CHARTER EDtalk: California Charter School Facilities

In this CHARTER EDtalk, Janet Johnson, CMO at Charter School Capital, sits down with Branché Jones, Lobbyist with the Branché Jones Lobbying Firm and Charter School Capital’s Co-Founder, President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, to discuss California charter school facilities. More specifically, they discuss the effects of Proposition 39 and SB740 on how charter schools are able to access funds for their facilities as well as how state-driven programs or laws contribute to the dynamics between the authorizers and the schools. See the video and the transcript below.

Transcript:

Janet Johnson (JJ): Hello and welcome to this edition of CHARTER EDtalk. Today we are speaking with Branché Jones, who is a California lobbyists and consultant who served for seven years as VP of Governmental Affairs for the California Charter School Association. And, we are speaking with Stewart Ellis, CEO of Charter School Capital. We’re going to be talking a little bit about facilities today and board governance.
Stuart Ellis (SE): Branché, given all of your expertise and the experience you’ve had impacting charter schools and education in California, tell us a little about – from your perspective – what an authorizer in that role has to do with charter schools and their facilities.
Branché Jones (BJ): In California, we have a unique situation where charter schools are actually authorized by their competition because the charter school is going to try to educate and work with the same students that the school district serves, so it’s a unique model that we have in the state. Under Proposition 39, the authorizer is obligated to provide facilities to the charter school for kids that would otherwise go to the school, the traditional school, so there’s a burden to authorize the school, but also the tension that develops because you have to provide facilities for those kids who actually left your traditional schools to go through a charter school. So, it’s a unique situation that creates a lot of tension between the authorizer and charter school.
SE: How does that tension reveal itself between authorizing and overseeing a charter versus providing or supporting the school for their facilities? What kind of problems arise between the district and the charter school?
BJ: Well, in a different time and place, I was actually a lobbyist for San Francisco Unified School district, and I worked for a superintendent. In that capacity, one of the things the district does is create a facility master plan. So, they look at all the buildings they have, facilities they have, where they are, which ones they need close, which ones they need to renovate, which ones that you have to spend dollars to maintain. So, they’ve got a whole list of things they do. The charter school comes and basically opens up in a part of town—there may be a closed school there—it may impact the district in another way. It’s hard for the district to figure out where the charter school fits in because they haven’t prepared for it in their facility master plan.
Additionally, one of the things that districts do – that we find problematic – is they will provide the charter school multiple sites. So, they’ll give you 60 seats over here, the room for 100 students three blocks away, and another building a mile away. Under that scenario, they have met their Prop 39 obligation, but it becomes impossible or nearly impossible for the charter school to utilize all those facilities. Although some of our folks are very, very creative and they find a way to utilize the facilities. But those are some of the issues that arise between the authorizer and the charter school facilities.
SE: You mention Proposition 39 and how it impacts the way the districts and charters work together. Talk a little bit about how SB740 or other state-driven programs or laws contribute to those dynamics either between the authorizer and the school and how that fits into the picture.
BJ: Specifically, on SB740, that actually assists the district and assists the charter school because it provides money for facilities. So, the charter school doesn’t have to go to the district. They can rent or lease somewhere else. And actually, if they meet the requirements of SB740, they receive funding for their students. The flip side of SB740, which no one talks about—it was a two-pronged approach. One side was to provide facilities for charter schools in low-income neighborhoods. That’s where it started. But the other side was actually to create regulations around non-classroom-based charter schools. So that side of SB740 has non-classroom-based charter schools filing funding determinations with the state and the state will determine how long they’re funding. It can be up to five years and what percentage they’re funded at. And so, the best thing you’d come out with is five-year funding termination with a hundred percent funding. So that’s a problem with SB740 because no one likes that side. The state doesn’t like to go through the process and charters hate going through this process because there are different bars and percentages you have to make. It becomes pretty complicated.
But you know, when, when we started out, I want to say maybe 15 years ago, maybe 17 years ago, SB740 was $7.7 million for the whole state for charter school facilities. My good friend, former superintended Jack O’Connell, was part of putting that together and helping us get facility money. Be we grew it to nine and then we worked with the speaker of the assembly at the time, president of the state Senate to grow the pot to out a $120 million. So now it’s an excess of $100 million to provide money for charters school facilities. So that actually helps, takes a burden off the district and it allows a charter school to actually be able to plan, enter into a long-term lease, figure out how these costs are going to be met from a school site level.
SE: How much money is available to charters on a per-student basis? How does that translate down at the level of the individual school that qualifies for SB740?
BJ: To be honest with you, I don’t have the number right now. I don’t remember what it is per student. It was $750 per student, they’ve changed the formula. We’re going through a budget process right now and they’re changing the formula. And the governor wants to get it up to $1,100, and I think the legislature wants to be around $900. So, I’m assuming that it’ll be somewhere around $900 this year.
SE: And the funding determination that you mentioned for a non-site-based charter learning models or whatever, do they have access to the same kind of dollar figure and dollar amount if maxed out?
BJ: They don’t because they’re non-classroom based, so they don’t have facility costs that the traditional classroom-based charter school has.
SE: So those other aspects of the laws don’t give them access to the same money. It just creates limitations on the per-student funding level they have.
BJ: It can create limitations. It doesn’t give them access to the SB740 pot. It can create limitations if they don’t spend, I think it’s 80 percent of their money on instructional materials and 40 percent of their money on certificated employees. So, there’s a whole process that the department of education staff goes through examining what you’ve spent, what your budget looks like. You can’t have a lot of money in reserve.
A long time ago, in some faraway place, there were charters that were doing things (not everybody, but some schools) that were questionable with their reserves and how they spent their money. This was the state’s answer to address that. I think it was the incorrect answer, but oftentimes when the state faces a problem, they always impose the incorrect answer. You just have to live under them. So that’s kind of where we are. And the reality is that most charters have now mastered that system. They understand how the process works so they can meet all the requirements that the state puts before you and they’re coming out – in four or five years – with a hundred percent of their funding.
SE: You mentioned some things about constraints of resources and the infrastructure that a district has allocating pieces per Prop 39 to schools – whether intended to be helpful or not – given that they’re supervising and authorizing their competition. How has the state or the district and/or charter schools, as you think about it, invest in the infrastructure necessary to support students going forward? Where’s that funding coming from? Or what kind of challenges are there to districts?
BJ: And you’re talking about it in terms of school bonds?
SE: You’ve got, across the state, existing schools that may, by law be required to be offered to charters, but often those schools are mothballed or broken down or, or really very old facilities that need significant investment to bring them up to a place where they can really serve the student population. What kind of challenges exist there and how is that being addressed?
BJ: I’ll say overall, I don’t believe the state is addressing their facility needs when it comes to K through 12 education. On top of that, you apply the pressure of transitional kindergarten programs that the state would like everyone to have. My good friends in Sacramento, at Universal Preschool, there’s a whole number of things they want, the LEAs traditional schools and school districts to do that they don’t have facilities for.
Typically, you have local bonds. The state does every other year, every four years ago, about a $9 billion K through 12 bond. When you think about the school system that has over 6 million kids, that’s not enough. It just can’t keep up with what we’re doing. Excuse me. Not what we’re doing—but [can’t keep up] with the students we’re educating.
But also, you would like to see more bonds. You’d like to see more local bonds, more state bonds, but you have to start thinking about local debt and what’s that doing the taxpayers. Maybe a decade or 15 years ago, we actually reduced the threshold to pass bonds. Local bonds used to be 66.7% or two-thirds and now we’ve reduced it to %. So, you have bonds flying everywhere because you (US political folks) can figure out how to get that 51%. That’s not hard.
But the question is what is that doing to your tax base? And, and on top of that, when you’re a district as large as Los Angeles, how do you equitably set that so all students benefit? When you’re in San Francisco when you are landlocked and there’s no buildings to buy, right? There was like nowhere to buy. You can’t build a new school. So basically, your money is for renovation. The state, when they do the K through 12 school bonds—I think Assemblyman O’Donnell has the bond bill this year for $9 billion—part of that will be for new construction, modernization … you know, you’ve got all these different pots … a charter school pot, etc. so $9 billion isn’t a lot when you’re cutting it four or five ways – so you’re not really meeting your needs.
It’s kind of like infrastructure. We never meet our infrastructure needs in the state and we pay gas tax. I really don’t know where it goes but I’m still having a fifth wheel alignment in my car. Right? Because it’s bumpy. So, I don’t have an answer but we’re not addressing our needs and we need to figure that out.
SE: You got any questions for me today?
BJ: I do have one question for you. When we talk about school facilities and the tension providing facilities for the charter causes the district, how can Charter School Capital step in there and help them ease that tension or help with growth with the charter school as they prepare to move forward. How can you be helpful with that?
SE: I think you mentioned some of the constraints and the lack of resources available when we go through taxpayers and support from the government agencies out there that are supposed to do that. And I think one of the things that Charter School Capital has been able to do over the past decade-plus that we’ve been funding charter schools, (starting here in California) is to bring private capital from outside the government and outside the taxpayer base to support the building and creation of that infrastructure necessary for schools to flourish. And, to be able to deliver that in a way that is more efficient perhaps than the way a government money is provided and customized for the solutions that the schools need to create to serve their underlying families and student populations.
So, we’ve been able to bring that to bear, particularly in California, and although it may not be enough to support all of public education, the $1.6 billion-plus that we’ve now invested in charter schools in our history is actually quite significant when combined with government funding. That allows schools to both support their long-term facilities needs and do so in a way where it’s customized. It’s not scattered across campuses. They can’t get kicked out of the facility after two or three years or see their rent or debt service rise drastically. But they also have access through us to the operational capital and growth capital they need to hire and invest in the programs, teachers, technology and things to really make their program work within whatever facility they have.
And so they have access to the funds in a reliable way. And then the expertise that comes also from our organization – outside of the money – we funded now over 600 schools supporting more than 800,000 students. That expertise really allows us to help charter school leaders utilize the money in the most efficient and effective way to deliver the best quality programs to the students and families that they serve or have picked their programs as the best thing that public education can offer in California.
BJ: We really need to figure out how to make that fact known. I think that the number of students served is an incredible number and that’s something that you should be yelling from rooftops. Making sure people are aware of that. And also, on the facilities side, we should work hard to find a way to partner with districts and say, hey, we have a solution to your Prop 39 problem. I think those are two takeaways we can have.
SE: It may be that frankly, because the capital we have available for schools to take advantage of, I think working with the districts to either pay for or acquire [facilities] so that the district can actually have more funds going in. Then we can take advantage of or acquire the underlying facilities to serve the charters and then invest money that the district or local agencies don’t have to put to work. And we can actually turn some of these aging facilities into properties and educational facilities that charter schools can leverage to really deliver customized solutions for the underlying families and where they have an investor willing to add to and enhance the underlying property.
SE: People don’t get to see you very often. You are behind the scenes working on these things, but I just want to say, having worked with you for years, and seeing the impact you’ve had on education in California, I don’t think people really appreciate the impact that you’ve personally had on the growth of charter school movement in California and across the country. And it’s always been a privilege to work with you.
BJ: I appreciate that. Appreciate those kind words. And you know, I love working with Charter School Capital. And I think that everything we can do to promote what’d you’ve done for students and the schools you’ve helped stay open when we’re going through deficits and deferrals in the state, the impact you had. I think sometimes folks don’t understand that, but it was huge, and I think a lot of charter school people who’ve worked with you and then you’ve actually helped out—they get it. But we’d always need to remember that. So, thank you.
SE: A pleasure.
JJ: And, with that, thank you, Branché, for coming in and speaking with us today and thank you, Stuart, for your time. And thank you for listening in on this latest CHARTER EDtalk.

Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. 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 $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us!

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2018-2019 California Budget May Revision

On Friday the Governor released his 2018-2019 California budget May Revision. Below are some highlights compiled by our partners at Capitol Advisors.

Overall, the 2018-2019 California budget May Revision contains positive news for California’s economy, General Fund revenues, and Proposition 98 funding. We have known for several months that tax revenues are higher than what was projected in the January budget proposal, but several variables related to the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee formulas indicated that recent increases in tax receipts would not result in significant additional 2018-19 funding for schools. That view is confirmed in the May Revision – however, the fairly strong growth in the Proposition 98 guarantee projected in the January budget proposal is retained in the May Revision. The minimum guarantee for K-14 schools is slightly higher ($68 million) in the May Revision compared to the January proposal, which is good news given recent Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) analyses suggesting that the Proposition 98 guarantee might actually end up lower than January estimates.

Highlights of the 2018-19 California Budget May Revision

• $142 billion General Fund resources available
• $137.6 billion General Fund spending (including transfers)
• $17 billion total state budget reserves
• $78.4 billion Proposition 98 Guarantee
• $3.3 billion increase for LCFF (over 2017-18)
• “Full implementation” includes 2.71% COLA
• Proposes an additional $166 million increase to base grants
• $2 billion one-time, discretionary funding (roughly $344 per ADA)
• Retains recognition and funding for county office support role
• No major K-12 policy/funding changes from January

Governor Brown’s Press Conference

Governor Jerry Brown appeared in a good mood as he seemed to ad lib his way through a stack of familiar charts indicating that good budget years are always followed by bad budget years. Governor Brown reminded the audience of Sir Isaac Newton’s observation that “what goes up, must come down,” and with regard to fiscal prudence and the budget surplus he intends to leave his successor, he added, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: let’s not blow it now.”
Consistent with the last several budget proposals from this Administration, Governor Brown focused on the importance of maintaining a large reserve in anticipation of the next recession; significant one-time investments ($2 billion) for state infrastructure; a mixture of ongoing and one-time expenditures for public schools; addressing poverty (including homelessness, health care, child care, etc.); and combatting climate change.
Early comments from leaders in the Legislature are supportive of the Governor’s fiscal approach and are also mostly supportive of his various program and funding proposals.

Revenues, General Fund and Budget Reserves

Compared to January, and after accounting for transfers (which include both required (Proposition 2) and discretionary budget reserve and debt payments), the May Revision forecasts General Fund revenues to be higher by almost $2.6 billion in 2017-18 and more than $3.7 billion higher in 2018-19. Most of that increase is from higher personal income tax revenues related mainly to stock market gains through the end of 2017, although a fair amount also comes from higher corporate tax revenues related to new incentives (repatriation of foreign earnings) from federal tax reforms.
Including the prior year balance, the May Revision identifies $142 billion in total resources available for 2018-19, proposes $137.6 billion of spending (including reserve and debt transfers) with an ending fund balance of $4.4 billion.
The Proposition 2 automatic transfers amount to $3.5 billion, with half going to repay state debt and the other half going to the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA or Rainy Day budget reserve). The May Revision retains the January proposal to make a discretionary transfer to fully fund the BSA at 10% of General Fund revenues, which equates to a BSA fund of about $13.8 billion by the end of 2018-19. An additional $3.2 billion proposed for the discretionary reserve for economic uncertainties would leave the state with about $17 billion in General Fund reserves.

Proposition 98 and LCFF Funding

The May Revision calculates the 2018-19 Proposition 98 guarantee to be $78.4 billion, which includes a very small $68 million increase over the January proposal. For those of you following the LAO reports and our prior updates on variables impacting the Proposition 98 guarantee, the slight 2018-19 increase is largely dependent on an assumption of an attendance growth of about 600 students in 2017-18. This has the effect of resetting a Proposition 98 provision providing a one-year delay in accounting for the attendance decrease of about 16,000 students projected for 2018-19 (in other words, the 2018-19 guarantee is not adjusted downward for this loss of attendance – that adjustment will likely be made next year). Additional variables include a shift from Test 3 to Test 2, payment of the remaining maintenance factor and changes in per-capita income growth. We’ll cover all these issues in detail at our May Revision Workshops.
The Proposition 98 guarantees for 2016-17 and 2017-18 are also shifted upwards in the May Revision, resulting in about $660 million of additional funding. The increases of about $730 million over the three-year budget period allow the Governor to provide additional ongoing and one-time resources for K-14 education, including for LCFF and one-time discretionary funding.
The Governor achieves “full implementation” of LCFF as planned in his January proposal, with a few minor adjustments. In the January proposal, LCFF was increased by just over $2.9 billion. A COLA of 2.71% instead of 2.51% requires additional funding of over $150 million, and the Governor proposes a $166 million increase to base funding as well. It is not clear whether the additional base funding is a partial response to the Senate proposal to increase LCFF funding by $1.2 billion, or whether it is simply to achieve the round number of a 3% increase to the formula. In any case, compared to the 2017 Budget Act, LCFF funding is increased by roughly $3.3 billion, so a little more than what was proposed in the January proposal.
As you know, many supporters of public education are reminding the Governor, the Legislature and the public of the severely insufficient level of per-pupil funding in California. While achieving full implementation of the LCFF is a positive outcome, much work needs to be done to ensure our students are provided the educational resources necessary to compete on an equal footing with their peers in other states with respect to entering the workforce or advancing to higher education.

One-Time Discretionary Funding

Consistent with his fiscally conservative approach over the last several budget cycles, the Governor avoids any significant ongoing expenditures other than for LCFF, and again proposes a large one-time funding expediture. The May Revision adds $286 million to the January proposal of $1.8 billion, bringing one-time discretionary funding to just over $2 billion. This comes out to about $344 per ADA for 2018-19, and a total of almost $8 billion in one-time funding over a five year period, a trend that is not likely to continue at this level for much longer. These funds continue to count as an offset to any outstanding mandated costs reimbursement claims by local education agencies (LEAs).

Other Programs and Issues

Fiscal Transparency

The 2018-2019 California funding May Revision expands upon the January proposal for a budget summary aligning school district expenditures to LCAP strategies. The updated proposal specifies that this information be displayed in a parent-friendly format that includes graphics (when possible) and additional information that explains how supplemental and concentration funds are being used to increase and improve services for eligible students.

County Offices of Education (COEs) and Accountability

The January proposal recognized the important role of COEs in the state’s new accountability system and proposed $55 million in ongoing funds to support their work to provide assistance to school districts under the LCFF/LCAP structure. The January proposal also included a $4 million competitive grant program for eight individual COEs to act as resource and training centers for other COEs.
The May Revision does not propose any changes to the COE funding provided in January, and this funding appears to have support in the Legislature, so we expect this funding to be included in the final budget. There are some minor changes related to funding for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) and for the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

Proposition 98 and LCFF Technical Adjustments

The Governor also makes a technical proposal related to future funding of the LCFF COLA, and two additional technical proposals related to the Proposition 98 Guarantee, which could result in future impacts on funding for K-12 education. First, the Governor proposes to put the annual cost of living adjustment applied to LCFF base grants on auto-pilot (making them part of the “continuous appropriation”), meaning that there would not have to be a separate action in the annual budget act to fund the LCFF COLA.
The Governor also proposes to move the responsibility for making the final calculation (called “certification”) of the Proposition 98 Guarantee for any given fiscal year to the Department of Finance (DOF), while current law creates a joint responsibility between the Director of DOF and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Finally, the Governor proposes to rebench (or recalculate) the Guarantee to include child care expenditures that were used by the state to meet the Guarantee in 2015-16. If expenditures on programs that were previously funded outside of Proposition 98 are counted toward meeting the Guarantee, then the Proposition 98 Guarantee should be expanded to provide for those expenditures. This was not done when funding for full-day State Preschool wraparound services provided by LEAs was brought under Proposition 98 in 2015-16. The Governor’s proposal would resolve this issue.

Career Technical Education (CTE)

As we mentioned in our review of the January budget proposal, the future of CTE funding and support is an ongoing topic of discussion between the Governor and the Legislature. We are currently in the last year of the CTE Incentive Grant Program, which provided $900 million over the past three years to encourage the creation and expansion of high-quality CTE programs. Members of the Legislature have proposed extending and expanding this program, while the Governor in January countered with a $200 million program to establish a K-12 specific component of the Strong Workforce Program administered by the Community College system.
As expected, since no one thought that the Governor would start negotiating with himself, the Governor maintains his proposal to provide $200 million for K-12 CTE through the Strong Workforce Program. He also makes no change to the $12 million in funding for technical assistance.
The 2018-2019 California budget May Revision continues to advance the Governor’s position that the LCFF 9-12 grade-span adjustment (2.6% of the LCFF 9-12 base grant) accounts for the higher cost of delivering CTE at the high school level, and that a separate CTE program is not necessary. CTE advocates and members of the Legislature continue to object to this revised view of how CTE programs have been, and should be, funded.
The Administration does partially respond to some of the criticisms of the January CTE proposal, clarifying:
• Grant decisions for the K-12 component will be made exclusively by the K-12 Selection Committee.
• Requirements that apply to the new K-12 component of the Strong Workforce Program.
• A role for the Technical Assistance Providers established under the California Career Pathways Trust Program, and further clarifying roles and responsibilities of the Workforce Pathway Coordinators.
• Additional resources are available to the consortia for administering the regional grant process, including resources to support the K-12 Selection Committee duties.
Again, as expected, this will be an item of negotiation between the Governor and the Legislature. Most Legislative Members are holding their position that K-12 CTE funding should be administered by the CDE, and flow through to K-12 entities directly without community college intervention. The feeling in the Legislature is that providing that funding through the CTE Incentive Grant is the common-sense way to proceed. The good news remains that the Governor continues to propose the $200 million in ongoing funding for K-12 CTE, rather than eliminating state funding altogether at the conclusion of the current three-year program.

Community Engagement and Improving School Climate

The Administration proposes to $13.3 million in one-time Prop 98 funds to create a Community Engagement Initiative to “help communities and school districts engage more effectively when developing LCAPs.” They also propose $15 million in one-time Prop 98 funds to the Butte and Orange County Offices of Education to be used to contract with a California institution of higher learning to expand the state’s Multi-Tiered System of Support framework to foster positive school climate in both academic and behavioral areas, including but not limited to, positive behavior interventions and support, restorative justice, bullying prevention, social and emotional learning, trauma-informed practice, and cultural competency.

Miscellaneous

While special education, the educator shortage, early learning and child care, and other programs and issues continue to receive a lot of attention in the Legislature and among advocates, the Governor’s May Revision does not include any major new initiatives related to these programs and issues.

Your Ultimate Digital Marketing for Charter Schools Guide is here!

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You probably already know that having a digital marketing strategy is important for raising awareness, fundraising, meeting your enrollment targets, and creating a network of champions that will nurture your school over the long term. The goal of digital marketing is to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time—and in a meaningful way. It sounds simple, but it takes a surprising amount of strategy.
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Our 2018 Charter School Honor Roll List is Here!

Charter schools help create educational choice. That’s why Charter School Capital only works with charter schools – we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education. We wanted to celebrate the achievements of exceptional charter schools across the country, so we’ve launched our Charter School Capital Honor Roll 2018 and started our inaugural year by honoring some of the exceptional charter schools in the beautiful state of Arizona! Learn more about Arizona charter schools here.

ABOUT THE HONOR ROLL

The Charter School Honor Roll is a celebration of charter schools with high growth, student achievement, or community service. Honor Roll schools are awarded a special gift, free admission for one to the Southwest Charter Convention, and will be honored at an exclusive dinner at the September event.
We’re very excited to share the incredible schools that have been selected for the 2018 Arizona Honor Roll. Did you make the list? Curious who did? Would you like to nominate a school for 2019?

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CHARTER EDtalk: Email Marketing for Charter Schools

On this CHARTER EDtalk, Stephanie Ristow, Sr. Marketing Programs Manager at Charter School Capital and Janet Johnson, CMO at Charter School Capital sat down with Michael Barbur, SVP, and Chief Creative Officer at Godfrey to get his insights, expertise, and perspective on email marketing for charter schools. Below are the video and transcript from this informative episode.

Janet Johnson (JJ): Hi everyone, welcome to Charter EDtalks today. I’m honored to be speaking with Michael Barber. He has been a digital marketing guru for many – including working with Charter School Capital– for many, many years. Welcome. And, Stephanie Ristow, who is leading up all of our digital Demand Gen efforts at Charter School Capital. So, if you’re seeing this, it’s probably as a result of Stephanie’s work. We’re going to be talking about email marketing today for charter schools. So, Stephanie and Michael Take it away.
Stephanie Ristow (SR): To get us started, let’s begin with the obvious question. Does email marketing still work, and why?
Michael Barber (MB): It works really, really well. I mean, no matter where you look across the research studies, we continue to see that consumers, regardless of audiences, regardless of industries, this continues to be a channel that they gravitate towards.
Adobe has probably done the most work around this channel in terms of research and consumption habits. And, for the past five or six years, they’ve put into the market a really, really good study on email consumer behavior. And, year over year over year continues to show that email is still the number one revenue generator for organizations and it is still the channel that brands are going to be using to push out content to consumers, or to their constituents, or their audiences. It’s still the place they say they want to receive that message from. Now, on the why. This one’s an interesting question. I think personally, there’s a lot of research out there that’s looking at the why of this, but I think it’s got to do with everything that consumers are being faced with in terms of choices of where they’re participating online.
They’re getting bombarded by Facebook, bombarded by Instagram, Twitter. You look at what’s happening from a geopolitical perspective right now, and the inbox is the one place that everyone understands. It’s been largely the same for the last 25 years, if you will, since Hotmail came out in 1986. So, they don’t have to get accustomed to the Facebook newsfeed changing or wonder how they post a story on Instagram … reply, forward, reply to all, contact lists. They’re largely the same as they’ve been since the beginning of email. So, it’s a place where people are really comfortable.
SR: It all totally makes sense. So specifically, when we’re looking at charter schools, how should they be using email marketing?
MB: I would say, not for students, anybody under the age of 18, unless they’ve got a very specific reason to have an email, like an Amazon account or they signed up for one of these social networks using email. They probably don’t even have one unless they’ve been required to by their school, which you do see some high schools require students to have email addresses, but it really just depends on the school. So, this is a marketing channel that you’re going to want to use for parents. You’re going to want to use it for potential board members, for community and government involvement with your school. For all of those constituent groups that surround your students. So those are the audiences that likely have an inbox if not multiple email addresses. That’s the place you’re going to want to use email when it comes to charters. Largely for all the audiences that surround the students in the cause you’re trying to bring forward.
SR: That makes sense. So, I know for a lot of these charter schools, they want to know which tools – which platforms– they should be using from a thousand-foot level (like if they have the budget) and then at a grassroots level, what realistically makes sense for them.
MB: So, a thousand-foot level just really depends on how you want to use email from a tactical perspective—from a marketing perspective. A lot of the turnkey student enrollment platforms, especially as you’re maturing as a school, will have some sort of email marketing component built into their platform. So that can be used for student enrollment activities, or for letting people know what’s happening at the school on a weekly basis. What activities are students participating in, what do parents need to know on any given week, month or year, if you will? Most of them have really robust toolsets built into their platform so that you can utilize them as a sort of 360 solution or an all in one solution.
At a grassroots effort if you’re just starting up and you’ve got no budget, and no time, and no energy… Almost all the really great platforms that are out there offer some sort of either free or sponsored model around their platform. For the sake of example, MailChimp is a great one to use. If you have under 5,000 subscribers, they will allow you to use the platform for free as long as their little logo can be at the bottom of your email footer. There are multiple platforms that are out there (Constant Contact, Vertical Response, MailChimp, Emma) that do the same sort of monetization model that aren’t going to charge a lot for a small subscriber base. Now, as you get more sophisticated, those platforms have got be able to grow with you and as you add more subscribers, you’re probably going to be having to pay for that email service provider. That being said, not a huge expense, even at 10, 20, or 30,000 contacts. If you’re not doing significant activities around the platform, you’re probably getting away with something under the neighborhood of say, $100 per month. But as you get more sophisticated, these platforms get more expensive and there’s certainly more platforms out there that you could do a lot more with as you mature as a school.
SR: There are definitely some folks out there that haven’t used an email platform before and might not understand the benefits of it. What’s the benefit of say a MailChimp over a just using thousand-person BCC line? Cause I’ve seen it before.
MB: This is a really good question. This comes down to really two things, one—deliverability. When you’re BCC-ing a thousand people, if someone marks your email address – your @charter school’s domain or whatever your domain is – as spam, that reflects against your domain really heavily. And the last thing you want to do is compromise the deliverability of just your normal day to day, professional ‘to’ and ‘from’ emails getting characterized as spam. So, having an email service provider gives you some layer of protection from that deliverability perspective.
The second big piece of this is just all the data that goes around these users and these contacts. Any one of these email service providers, whether it’s Constant Contact, Vertical Response, MailChimp, Emma or the like … or anyone of the hundreds that are out there, allow you to build data profiles around individual email addresses—from what’s her first name and last name—so that you can do some personalization inside of that email campaign. It allows you to segment groups. So, let’s say you’ve got grades one through five. You can segment your parents – or whoever is in those lists – by where their students are at so that you can target those communications really well. Also, it’s a lot easier to manage those communications. If somebody unsubscribes, the provider deals with that unsubscribe for you. You don’t have to manage your list that way. There are a lot of benefits that get you so many better features than just having a thousand people on a BCC list.
[Everyone laughs]
SR: We laugh, but I’ve seen it.
MB: One of the most important things that schools can do is build their brand, right? What does the school stand for? And how do you bring that to life visually through your logo and your identity and your colors and your fonts? And, certainly designing an email inside of Outlook or Gmail is not great. You know you can only do so much. You want to have an email that looks great, regardless of whether you’ve got a parent that’s on a phone or whether they’re on a Mac, right? Then all of those email service writers will help you create templates that’ll look great, that will work for your brand, that will build that brand identity for you. There are any number of key features – going outside of Outlook or Gmail or wherever you’re doing that thousand-person BCC list – that you’ll get from an email service provider like MailChimp.
SR: I totally agree. And one more bonus question for you, because I think we have the time. I know often when we talk to these schools, they’re like, great, I want to do email, but how do I start my list? How do I create the list to send to people? I know that that’s a gorilla of a question, but in a 30-second clip, what do you think you’d say there?
MB: The first thing is to make sure you’ve got your data cleaned up. So, you’re not going to want to import what we would call a ‘dirty list’ of old subscribers or parents that aren’t part of the school anymore. The second thing is, is there’s a couple of key campaigns that you want to try and set up if you can and have the bandwidth. Your “Welcome” series – which is the first email that someone receives when they subscribe – is by far the most important email you’re going to work on because you want people to get that right away.
Beyond that make sure the data’s clean and test your campaigns. Always makes sure – before you send out that first campaign – to have a group of subscribers (could be a parent, a teacher, it could be admin individuals or a group of people that you trust) to send out a test so they can see what your emails are going to look like and then you get a little bit warmed up to actually having to hit that send button and send to hundreds – or thousands – of people.
SR: I would like to make one more plug. If you want additional resources on how to get those leads in the first place or some of the tools and platforms that Michael talked about. We have those on our site. Just go to our Charter School Capital resources page.
MB: Thank you, Stephanie.
SR: Thank you, Michael!
JJ: Michael, we can’t thank you enough for coming and being here with us today. We really appreciate all that you’ve done for us. For sure.
MB: My pleasure. Thank you.
JJ: Thank you, Steph. Thanks, Michael. And, thank you for showing up for Charter EDtalk.

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National Charter Schools Week is May 7-11

National Charter Schools Week is May 7-11 and we’re happy to take this opportunity to recognize and raise public awareness for charter schools, the academic success of charter school students, and the charter school movement as a whole.
The charter school movement has been growing steadily since the first charter law passed in 1991 in Minnesota. To date, 44 states and D.C. have charter schools, 3.2 million students attend charter schools, there are 7000 public charter schools nationwide receiving $400 million in funding and employing 219,000 charter school teachers.
This year, during National Charter Schools Week, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is highlighting “Change Makers”— these are the teachers, leaders, elected officials, advocates, families, students, and alumni who make up the charter movement. They are 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 and the voices of “change makers” through blog posts, media outlets, and social media posts.
Get some awesome resources, social templates, and guides here.

Some Shareable Facts!

Looking for ideas on what to post to your social circles? Why not use some of these facts? Or, whether you are a school leader, a teacher, parent, etc., the National Alliance has compiled some specific messaging tailored for you here.

In 2017-18, there are more than 7,000 charter schools. (National Alliance, 2018)
Charter schools serve nearly 3.2 million students in 43 states and D.C. (National Alliance, 2018)
Charter schools serve 6 percent of the 50 million public school students in U.S.
In 2015-16, 67 percent of charter school students identified as students of color, compared to 51 percent of district school students. (CCD)
In 2016-17, 60 percent of charter schools were independently managed and 26 percent were part of a non-profit CMO.
Students in urban charter schools gained an additional 40 days in math and 28 days in reading per year compared to their district school peers—low-income Black and Hispanic students showed even more progress. (CREDO, 2015)
In 2017, 6 of the 10 best high schools were charter schools. (U.S. News, 2017)
According to a nationally representative survey, nearly 80 percent of parents want public school choice. (National Alliance, 2016)
There are more than 5 million additional students who would attend a public charter school if they had access. (PDK, 2017)
47 percent of U.S. adults support public charter schools, 29 percent oppose them, with the rest having no opinion. (EdNext, 2018)

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!

What sets apart charter school authorizers?

Editor’s note: This post was originally published here by CRPE Reinventing Public Education and written by Robin Lake. After our enlightening discussion with Darlene Chambers, Sr. Vice President for Programs and Services, National Charter Schools Institute, on the vital role charter school authorizers play in the three-legged charter school ‘stool’ (check this out for clarification), we wanted to start diving a bit deeper into each of the three legs. This is an interesting piece on the role of authorizers and what some exceptional ones are doing that sets them apart. 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. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

New NACSA Study: Addressing the Need for Evidence in Authorizing

One of the essential features of a charter school, what most distinguishes it from a district school or voucher-receiving school, is that it is “authorized” by a public agent and held accountable for results promised in its performance contract.
When Paul Hill and I first started writing about charter schools, we expected that these “authorizers,” most of them school districts that had never overseen performance effectively, would face a steep learning curve. That was confirmed in a federally funded research project we ran on charter school accountability in the late 1990s. Most authorizers we interviewed told us that they were really only planning on holding charter schools accountable for compliance with state regulations. As long as they stayed out of the newspaper, they would likely be renewed.
Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then. Many charter authorizers have set a high bar for taking a balanced scorecard approach to school accountability (looking at a variety of measures of school and organizational effectiveness), using school visits and classroom observations to inform the renewal process, and more recently, taking innovative approaches to equity questions, like ensuring fair access for students with disabilities or finding thoughtful solutions to reduce instances of suspensions and expulsions. In other words, the best charter authorizers in the country have really been pioneers for performance management in public education.
A new study by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) set out to understand exactly what it was that “cream of the crop” authorizers were doing to distinguish themselves. NACSA carefully gathered data on indicators of authorizer quality: They looked at things like growth rates on test scores, rates of closure (to see if performance contracts were being enforced), fiscal responsibility, and whether quality schools were allowed to expand. They then selected authorizers that oversaw a high-quality “portfolio” of schools and compared them to average authorizers.

NACSA homed in on five authorizers—SUNY, DC Charter School Board, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (Ohio), Massachusetts Board of Education, and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools—and identified a long list of common and distinguishing attributes among them. Most notably, they all:

Exhibit strong leadership by standing firm on high standards for approval and renewal. In other words, they stood up for quality even when it meant politically challenging decisions.
Use expert judgment informed by data to make high-stakes decisions. Authorizing, they said, is not a paint-by-numbers job. The best authorizers deliberate, debate, and build professional knowledge.
Enjoy institutional authority and commitment-free of competing demands and bureaucracy. Obviously, professional expertise and leadership are impossible to maintain if a charter school office is underresourced, lacks real decisionmaking power, or is buried three levels down in an organizational chart.
NACSA also finds that the best authorizers are obsessed with data, have strong relationships with schools and respect their autonomy, are clear about how authorizing decisions affect their annual goals, etc.

Most of the five authorizers profiled are well documented, and it won’t come as big news to most authorizers that leadership, judgement, and authority matter. The report’s main value is in the richness of detail. There is a trove of fine-grained guidance throughout this report on how authorizers can stay focused on their key task: performance management.
Despite the care and caution NACSA took with their report, it didn’t address a series of new realities that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Nationally, charter growth has slowed dramatically. The supply of quality applicants seems to be dwindling, access to facilities and talent are drying up, and political backlash at both the local and national levels is intensifying.
We cannot ignore these realities as we think about what “quality authorizing” is. Ironically, Nashville Public Schools has been at the epicenter of some of the most intense charter politics. Though the schools they have approved are performing very well, a hostile board makes life miserable for existing charters and surely has had a chilling effect on new applicants.
It’s also tough to ignore the fact that charter applications have become more onerous and charter oversight more bureaucratic. Creeping reregulation has surely prevented some number of promising operators from getting off the ground.
And while professional judgment is a necessary element of authorizing, there is always a danger that authorizer hubris about “what works” may unnecessarily limit innovation and the diversity of options for families.
Of course, no single research report can answer every question. The always thoughtful Karega Rausch, NACSA’s VP of research evaluation, makes clear that, 1) their findings are not definitive or causal, and 2) more work is needed to understand which authorizer practices are most related to quality outcomes.
My hope is that more research on charter authorizing will happen soon and will include a broader look at questions like:

The politics of authorizing and how it can be better managed.
Which of NACSA’s recommendations and authorizer application requirements could be eliminated with little cost to quality.
How authorizers can more actively remove barriers to charter growth.
How authorizer portfolios perform (which are strong on quality but weak on growth, etc.). As a member association, NACSA didn’t publish data on the not-so-stellar authorizers, but someone should.

Authorizing is a power that must be used wisely. At this point in the charter movement, authorizers urgently need to know as much as possible to inform their work. And we need to hold them accountable for doing so.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic. Please leave them below.
Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. 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 $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can help your charter school, contact us!

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CTE and Non-Cognitive Skills: Finding the balance

Editor’s Note: As a parent myself, this topic was of particular interest. I often wonder if our schools are actually teaching non-cognitive skills like grit, perseverance, and work ethic — which I thought were solely my job to lovingly impart at home — alongside the more traditional cognitive skills provided by standard curriculum. I found this article that I thought was an interesting analysis of the state of things as it pertains to both cognitive and non-cognitive learning in the school environment. This article was originally published here on February 16th by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and written by Jessica Poiner. We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational education resources, and how to support charter school growth. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Non-cognitive skills are an increasingly popular topic in education. These include capabilities like perseverance, grit, self-efficacy, work ethic, and conscientiousness. Research shows that possessing them can affect both scholastic and life outcomes.
Their popularity and apparent effectiveness have led to calls on schools to pay more attention to these non-cognitive factors. These calls were answered in part by ESSA, which requires states to have an indicator of “school quality or student success” that goes beyond state standardized test scores and graduation rates. Sometimes referred to as the “nonacademic indicator,” the inclusion of this measure in federal requirements opened the door for schools to focus, at least in part, on non-cognitive skills. California’s CORE districts, for example, use a social-emotional learning metric that measures four non-cognitive competencies with student surveys.
But incorporating non-cognitive skills into schools is still quite difficult. Paul Tough, author of the widely-cited How Children Succeed, explained why in a 2016 Atlantic article:
But here’s the problem: For all our talk about noncognitive skills, nobody has yet found a reliable way to teach kids to be grittier or more resilient. And it has become clear, at the same time, that the educators who are best able to engender noncognitive abilities in their students often do so without really “teaching” these capacities the way one might teach math or reading—indeed, they often do so without ever saying a word about them in the classroom. This paradox has raised a pressing question for a new generation of researchers: Is the teaching paradigm the right one to use when it comes to helping young people develop noncognitive capacities?
Tough raises an important issue: If we know these skills matter, both in terms of academic achievement and long-term outcomes, then we have a responsibility to make sure that students graduate with a firm grasp of them. But if we don’t know how to teach the capacities effectively, what are we supposed to do?
When I taught high school English, my students and I discussed non-cognitive skills all the time—Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet should have practiced more self-control, Dr. King’s speeches and letters are a great example of self-efficacy and perseverance, and The Cask of Amontilladois a fascinating (albeit disturbing) look at the interplay between a conscientious character and a careless one. But similar to what Tough implied in the Atlantic, I often wondered if my classroom was the best place for students to actually practice these skills. That’s not to say it was impossible; I’m sure a few students improved their teamwork skills during group projects, or their grittiness during our seemingly endless trek through research papers. But overall, a traditional classroom with rows of desks and textbooks and a smart board might not have been the best place for them to exercise their non-cognitive muscles.
But what about non-traditional classroom spaces? Take for instance career and technical education (CTE), which integrates traditional academic subjects with technical, job-specific skills. These programs are typically designed to follow both a state’s academic standards and technical content standards that align to a chosen field and allow for hands-on training and real work experience. So, for CTE students, school isn’t just about the three R’s. It might also involve performing blood tests, interning with a pediatric physical therapy team, working on utility restoration and workplace improvement projects at places like GM, participating in mock trials, or even designing animation and software. Each of these programs puts students into real-world situations that demand the development and use of non-cognitive skills.
These are not the “vo-tech” programs of yesteryear, into which academically struggling students were shoved because their teachers didn’t know what to do with them. Today’s CTE helps students earn associate and bachelor’s degrees and industry-recognized credentials that will place them in good-paying jobs—and they value learning through doing and the development of soft skills, not just the imparting of academic knowledge.
Unfortunately, despite all the research on the positive effects of career and technical education, there seems to be little analysis of whether specific programs cultivate non-cognitive capacities. That’s something that should be remedied soon.
But resources like the Ohio Department of Education’s CTE success stories post shows CTE’s potential in this regard. The student profiles therein evince the mastery of hard, cognitive skills: cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency patient care, sous-vide cooking, and expertise in automotive technology, to name a few. But the stories also show students developing non-cognitive abilities that all children need—grit and self-control, leadership and interpersonal communication skills.
As education stakeholders continue to mull over the best way to teach students non-cognitive skills, offering CTE to more students is an evidence-backed, bipartisan solution that already exists to some degree in the vast majority of states. More rigorous research is needed, but the blend of academic and technical material within these programs offers a great opportunity to teach today’s students cognitive and non-cognitive skills in real-world environments.

What are your thoughts on this topic? We’d love to hear! Share in the comments below.

California Charter Schools: Legislative Proposals

April 11th

On April 11th a number of different proposals for California charter schools will be heard in the legislature that could impact charter schools. This is just the first policy committee hearing for these bills and they will next have to pass through a fiscal committee before going to the floor of the Assembly or Senate. Here are the bills and a brief description of each one. The ABs are being heard in the Assembly Education Committee and the SB will be heard in the Senate Education Committee.
AB 1871 by Assemblyman Bonta would require a charter school to provide each needy pupil with one nutritionally adequate free or reduced-price meal during each school day.
AB 2289 by Assemblywoman Weber would create an additional type of excused absence for parenting teens at charter schools and traditional schools.
AB 3167 by Assemblyman O’Donnell would establish the Charter Authorizers Regional Support Network Program, to be administered by the Alameda County Office of Education, as an initiative to expand uniform charter authorizing and oversight practices, as provided. The bill would authorize the Alameda County Office of Education to expend up to $30,000,000, upon appropriation from the General Fund by the Legislature, for purposes of the program. The bill would require the Alameda County Office of Education to, among other things, award grant funds to 11 regional lead county offices of education to be used to improve the quality of school district and county of office of education charter school authorizing activity.
SB 837 by Senator Dodd creates a transitional kindergarten program in California. It phases in all four-year-olds but says by 2022-2023 they should all be attending a transitional kindergarten program at a traditional or charter school.
To view any of these measures go to https://www.legislature.ca.gov and hit the bill link at the top left of the page, then place in the bill number.

Career and Technical Education in High School: Does It Improve Student Outcomes?

Editors Note: We wanted to learn more about how – if at all – career and technical educations in high school improved student outcomes and found this informative study. It was originally published here by The Thomas B. Fordham Institute on April 7, 2016. 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. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Fordham’s latest study, by the University of Connecticut’s Shaun M. Dougherty, uses data from Arkansas to explore whether students benefit from CTE coursework—and, more specifically, from focused sequences of CTE courses aligned to certain industries. The study also describes the current landscape, including which students are taking CTE courses, how many courses they’re taking, and which ones.
Key findings include:

Students with greater exposure to CTE are more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in a two-year college, be employed, and earn higher wages.
CTE is not a path away from college: Students taking more CTE classes are just as likely to pursue a four-year degree as their peers.
Students who focus their CTE coursework are more likely to graduate high school by twenty-one percentage points compared to otherwise similar students (and they see a positive impact on other outcomes as well).
CTE provides the greatest boost to the kids who need it most—boys, and students from low-income families.

Due to many decades of neglect and stigma against old-school “vo-tech,” high-quality CTE is not a meaningful part of the high school experience of millions of American students. It’s time to change that.

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