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Charter School Laws Across the States
by
Jeanne Allen

Examining the factors that contribute to successful charter school legislation

With legislative sessions in full swing in many states across the country, The Center for Education Reform (CER) is buckled in for another exciting year, as 2005 promises to be a critical time in the fight for strong charter school laws in states across the country. As the legislative landscape unfolds, we take a moment to re-examine the country’s 41 existing charter school laws – explore the factors that contribute to a strong law and those that make up a weak law.

- Charter laws ranked on 9 criteria -

CER ranks state charter school laws on nine separate, but equally important, criteria. Each year the rankings – grades A thru F – are published nationally. The rankings have become the go-to resource for lawmakers, activists, educators, parents and the media. Most recently, in Quality Counts 2005, Education Week’s ninth annual report card on the state of school reform, the newspaper used CER’s rankings of charter school laws to determine a state’s “school climate.”

As the number of charter school laws increase, so do their complexity; by using consistent criteria, it is easy to separate the strong from the weak.

Weak laws provide little opportunity for charter school development. Legislative language often constricts charter schools, forcing them to fit into existing educational structures, ultimately defeating the original intent of these independent public schools.

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Some laws are only moderately effective – in most cases, the result of many compromises. In recent years, some legislators and charter school activists have gone too far in their compromises – creating a system in which charter schools are not provided the freedom necessary to succeed. Some advocates view a weak law as okay and a “foot-in-the-door” that can be altered drastically later. Unfortunately, too often those drastic alterations never come, as lawmakers resist further action on charter schools. For instance, the New Hampshire Legislature passed a weak charter school law in 1995. Allies were confident that improvements could and would be made. Eight years passed with no changes to the law and no charter school development. Finally in 2003, advocates were able to make the necessary changes to the law and pave the way for New Hampshire’s first charter school to open in 2003.

Strong laws foster the development of numerous, genuinely independent charter schools.
Most strong laws are passed with patience and skillful negotiation.

There are nine criteria for a strong charter school law:

  1. Number of schools: States that permit an unlimited or substantial number of autonomous charter schools, encourage more activity than states that either limit the number of autonomous schools, or allow an unlimited number of charter schools with restrictions on their autonomy, demographics, etc.


    2.
  2. Multiple chartering authorities / binding appeals process: States that permit a number of entities, in addition to or instead of, local school boards to authorize charter schools, or provide applicants with a binding appeals process, encourage more activity than those that vest authorizing power in a single entity, particularly if that entity is the local school board.


  3. Variety of applicants: States that permit a variety of individuals and groups both inside and outside the existing public school system to start charter schools encourage more activity than states that limit eligible applicants to public schools or public school personnel.


  4. New starts: States that permit new schools to start up encourage more activity than those that permit only public school conversions.


  5. Automatic waiver from laws and regulations: States that provide automatic blanket waivers from most or all state and district education laws, regulations, and policies encourage more activity than states that provide no waivers or require charter schools to negotiate waivers on an issue-by-issue basis with charter-granting authorities. (In no case are civil rights laws or health/safety codes waived for charter schools.)


  6. Legal / operational autonomy: States that allow charter schools to be independent legal entities that can own property, sue and be sued, incur debt, control budget and personnel, and contract for services encourage more activity than states in which charter schools remain under district jurisdiction. In addition, legal autonomy refers to the ability of charter schools to control enrollment numbers.


  7. Guaranteed full funding: States where 100% of per-pupil funding automatically follows students enrolled in charter schools encourage more activity than states where the amount is automatically lower or negotiated with the district.


  8. Fiscal Autonomy: States that give charter schools full control over their own budgets, without the district holding the funds, encourage more activity than states that do not.


  9. Exemption from collective bargaining agreements / district work rules: States that give charter schools complete control over personnel decisions encourage more activity than states where charter school teachers must remain subject to the terms of district collective bargaining agreements or work rules.

To learn more about CER’s ranking of state charter school laws and view individual states rankings, log onto www.edreform.com and click on Charter Schools on the right hand menu.


Jeanne Allen is the founder and president of the Center for Education Reform (CER). Allen is an author, spokesperson, activist, parent-trainer and a widely regarded representative for educational excellence.