Charters Change Lives
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Expanding the Charter Option
Andrea Byrd, mother of two boys, had enough with her son's school. After she and her older son, Andrae, moved from Mississippi to Memphis a year ago, the formerly straight-A student "started dumbing himself down," she says, to fit in with the other boys at his new school.

"I needed to get my child into a school where there were high expectations," Ms. Byrd says. A charter school had recently opened nearby, but the 34-year-old single mom hesitated over getting an application since Tennessee law required her son to either be considered low-performing—which he wasn't—or attend a low-performing school—which he didn't—in order to get in. But all that changed a few weeks ago, when the state enacted a law for charter schools to also include students from low-income families. Two weeks ago, Ms. Byrd went into the Power Center Academy for an application. Later that same day, she got a call to say Andrae had been accepted.

Source: Wall Street Journal, (08/13/2009)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346500121979982.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Wall Street Journal Examines High Demand for Public Charter Schools
The Wall Street Journal examines the nation's increasing pressure for more public charter schools and the challenges to expansion. While more than 1.4 million students are enrolled in 4,600 public charter schools, at least 365,000 students around the nation are languishing on waiting lists. Despite cheerleading from President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, some state policies and regulations continue to restrict the public charter school movement from meeting the demand of families and communities. Ten states still do not permit public charter schools. Twenty-six others, along with the District of Columbia, restrict their growth with caps on the number of public charter schools allowed, and enrollment and funding limits. The current state of the economy also has intensified school districts' concerns about competing for public funds with public charter schools. And many unions are opposed to expansion of charters. The Obama administration will favor states that let public charter schools expand with stimulus funds and aseparate $5 billion "innovation" pool to fund public charters. The Wall Street Journal questions whether "even those financial incentives can convince states already grappling with a deep recession to overhaul troubled charter authorizing systems, push aside political opposition and shift funds away from traditional public schools."

Source: Wall Street Journal, (04/23/2009)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044271936945479.html

Charter School Achievement: What We Know (Fifth Edition)
For five years, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has published an annual review of studies on public charter school academic performance. This latest edition examines 140 individual studies and finds evidence that many public charter schools are helping to increase academic performance, graduation rates and college matriculation around the nation. Studies examining public charter schools in recent academic years show that public charter schools produce more instances of larger achievement gains in both math and reading when compared to the traditional public schools. Public charter high school graduation and college matriculation results are promising, with studies in Illinois and Florida showing public charter school students with higher ACT scores, higher graduation rates and a greater probability of attending college than students who attend traditional public schools. The author stresses that much more research on public charter school achievement needs to be done. She recommends more studies using more recent longitudinal student-level data to assess how well students in public charter schools are performing; more and better research to explain why some public charter schools perform so much better than other charter and non-charter schools; and, more research on public charter school graduation and college matriculation.

Source: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
http://www.uscharterschools.org/cs/r/view/uscs_rs/2514

How to Start a Charter School: Cultivating the Seeds of Educational Success
This guide offers prospective public charter school developers recommendations for building support for a new public charter school. It gives guidance on developing a master plan and presents a "roadmap" for the application and approval processes.

Source: Center for Education Reform
http://www.uscharterschools.org/cs/r/view/uscs_rs/2512