The Authorizer: What Donors Should Know About Evaluating Charter Schools

This is the second article of a two-part series on charter schools. The first appeared on 11/13/24 and is titled "Yes, Charter Schools Do Reduce Inequality."

Over the past few decades, donors have poured millions of dollars into improving K-12 schooling by creating a new sector of public charter schools of choice that are accountable for results. One analysis calculates that 11,827 foundations have provided financial support to nonprofits in the charter schools category—money given not just through traditional grants but through program-related investments and social impact funds.

These donors—and charter supporters in general—have often been derided for their efforts. So has it been worth all the hassle and wrath directed at them? In short, yes. (Last week, I summarized research studies that show the salutary effect charter schools have on closing the achievement gap, reducing inequality between richer and poor students, and lifting the performance of entire school districts.) As economists Douglas Harris and Feng Chen write, “Charter school laws have been arguably the most influential school reform efforts of the past several decades.” 

Since the first law creating these schools was passed in 1991, we’ve learned much about their positive impact on students, the traditional K-12 system, and the communities where they exist. I would summarize the three most important lessons like this:

1. Charter schools reduce academic inequality by closing student achievement gaps.
2. Charter schools raise the overall quality of public schools.
3. Because they improve the quality of K-12 public schools, creating more charter schools reduces inequality in America.

These three lessons create what I call the virtuous improvement cycle of charter schools.

But a key role in this improvement cycle is played by the charter authorizer which monitors and enforces the performance contract agreement between the authorizer and those that govern the charter school.

The process for creating charter schools includes granting a state-sanctioned organization called an authorizer the power to approve, oversee, and close charter schools. This authorizer reviews a school’s performance against goals and standards agreed to and defined in a performance contract. While the exact number and types of authorizers vary by state, the majority of authorizers are local school districts, with other types including state education agencies, universities, and independent boards. In total, there are hundreds of authorizers across the United States. 

Not every charter school has lived up to its promise or been a source of community civic renewal. Many have been closed for not serving their students, families, or communities. One analysis by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools shows that the closure rate for 2020-21 was 1.5%, meaning, that year 1.5% of charter schools closed. Over the decade prior, the average annual closure rate was 4%.

To evaluate charter school programs well, donors and policymakers must understand how they stack up to the metrics established by the authorizer. But they must also understand the formative role charter schools play that builds on and contributes to—but is not commensurate with—these educational standards.

Questions for Donors to Ask

Here are five foundational questions for donors to ask as they consider support for the chartering effort.

1. Authorizer: Who is the school authorizer? What is the authorizer’s record of success with the schools that it’s authorized? Is the authorizer’s business model fair and financially viable?
2. School governance: Who are the school’s board members? Do they have different areas of expertise, including finance, education, and community involvement? What is their vision of school and student success?
3. School leadership: Who is being proposed as the school’s leader? Does that person have sufficient expertise to lead a charter school? What does the proposed school leadership and management team look like?
4. School program: What is the school’s education program? Are there clear student academic standards? Are there proposed academic and other assessments that track student progress toward the goals schools have for students? What’s expected of the teachers? What student support services exist for students?
5. Community outreach: What community outreach has been done in marshaling support for the school? What types of community relationships and connections are proposed for the school?

Building Social Capital

That last set of questions, about community, is particularly important. Charter schools build what the sociologist James Coleman called social capital, which he defined as “a resource for action [that includes] obligations and expectations, information channels, and social norms.” A charter school’s social capital comes from the relationships that exist among people: the children who attend it, the educators who staff it, the parents and other community members who support it. A charter school lacking social capital is not likely to be much of a productive learning environment or community asset.

At their best, charters create new forms of association. While some charters are neighborhood schools in the old-fashioned sense, others transcend particular neighborhoods or geographic places. They may be organized by curricular philosophies, like Montessori or classical education, or by place-based geographic approaches like charters located in parent workplaces. There are also networks of charter schools or charter management organizations that cross district and state boundaries and are organized around a common mission and instructional design.

Charter schools display elements that sociologist Robert Nisbet thought essential to community association, including a high degree of personal intimacy, social cohesion, and moral commitment. As he wrote in The Quest for Community, “Community is the product of people working together on problems, of autonomous and collective fulfillment or internal objectives, and of the experience of living under codes of authority which have been set in large degrees by the persons involved.” This working together is a form of civic participation and renewal.

Opportunity’s Building Blocks

This virtuous cycle helps young people in charter and district schools develop knowledge, relationships, and an identity. These are the building blocks for creating a self-directed life and what the economist Deirdre McCloskey calls “a new liberty of permission” that allows young people to pursue opportunity and human flourishing.

These studies should provide donors with assurance that generally, their financial investments in creating a new sector of K-12 public education have been worth the hassle they have endured. This should motivate them as well as policymakers and local community members to create more high-quality independent public schools of choice that are accountable for results.

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