NACSA
The State of Charter School Authorizing: A Report on NACSA’s Authorizer Survey
The State of Charter School Authorizing is published annually by NACSA.
The State of Charter School Authorizing 2009: 2nd Annual Report on NACSA’s Authorizer Survey provides an overview of the policies, practices, and characteristics of the nation’s largest charter school authorizers as well as a sampling of smaller authorizing entities. It also builds upon the data presented in the first report on NACSA’s authorizer survey and is organized around NACSA’s Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing. Download the report Appendix.
As our expectations for authorizers increase, so does our realization that there is much about this activity that we don't understand. In 2008, NACSA began a multi-year effort to collect basic data to provide a better understanding of authorizers and their actions. The first result was the most comprehensive list of all identifiable, active charter authorizers available - encompassing more than 800 agencies from across the country. We then focused our data collection efforts on the most active authorizers and their policies and practices. This report presents an overview of what we found. Not surprisingly, this basic initial effort raised as many questions as it answered. Thus, in 2009 and beyond, NACSA is continuing and expanding its data collection efforts in order to disseminate data that informs charter school operators, advocates, policy makers, researchers and authorizers themselves, strengthening the scale and quality of the entire charter school sector. Read the report.
