforming. At the heart of the conversation is the vital nature of accountability and engagement between the school Board, the executive director, and the teaching staff. Watch the video or read the transcript below for the full story.

Janet Johnson (JJ): Good morning. I’m Janet Johnson with Charter School Capital and we’re here with John Cairns, who is one of the founders of the first idea of charter schools and the first law in the nation about charter schools. We’re honored to have you here, John.
John Cairns (JC): Nice to be here.
JJ: Thank you. Along with Kirt Nilsson from Charter School Capital and we’re going to be talking about charter school performance with John.
JC: Good.

On School Choice

Kirt Nilsson (KN): John, we’re doing a campaign at Charter School Capital called, surprisingly, We Love Charter Schools.
JC: Good campaign.
KN: Definitely a good campaign. I’m sure one that you can align with. So, can you tell us in a couple sentences why you love charter schools.
JC: Well, I got interested in the charter school reform movement in 1969 when I was elected into the city council in Minneapolis. And we had a school district within a school district, meaning we had no teacher’s contract.
We had self-governed Boards, we had teachers on Boards. And EDs [executive directors] we selected. We had six elementary schools and so many high schools. That’s how I found public schools,choice was in place. In our neighborhood, where I was a city councilman, parents could choose where you go to school.
I didn’t have any real responsibility. Nobody knew who their school board members were, so they called me all the time to get involved. And I got right in the middle of this. I had no choice, even though two school board members lived on my block. Nobody knew who they were.
So, that got me into the whole choice side and the idea that schools were going to be based on the kids learning. I thought that’s how a traditional system worked, you would think. So that got me started. So, that’s almost 50 years I’ve been on the education reform side of things.

On Measuring Student Achievement

KN: That’s great. And so you mentioned how students learn in their schools, within the charter school world, choice is obviously a big component. So is achievement. How do you think about achievement in charter schools and how it should be looked at, measured?
JC: I’ve been concerned about this since we opened the first school. I think the movement towards tests tells us something about the child’s performance, and it’s a measure. You can at least see the change in the test scores, that’s a measurement.
There are other measures of growth which are not specifically tests. So I start from a standpoint of wanting to see the growth curve through the kids. And because charter schools can be more focused on the kids one-on-one and they spread their money across the classroom with as little administration as possible, there’s usually two adults in every classroom, and they can do some remediation right in that room.
And the other kids are pretty much self-learners and they get started on a project. In fact, I’ve seen several schools where they actually have tables of eight and they started on a topic and the teacher leads the discussion gets them going, and then she’ll pull out one or two of the kids that she knows needs some help. And meanwhile, a senior learner at the table will run the program. So the kids are actually teaching the kids.
KN: That’s amazing.
JC: I saw that even in first grade, some of them.
KN: Leaders of the future.
JC: You bet.

Addressing Underperforming Schools

KN:  So, choice is a very powerful thing within the charter school world because parents can choose schools based on what they perceive to be the benefits in achievement. But as we know, sometimes schools aren’t performing the way that they probably should.
What are some routes that you see how that can be addressed? So, what should be done with schools that aren’t performing to the level that probably they should be?
JC: The first place I’d start is with the Board and the ED. They have to admit, and it’s a hard admission to make. So the first step I’d take is I want the Board or the ED to recognize they’ve got a problem. And sometimes the board is very weak and they rely on the ED doing everything.
The Board’s have to understand. Too often that’s not the case. So I’d do a lot board governance to try to get the boards to understand they need to know as much about the school and ask, are the kids learning? Not necessarily all they all advanced, but are they learning?
I try to get every charter school to have their own agenda, have at least a 15-minute discussion about how are the kids learning in this area or in that area. What areas are working best? And then inside the faculty, at the beginning they have to have some sort of way of understanding that they can’t let one teacher have a bad experience and a bad classroom, because it will drag people down.
It’s compounded a bit because charter schools typically get fairly young teachers. In most States, teachers would be a bit reluctant to walk away from a tenured job. Even though in Minnesota they keep their spots. So if a five-year teacher comes to a charter school and works five years, they still have five years of tenure. They don’t gain any tenure, but they still have the five.
So I’d go to the board, the ED and I’d try to get the faculty to have some leadership to say, “This isn’t working very well. What should we do?” Out of that ought to come –with the authorizer – some sort of transformation process. It should. And it could be new leadership, it could be new ED, it could be better organizing or training the faculty. But the Board’s got to be in charge of that, and if the board isn’t willing to take charge of that then it’s simply going to stay there and get worse.
KN: It starts with leadership, right?
JC: You bet.

Assessing a School’s Improvement

KN: So then with that leadership, assuming it plays the way it ought to be, how do you know when a school that was under-performing starts to perform? What are some of the things and signs that you see of, “Oh yeah. They’re heading in the right direction.”
JC: Well, you certainly will see an improvement in internal testing on subject matter, and they do some standardized tests that aren’t required. Many schools will do something every month of their own creation that they think is a measure of kids learning. And that goes down just like the standard scores go down, so they’ll first see a turn in the internal testing.
You’ll then start to see some sort of project-based learning. So the kids not only have a test, they have a product of something they’ve done and it’s going to be out of enjoyment. So the kids identify with this, in particular, when you go to say, fourth grade. It’s a little harder in K-3. But they have an outcome. It’s visible, touchable and it’s something that happens every month, not just once a year.
And the third thing I’d look to see is, the enthusiasm from the teachers because if they’re in a school that’s not doing well they’re not going to feel very good about themselves. But when it starts to turn, they all of a sudden say, “Oh! We can do this. This will really work.” You see a completely different attitude. And then the board should be acting the same way. So you start to see a slow turn-up.
And some schools can’t pull it off, and so we have closures. In Minnesota, we have 165 schools open now but in the 20 or 30 years, we’ve done this we’ve probably authorized 260. And some of those schools today are new. So we’ve probably closed somewhere between, around 80 schools. Over the years.
Lack of money, usually it’s lack of enrollment. We’ve had no fiscal management coaches for about 10 years, because we’ve learned much about how to make that work. We had a few rip-offs back in the first round of schools, so we watch carefully about the board really being engaged. That’s a good sign.

On Working with Charter School Capital

KN: We all are interested in the success of charter schools, and those that are performing are so fun to watch. Those that are having challenges are fun to work with and try and get them to move forward. So we’re all headed in that direction, Charter School Capital included. So we’ve worked together for a bunch of years, what’s your experience been like in working with Charter School Capital?
JC: I first met Stuart and one of the partners who’s left, I think in 2009 or 2010. Minnesota schools had a budget shortfall, so we were trying to fill the gaps from the shortfall. And after the first two days of being with them, as they were leaving, I said, “Two things. One is, the biggest problem the charter school industry has, is lack of capital to grow, and lack of capital to manage the schools. And the second thing I said was, if I was 20 years younger I would stop my law practice and join Charter School Capital.”
JJ: That’s great.
JC: So, it’s been a great experience. I mean, I think in some ways I may be a little underused, in the sense that one of the things I’ve been able to do is, for anybody who gets confused or doesn’t understand the charter school concept or charter school practice, I’ve had a number of calls. And I probably should make it more clear to people that, that’s part of my mission—to take the call anytime about somebody who can’t figure out.
JJ: So you’ve heard it here, folks. He’s ready to take the call.
JC: I’m ready to take the call. From anybody inside Charter School Capital or outside.
JJ: That’s great. Thank you so much, John, for joining us today. We really appreciate your work on our behalf, too.
JC: I think Charter School Capital is just a fabulous organization.
KN: Thank you, John.

Charter School Capital logoSince 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 1,000,000 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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