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A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school School district in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic Charter for accountability, that it is freed from the rules but accountable for results.
Since 2009, the Government of Western Australia has been trialling the Independent Public School (IPS) Initiative. These public schools have greater autonomy and could be regarded as akin to 'charter' schools (but the term is not used in Australia).
There are 23 charter school campuses operated by 13 Alberta charter schools. The number of charter schools was limited to a maximum of 15, but the Provincial government eliminated this cap effective September 2020.
Prior to the 2010 general election, there were about 200 academies (publicly funded schools with a significant degree of autonomy) in England.
Private schools started to be established in Finland in the mid-19th century, reaching a peak of 346 schools between 1965 and 1966, before their number started to decline in the late 1960s and 1970s due to municipalisations, nationalisations and closures. More than 80% of Finnish upper secondary schools were originally founded and run by a private association or limited company. Private primary schools need a licence from the Government and other educational institutions from the Ministry of Education to operate. Most private schools follow the national curriculum. Exceptions to this are international and foreign language schools (such as International Baccalaureate schools). Tuition fees may not be charged in Finnish private schools (with the exception of some foreign language schools), but the schools are financed by per pupil grants from the state and municipalities. The operator of a private school must be a non-profit-making organisation.
All charter schools can have a list of admission priorities, but only the non-governmental funded schools are allowed to select their students and to make a profit. The charter schools cannot have entrance exams, and supplemental fees are very restricted. In 2013, a total of 19,105 children were enrolled in privately run schools.
]] According to the Education Commission of the States, "charter schools are semi-autonomous public schools that receive public funds. They operate under a written contract with a state, district or other entity (referred to as an authorizer or sponsor). This contract – or charter – details how the school will be organized and managed, what students will be expected to achieve, and how success will be measured. Many charters are exempt from a variety of laws and regulations affecting other public schools if they continue to meet the terms of their charters." These schools, however, need to follow state-mandated curricula and are subject to the same rules and regulations that cover them, although there is flexibility in the way this is realized.
Minnesota passed the first charter school law in the United States in 1991. , Minnesota had 165 registered charter schools, with over 41,000 students attending. The first of these to be approved, Bluffview Montessori School in Winona, Minnesota, opened in 1992. The first charter to operate was City Academy in St. Paul. Some specialized Minnesota charter schools include the Metro Deaf School (1993), Community of Peace Academy (1995), and the Mainstreet School of Performing Arts (2004).
approximately 8,000 charter schools enrolled an estimated total of 3.7 million students nationwide. The numbers equate to 7.4% of total public school students. 291 new charter schools opened their doors in the 2021–22 school year, however the charter sector lost 15,047 students that year. 2020–21 marked one of the largest single-year increase ever recorded in terms of the number of additional students attending charter schools, but 2021–22 marked the first ever decline in enrollment.
The most radical experimentation with charter schools in the United States possibly occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005). the New Orleans Public Schools system was engaged in reforms aimed at decentralizing power away from the pre-Katrina public school board to individual charter school principals and boards, monitoring charter school performance by granting renewable, five-year operating contracts permitting the closure of those not succeeding, and parents the choice to enroll their children in almost any school in the district. Vallas wants no return to old ways. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans). 25 July 2009. New Orleans is one of two cities in the United States of America where the majority of school students attend charter schools. RSD looks at making charters pay rent, The Times-Picayune, 18 December 2009. 78% of all New Orleans schoolchildren studied in charter schools during the 2011–12 school year. Executive Summary, http://www.coweninstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SPENO-20121.pdf By May 2014 all but five of New Orleans' public schools were charter schools.
Unlike their public counterparts, laws governing charter schools vary greatly. The three states with the highest number of students enrolled in charter schools are California, Arizona, and Michigan.Powers, Jeanne M. "Charter Schools." Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. 2008. SAGE Publications. 5 December 2011. These differences largely relate to what types of public agencies are permitted to authorize the creation of charter schools, whether or not and through what processes private schools can convert to charter schools, and what certification, if any, charter school teachers require.
In California, local school districts are the most frequent granters of school charters. If a local school district denies a charter application, or if the proposed charter school provides services not provided by the local school districts, a county board consisting of superintendents from state schools or the state board of education can grant a charter.Premack, Eric. "Charter schools: California's education reform 'power tool.'(Special Section on Charter Schools)." Phi Delta Kappan 78.1 (1996): 60+. Academic OneFile. Web. 5 December 2011. The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools grants charters in Arizona. Local school districts and the state board of education can also grant charters. In contrast, the creation of charter schools in Michigan can be authorized only by local school boards or by the governing school boards of state colleges and universities.Lacireno-Paquet, Natalie. "Moving Forward or Sliding Backward: The Evolution of Charter School Policies in Michigan and the District of Columbia." Educational policy (Los Altos, CA) 21. (2007): 202. Web. 5 December 2011. Educational policy (Los Altos, CA).
Different states with charter school legislation have adopted widely different positions in regard to the conversion of private schools to charter schools. California, for example, does not allow the conversion of private schools into charter schools. Both Arizona and Michigan allow such conversions, but with different requirements. A private school wishing to convert to a charter school in Michigan, for example, must show that at least 25% of its student population is made up of new students. Legislation in Arizona stipulates that private schools that wish to become charter schools within that state must have admission policies that are fair and non-discriminatory. Also, while Michigan and California require teachers at charter schools to hold state certification, those in Arizona do not.
Charter schools were targeted as a major component of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Specifically, the act specifies that students attending schools labeled as under-performing by state standards now have the option to transfer to a different school in the district, whether it is a state, private, or charter school. The act also suggested that if a failing school cannot show adequate yearly progress, it will be designated a charter school.
there were almost 100 charter schools in North Carolina, the limit passed by legislation in 1996.Knight, Meghan. "Cyber Charter Schools: An Analysis of North Carolina's Current Charter School Legislation." North Carolina journal of law . 6. (2005): 395. Web. 6 December 2011. http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ncjl6. The 1996 legislation dictates that there will be no more than five charter schools operating within one school district at any given time. It was passed in order to offer parents options in regard to their children and the school they attend, with most of the cost being covered by tax revenue. After the first several years of permitting charter schools in North Carolina, the authority to grant charters shifted from local boards of education to the State Board of Education. This can also be compared with several other states that have various powers that accept charter school applications.
Typically, charter schools claim nonprofit status, but most operate in a for-profit system. Additionally, the buildings in which they operate are generally owned by private landlords. Accordingly, this asset class generates interest from real-estate investors as well as building contractors. Charter schools have grown in number in the US since the 1990s, but have experienced many failures. A recent study found that more than a quarter of new charter schools had closed after 5 years, and after just 15 years of operation, about half had closed.. , 6,700 charter schools enroll approximately 2.9 million students in the United States.NCES, The Condition of Education – Charter School Enrollment, April 2016
For 2000–2001, studies estimated that there are about 45,000 online K–12 students nationally. Six years later, a study by Picciano and Seamon (2006) found that over 1 million students were involved. A study by Watson, Murin, Vashaw, Gemin, and Rapp found that cyber charter schools are currently (as of 2014) operating in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The increase of these online campuses has aroused controversy. In November, 2015, researchers at the University of Washington, Stanford University, and the Mathematica Policy Research group published the first major study of online charter schools in the United States, the "National Study of Online Charter Schools". It found "significantly weaker academic performance" in mathematics and reading in such schools when compared to conventional ones. The study resulted from research carried out in 17 US states which had online charter schools. It concluded that keeping online pupils focused on their work was the biggest problem faced by online charter schools and that in mathematics the difference in attainment between online pupils and their conventionally-educated peers equated to the cyber pupils missing a whole academic year in school.
Four states have adopted specific legislation tailored to cyber charter schools. One example is Arizona, which has about 3,500 students in cyber schools, about half of them cyber charter schools and the other half governed by traditional, brick-and-mortar public school districts. The cyber schools teach students from kindergarten to 12th grade, and the setting varies from being entirely online in one's home to spending all of the class time in a formal school building while learning over the Internet.
Cyber charter school diplomas have been unevenly valued by post-secondary institutions. Universities sometimes apply additional requirements or have cyber-charter quotas limiting the number of applicants. The US military also classifies non-traditional diplomas at a lower tier, although as of 2012 this could be bypassed by high ASVAB test scores.
A 2017 policy statement from the National Education Association expressed its strong commitment to public schools. Charter schools are funded by taxpayers so there must be the same liability, transparency, safeguards, and impartiality as public schools. Forty-four American states along with the District of Columbia implement legislation on state charter schools. However, many states do not compel charters to abide by open meeting statutes as well as prerequisites on conflict of interest that pertain to school districts, boards, and employees.
The first Trump administration's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, was a major proponent of school choice and charter schools.
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