Laws and Rules

 State Board of Education rules governing Idaho charter schools (PDF)

 The Rules of the Public Charter School Commission (PDF)

 Title 33 Chapter 52 Idaho Public School Legislation (PDF)  
         effective July 1, 2005

 Title 30 Chapter 3 Idaho Nonprofit Corporation Act (PDF)

  From the Charter School Leadership Council

• State of the Charter School Movement 2005: Trends, Issues, and Indicators, released by the Charter School Leadership Council offers an assessment of the state of the charter school movement as of 2005.

• The National Charter Schools Week E-Greeting, offered by the Charter School Leadership Council, is available to be appended to your e-mail messages. 

• FINANCE & FACILITIES Magnet and Specialized Schools of the Future: A Focus on Change This book provides advice on the construction of a new building, addition, or renovation of a magnet/charter school.

• ACCOUNTABILITY Charter Achievement Among Low-Income Students focuses on eight studies that analyze how well charter schools do with economically disadvantaged students.

• Evaluating the Performance of Charter Schools in Connecticut, commissioned by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), focuses on performance gains made by charter schools on standardized tests relative to gains made by traditional public schools.

• LEGAL ISSUES & POLICY Texas Charter School Legislation and the Evolution of Open-Enrollment Charter Schools focuses on Texas open-enrollment charter school legislation and the characteristics of 159 open-enrollment charter schools in Texas.

• Massachusetts Full Charter School Task Force Report offers many recommendations for redesigning the state's charter school funding mechanism and application and oversight processes. 

• Choices in Education Database offers information on school choice laws and enrollment opportunities in each state.

• Strong Charter School Laws are Those That Result in Positive Outcomes argues that strong charter school laws should be judged not by the amount of autonomy they grant or the conditions present that lead to increased numbers of charter schools, but rather the positive outcomes they provide.

General Charter School Resources

• NEW! Primer on Special Education in Charter Schools, 2006 (PDF)

• Idaho Charter School Manual. From the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. Please note that this manual is not produced by the State of Idaho, nor is it intended to be an official or comprehensive guide. No information herein should be considered a substitute for the advice of your attorney.

• States Should Remove Charter Caps, Report Says. By Krista Kafer, School News Reform, April 2006.

• Stunting Growth: The Impact of State-Imposed Caps on Charter Schools." By Todd Ziebarth, senior policy analyst, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

• ISBA Roles of Governing 

• US Charter School Board Development and Governance Resources

• Innovations in Education: Successful Charter Schools released by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement at the National Charter Schools Conference

• The Charter School Experience (English Version) (702 kb .pdf file).  A comprehensive publication that furthers awareness of charter schools and creates opportunities for communities to participate in them. ( Spanish version)

• Boise School District Charter School Policy Handbook
  A model for authorizers that covers renewal, application, petition contents and other charter-related information

• Charter Schools 2002: Results from CER's Annual Survey of America's Charter Schools. (336 kb .pdf file)

• Charter Friends National Network booklets, including such topics as special education, personnel, and creating effective governing boards.

• From Charter Friends National Network, an 86-page resource guide on contracting for management services, " Charting a Clear Course."  

• US Charter Schools Resource Directory Menu

• AskERIC Database Search
  AskERIC a personalized Internet-based service providing education information to teachers, librarians, counselors, administrators, parents, and others throughout the United States and the World. Try a search using "charter schools" as the query.

Research  

• Comments on the NCES report, "A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling."

• Trend Data: charter school students outperform comparable students in Chicago conventional public schools.

• The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation recently released a groundbreaking report on charter school finance called, Charter School Funding, Inequity¹s Next Frontier

• A Straightforward Comparison of Charter Schools and Regular Public Schools in the United States. This study by Caroline Hoxby is based solely on data that are publicly available.

• Catching the Wave: Lessons from California's Charter Schools
  A comprehensive report from the Progressive Policy Institute coving the past 10 years of charter education in California and the impact that charter schools have had on the traditional system.

• The Education Commission of the States
  A menu of the non-profit policy center's reports on education topics such as charter schools, school choice, governance, assessment, accountability and more.

• The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation-- working to advance understanding and acceptance of effective reform strategies that incorporate

  • the need for dramatically higher standards;

  • an education system designed for and responsive to the needs of its users;

  • verifiable outcomes and accountability;

  • equality of opportunity;

  • a solid core curriculum taught by knowledgeable, expert instructors;

  • educational diversity, competition, and choice

  
  Electronically available publications of their reports on topics of:
  Charters & Choice 
  Testing & Accountability 
  Curriculum & Instruction 
  Teachers & Principals
  Dayton Projects
  Additional Topics
   

•   Building a Plane While Flying It: Early Lessons from Developing Charter Schools
  The authors identified three major categories of issues the schools dealt with that cut across all sample charter schools: developing curricular and instructional programs, developing a meaningful accountability system, and developing management/leadership systems.

• Apples to Apples- An Evaluation of Charter Schools Serving General Student Populations
  ( 2003, July, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research )
  This is the first major study of charter schools that compares test scores at charter schools and regular public schools serving similar (general) student populations. The authors exclude "targeted" charter schools, i.e, those serving very specific populations (juvenile offenders, pregnant teens, extremely low-income students) on the grounds that these skew achievement data downward. When measured against those public schools with similar demographic and geographic characteristics, charter schools produced slightly higher gains in math and reading over a one-year period, according to this study released in July 2003. Nationwide, charter schools on average exceeded public school scores by 3 points on math tests and 2 points on reading exams. ( http://www.uscharterschools.org/)
  

• What the Research Reveals About Charter Schools    
  ( 2003, September, Center for Education Reform ) 
  This summary of 98 studies released since 1995 provides data that show charter schools are effective in improving academic achievement, are chosen by higher proportions of disadvantaged and special needs students, are highly accountable to the students they serve, and are supported strongly by parents.
  

• A Study of Charter School Accountability, U.S. Department of Education, June 2001.  This report details a 2-year study (from September 1997 to September 1999) about charter schools and their authorizers, focusing on six states with differing legal provisions on charter schools--Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Michigan.

Accountability

• Link to the ICSN Accountability Project Webpage

• Education News Parents Can Use : "No Child Left Behind Anniversary" web cast using Realplayer (network speed)or you can see the other archive web casts using this link

• Charter School Accountability  "Accountability" is one of the central concepts of the charter school idea. When legislators enact charter laws, they intend the new public schools to be held accountable for achieving results.  

• Education Commission: Accountability (K-12)   A decade of progress on state accountability systems has raised as many new policy questions as it has answered. States have been successful in aligning assessments with challenging academic standards, and reporting student and school progress toward meeting those standards. States are now wrestling with how to hold more stakeholders accountable, making accountability a true system, and helping all schools make yearly progress.

• Charter School Accountability: Patterns of Practice Among Multiple Sponsoring Agencies (.pdf) Charter school accountability depends on both the specific charter school law and the agreement that has been struck between the sponsoring agency and the individual charter school.

• Northwest Education Magazine--The Quest for Accountability: Charter Schools' Holy Grail   The success of charters hinges largely on their ability to show results. A recent seminar in Idaho helped a group of charter school faithfuls find their way toward solid assessments.

• Accountability for Student Performance: An Annotated Resource Guide for Shaping an Accountability Plan for Your Charter School, 2nd Edition, from Charter Friends National Network.  

• Colorado League Accountability Plan for Charter Schools includes a detailed plan for  creating and sustaining accountable charter schools.  

• A Study of Charter School Accountability, U.S. Department of Education, June 2001.  This report details a 2-year study (from September 1997 to September 1999) about charter schools and their authorizers, focusing on six states with differing legal provisions on charter schools--Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Michigan

• Accountability for Student Performance: An Annotated Resource Guide for Shaping an Accountability Plan for Your Charter School by the Charter Friends National Network.

• What Should We Do? A Practical Guide to Assessment and Accountability in Schools, by the Center for School Change

Charter School Facilities Resources

• A.G. Edwards-- Charter School Specialty Group bond issues for Idaho's charter schools

• Building a Charter School Building: Creative Financing Options

  By: Mary Lang, Executive Director to Moscow Charter School, Idaho

• Building A Foundation for Success: How Authorizers Can Help Schools With The Facility Challenge. This brief explains how quality charter school authorizing can help charter schools more easily obtain facilities.

• The Finance Gap: Charter Schools and Their Facilities (2004) a publication from the LISC Educational Facilities Financing Center  focusing on the "state of charter school facilities" in 14 states and the D.C. area. Comprehensive and current resource on the topic of charter school facilities.

• Charter Friends Initiative on Facilities Financing: This is a new, updated site highlighting the work of the CFNN on facilities financing.  

• Another great grant opportunity for LEA's and charter school LEA's. (Click here for more information)

• Two great opportunities for charter school LEA's from the Office of Innovation and Improvement!  (Click here for more information)

• KSixteen is a business specializing in serving education providers with real estate and construction services.  Its program includes real estate identification, assessment, lease/acquisition and financing, as well as school design and construction management.  Over the past three years, Ksixteen has managed construction on over 100 school projects in 21 states with a total value of $200 million, including 40 charter schools with over 17,000 students.

For Authorizers

• Presented at July 2005 Petitioner's Workshop

• Frequently Asked Questions

• Board Resources

• Evaluating the Principal (PDF)

• Board Source Non Profit Board Resources 

• National Association of Charter School Authorizers - a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes the establishment and operation of quality charter schools through responsible oversight in the public interest. NACSA believes that charter schools can improve public education by increasing educational opportunities for students and educators and increasing educational accountability for all public schools.

• Boise School District Charter School Policy Handbook
  A model for authorizers that covers renewal, application, petition contents and other charter-related information

• View the Principles and Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing, which were officially adopted by the NACSA membership on May 14, 2004.

• Read the latest in the NACSA series of Issue Briefs addressing key authorizer issues, Charter School Authorizers and Oversight: Where is the Line Between Effectively Holding Schools Accountable and Overregulation?.

• Building Excellence in Charter School Authorizing. Follow the progress of NACSA's federally-funded program of research and technical assistance in support of quality charter school authorizing.

• Special Education. NACSA's Reference Guide to Special Education Law for Charter School Authorizers seeks to bring greater clarity to the key elements of federal special education law and regulation and the authorizer’s oversight role in ensuring that charter schools are appropriately addressing the educational needs of students with disabilities.

• NACSA's Online Library of Charter School Authorizer Resources - the most comprehensive clearinghouse and directory of documents and websites created by charter-authorizing agencies and related state education departments nationwide. Recognizing the challenges and complexities of authorizers' responsibilities, NACSA launched this library to help authorizers share their work widely with each other and with the public.

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The Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies, 2004
Date Modified: 08/13/2007
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