The Promise and Peril of Charter Schools

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Forty states and Washington, D.C. have enacted charter laws and are operating charter schools. The number of charter schools has exploded from 0 in 1992 to over 2700 in the year 2003. The number of charter schools grew at a rate of over 50% in 1998-99 (Nelson et al., 2000). In states like Arizona and districts like Washington D.C., over 4% of public school students are now enrolled in charter schools (Nelson et al., 2000). Seventy percent of charter schools have more applications than available positions for students.

Charter schools are in fact public schools, enabled by the creation of charter laws in each state. Charter laws create a contract between independently run schools and a chartering authority. These contracts typically specify a set of objectives for the school, including curriculum, student outcomes, parental and community involvement, and financial solvency. In return for delivering the services defined in the contract, the school receives a payment for each attending student. The chartering authority can close any school that does not meet its contract.

Charter schools are growing quickly because the present public school system is outdated and often fails to deliver an excellent education to students. Many educators liken traditional public education to a factory, in which unformed children are fed in to one side of the factory, teachers slave away at the production line, and complete, well-educated children are popped out of the other side (Smith & O'Day, 1991).

Our schools have centralized management in district offices and engage in collective bargaining through teachers unions, exactly the model that factories adopted one hundred years ago. Historically, this method was seen to be an efficient means of mass-producing education. However, the current system does not adapt easily to change. Schools are rarely closed because of poor academic achievement. Because of this lack of accountability, schools continue to operate long after their educational outcomes decay. The educational establishment's factory system poses a major impediment to school reform (Smith & O'Day, 1991).

Charter legislation attacks the factory model of education. Charter laws break the monopoly held by the current education establishment, shifting power from school districts and teachers' unions to principals, teachers, and parents. The primary virtue of charter schools is autonomy. Autonomy allows individuals within the school itself to make decisions and deliver results without outside interference.

Research shows that effective schools share decision-making and responsibility with school staff. In these schools, staffs have an active voice in the school, including decisions like hiring of new staff and the school budget (Smith & O'Day, 1991). Charter schools deliver on a number of the attributes that are crucial to effective schools. Personnel flexibility and budgetary independence allow the principals of charter schools to create effective schools (Nelson et al., 2000; Powell et al., 1997).

Likewise, charter schoolteachers are willing to trade accountability for autonomy in the classroom (Mulholland & Amsler, 1992). Parents are often involved in shaping the curriculum, policy, and budget, and have a strong volunteer presence at charter schools (Powell et al., 1997; WestEd, 1998). By empowering the people most involved with students, charter schools have the potential to deliver a better education than traditional centrally managed public schools.

Charter schools are open-enrollment public schools and must adhere to the same equity standards as district schools. They are not limited to families living in certain parts of the school district and have no admission criteria, academic or otherwise. Any parent can choose to send his or her child to a charter school in their district.

Charter schools create competition for district schools, because parents who are dissatisfied with their zoned district school can choose to enroll their students in charter schools. Although charter schools are created individually, the charter model maintains that once there are enough charter schools operating in a school district, they will cause the school district to improve their own educational outcomes (Fulford, 1997a). As will be discussed below, the premise of competition between charter schools and districts is currently being tested in districts where a critical mass of charter schools exists. Within the area of school choice, charter laws represent a compromise between conservative and liberal positions on public education.

Free-market conservatives would like to introduce education vouchers that would provide financial support from the government to allow children to attend any school. Vouchers would re-move the government not just from public school management, but also from its role as overseer of school systems. Liberals would like to fix the current public school system while leaving the power structure in place. Charters stand in between these positions, making the necessary changes in district management and union involvement, while leaving the government in place as monitor of the system.

THE PROMISE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

The theoretical model behind the charter school movement posits that a small number of effective schools can create competition capable of changing the entire public school system. As discussed later in this section, there is strong evidence that school districts do respond to charter schools that are enrolling district students.

The explosive growth and momentum behind the nationwide charter school movement has al-lowed the number of charter schools to grow faster than anyone expected. I will present a quantitative method for determining the point at which charter schools will reach nationwide critical mass, as well as significant obstacles and new opportunities, which need to be overcome in order to continue charter school momentum. Finally, we examine school districts, which have already been impacted by a critical mass of charter schools to understand the likely reactions of school districts nationwide when they each reach critical mass.

ESTIMATING CRITICAL MASS

Since education in the United States is implemented at the level of the local school district, critical mass must be assessed for each district. Generally, school districts do not respond to the threat of competition until charter schools have a financial impact on the school district (Ericson et al., 2001). This section creates a new measure for assessing the point in time when charter schools in a single district are able to achieve critical mass and provoke a district response.

There are several important factors that affect the number of charter schools required to achieve critical mass within the school district.

The first factor is the internal growth rate of enrollment in the district. Internal growth rate serves to buffer the district against the financial impact posed by charter schools. For example, if charter schools pull 2% of students from district schools, but the district enrollment grows at a rate of 2%, there will only be a negligible effect on the district budget (Ericson et al., 2000). The following calculations use a 1% per year growth rate for the number of students nationwide, slightly higher than predictions for the next five years by The National Center for Education Statistics (2000).

The second factor is the size of the district measured in number of students (Rofes, 1998). The larger the district, the more charter schools are required to reach critical mass.

The third factor is the district's tolerance to budget variation. Districts will begin to react as soon as there is any negative year-to-year impact on their budget. We believe that the critical mass point can be estimated as the point at which all possible non-personnel costs have been cut and the next cut will be an employee. Future critique should analyze the variables, which determine the budget variance that districts are able to tolerate, but for the purpose of this calculation, a 2% budget tolerance will be used.

The final factor is the average number of students in a charter school. This number has been rising for the last several years, increasing from 111 to 128 between 1998 and 1999. For the purposes of this calculation, an average charter school size of 141 students will be used. This figure is probably conservative, as many start-up charter schools add one grade-level per year in their first several years and yearly trends would indicate an average size larger than 141 for the immediate future.

To estimate the number of charter schools required to achieve critical mass, we propose the following formula. Critical mass = (district budget tolerance (%) + enrollment growth (%)) * total students in district/average students per charter school.

If a district has 40,000 students and a 1% annual enrollment growth, with a budget tolerance of 2%, charter schools must attract 3% of that district's students, or 1200 students, in order to achieve critical mass. Assuming an average charter school size of 141 students, this district would require nine charter schools.

Since critical mass must occur within each district, it is primarily a local issue. However, this study also estimates the total number of schools necessary, assuming average district budget and enrollment growth rates. This total number of nationwide schools gives us a good idea of the total charter schools we will need nationwide to see large-scale changes in our public education system.

If we assume that the same enrollment and budget tolerance exists for districts nationwide, then critical mass would be achieved if 3% of the nation's 47 million public school students attend charter schools. At the average start-up charter school size of 141 students, 10,000 charter schools would be needed to achieve nationwide critical mass. The growth rate of new charter schools from 1999 to 2001 was approximately 30% (Nelson et. al, 2000; Center for Education Reform, 2001).

We will use a more conservative long-term yearly growth rate of 25% for this calculation. Given the current total of over 2300 charter schools (Center for Education Reform, 2001), and a yearly growth rate of 25%, the country will reach critical mass by 2008. This figure suggests that charter schools have the potential for strong impact on our national school system. It is important to note, however, that in order to maintain historic growth rates; a number of legislative and operational barriers must be overcome. The next section will examine the obstacles and opportunities needed to reach critical mass.

OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES

The main obstacles to achieving a critical mass of charter schools are legislative. The success of charter schools in a state is substantially determined by the strength of the charter law (Center for Education Reform, 2000a). We define a strong charter school law as one that allows more schools to be started and more schools to remain financially solvent.

Three of the states with the strongest laws, California, Michigan, and Arizona, account for al-most half of the charter schools in the country (Nelson et al., 2000). Reform advocates in many states have celebrated the initial passage of their charter law as the final victory. In fact, in order to achieve strong charter laws, a more significant effort is often necessary to make later improvements than to pass the law initially (Center for Education Reform, 2000a). This analysis will focus on obstacles and opportunities for school creation and issues, which impact the viability of charter schools.

CREATING NEW SCHOOLS

The most significant obstacle to the national charter school movement is the imposition of caps on total schools, new schools, and the number of schools per district. California, for example, began with a cap of 100 schools, which was reached within the first four years after the legislation went into effect (Nelson et al., 2000). It took five years of legislative effort to get this cap altered. The year after the cap was lifted new school starts doubled from the previous year (Nelson et al., 2000).

Michigan has recently reached the cap on the number of schools that can be approved by state universities, which will slow the growth of schools considerably. Many states have much more restrictive caps on total schools and new schools. Connecticut, for example, has a cap of twenty-four charter schools with a maximum enrollment of 250 students each. Capping charter school growth is justified by charter opponents as necessary to keep charters from placing undue burden on the finances of public education. Clearly, this strategy prevents charter schools from achieving critical mass.

Another major legislative obstacle limiting charter school growth is the charter law provision in many states that limit charter school approval and oversight to the school district where the charter school is located. Since charter schools compete for students with districts, and students who attend charter schools drain educational dollars from the school district, districts are hardly impartial overseers.

Lisa Snell of the Reason Foundation argues that school districts should not be the charter school authorizer, the contract monitor, and the charter schools' direct competition. Snell believes traditional privatization, contracts work better when the purchaser of a service and provider are split. In addition, policy and regulatory functions are separated from service delivery and compliance functions and are transformed into separate and distinct organizations. Charter laws that encourage multiple charter authorizers serve to separate the functions of charter authorizer and monitor from government-school service provider (Snell, 2002).

Some states allow state boards of education, public universities, school districts, and even specially created charter boards to serve as chartering authorities. States that create multiple chartering authorities produce many more charter schools (Nelson et al., 2000). Arizona and the District of Columbia have many chartering authority options and have the highest percentage of students attending charter schools in the country (Nelson et al., 2000). Charter laws that encourage multiple charter authorizers serve to separate the functions of charter authorizer and monitor from government-school service provider.

States like Michigan have created multiple chartering authorities and a financial incentive for chartering authorities to grant and monitor charter schools. This structure creates the financial means for chartering authorities to create organizational capacity to adequately administer charter contracts (Snell, 2002).

The most significant opportunity for the charter school movement is to tie itself more directly to standards-based reform. As will be discussed in the section on charter school accountability, standards-based reformers set standards and assessments at the state level, which are then used to assess the educational outcomes of schools. States also take over failing schools, a method known as school reconstitution. By 2000, 22 states had implemented laws for state reconstitution of failing schools and districts (Seder, 2000). However, state departments of education are not prepared to run schools. Typically, state takeovers of school districts involve replacing the district school board with a new board of trustees with broad powers. In Philadelphia, this board attempted to out-source the management of the school district to a private company, Edison Schools. This type of privatization of district management is politically difficult.

The most recent Elementary and Secondary Education Act specifies that children in failing schools should be allowed to transfer to the public or charter school of their choice (U.S. House of Representatives, 2001).

A bolder approach would be to mandate that states reconstitute failing schools as charter schools. The state would open a competitive bidding process to charter operators for the opportunity to create a new school on the previous school site. Charter operators would be motivated to bid in these situations because of the lack of facility financing in charter laws of many states. School districts would face real competition for the turn-around of failing schools.

Assuming conservatively that 3% of the nation's 56,000 public schools will not meet state or federal achievement standards, 2700 schools will be reconstituted each year. If those schools were all given charter status, it would allow the charter movement to reach critical mass well before 2008.

SCHOOL VIABILITY

The single largest issue for viability of charter schools is inequitable financing. As discussed later in the section on equity, because major line items like school facilities are omitted from most charter funding, charter school operators must shift resources from instruction to facilities. They are faced with the choice of either providing inequitable instruction to students or finding outside sources of capital. Additionally, the average size of charter schools may rise from today's 137 students once facilities financing is included in charter laws. This would mean that fewer total charter schools would be necessary to achieve critical mass. Overall, funding equity must be achieved to increase charter school viability.

There are also provisions in some charter laws, which threaten school autonomy and make it more difficult to create an effective charter school. Some charter laws specify that teachers must be certified in order to teach in charter schools, which greatly limits the pool of potential teachers and has shown no evidence of improving teacher quality (Abell Foundation, 2001).

A number of charter laws require that teachers in charter schools are subject to collective bar-gaining, which usually limits the ability for the school to hire, fire, and compensate employees based on their alignment with the school's mission and their own performance (Finn et al., 1997).

Many of these regulations are remnants of the factory system of education. The charter model assumes that charter schools need autonomy to be effective, and those provisions which limit autonomy should be eliminated from laws to increase academic achievement and school viability.

IMPACT

The charter model maintains that when charter schools reach critical mass within a district, they begin to have an impact. Most studies have focused on district reaction at the introduction of charter laws, rather than at the point of critical mass (Ericson et al., 2000).

Since critical mass has been reached in only a few districts, it is not yet possible to form a complete picture of the means that districts will use to compete. This section focuses on a qualitative description of districts faced with a critical mass of charter schools and their reaction. As we will see, districts progress through several changes, beginning with anger and eventually leading to substantial improvement in their educational offerings.

Districts' immediate reaction to a critical mass of charter schools is usually one of hostility. Charter schools are blamed for decreasing district enrollment (Ericson et al., 2000). Once districts understand that they must compete for students, their first efforts are usually as non-disruptive as possible. Many school districts increase their marketing efforts and parental outreach (Ericson et. al, 2000).

In the next stage, districts begin to take accountability seriously. In one district, administrators began comparing school results for district schools against the charter schools to which their students transferred. School administrators were told that students in district schools should outperform charter students and a measurement and accountability program was created around this goal (Ericson et al., 2000).

According to Greg Richmond, former assistant chief of staff to the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, closing a charter school for poor academic performance also brings up accountability concerns for the district's own schools. If the district has many low-performance schools, there will come a time when those schools must be closed as well (Mickelsen, 1997).

In the next stage of competition, real consequences for poor district school performance begin to appear. School principals are often fired as a first step. As Joe Rao of the Los Angeles school district's reform unit noted, several principals from non-charter schools were removed after new scrutiny was placed on principals due to charter school competition (Premack, 1996). Although principals serve as convenient scapegoats, these results suggest that the school system will be forced to make more significant changes to compete effectively. These changes might include waivers for teacher credentialing, restructuring of school union contracts and increases in principal autonomy from district regulations.

At some point, this competition forces districts to improve their 'product,' the schools' educational programs. In response to charters, one medium-sized suburban district implemented several new educational programs, divided schools into smaller units, remodeled buildings, and included parents in the hiring of principals (Ericson et al., 2000).

Other districts have reacted more aggressively, using charters as a tool to improve their district. After understanding the flexibility offered by charter schools, one superintendent gave all district schools more autonomy and promoted charter status as a way for schools to gain still more flexibility (Ericson et al., 2000).

Another superintendent foresaw the time when he and his staff would become a support base and facilitators for the schools in their district (Rofes, 1998). Finally, in California three school districts have now converted to become charter school districts (Center For Education Reform, 2000c). The school district offices act as a chartering authority, with every school in those districts acting autonomously with full charter protection.

Although these are preliminary examples of school district impacts, they show the potential for larger changes in the entire school system. Charter scholars should be especially focused on new opportunities to analyze district improvements in districts where charters have reached critical mass. While the harshness of competition can be distasteful to some, it is already proving to be an effective mechanism for catalyzing change.

THE PERILS

For many charter advocates, reaching critical mass is cause for celebration. From that point for-ward, they reason, we will either see school districts respond to the threat of charter schools and adapt better practices, or we will see an even larger proliferation of charter schools. However, the fact that there are many charter schools competing in districts will not by itself result in a better public school system. No doubt all schools will be more efficient and parents will like them. However, popular and efficient schools are not the only goals of public education.

Before critical mass is reached, we must closely consider the type of public school system that charters will create. We need to put our resources to work to find ways of making these schools successful in their mission of excellence. Finally, we need to ensure that all public schools provide access to this education for all students.

It is our belief that competition between charter school operators will induce them to create the best possible schools according to the criteria set by state laws. This article argues that we must fix the educational infrastructure around charter schools to set the proper criteria. This section discusses the problems that charter schools currently face with issues of accountability and equity. I recommend potential solutions to these problems in order to ensure that a critical mass of charter schools make a positive impact on our public education system.

ACCOUNTABILITY

The duty of public education is to provide an excellent education to all students. In order to ensure this, we need to hold schools accountable for the progress of their students. Today, states specify standards for the concepts that students should understand. States then create standards-based assessments to measure schools' success in educating children to these standards.

Charter schools are created to be more accountable. Charter operators are given more freedom to run the school as they see fit, but are held more responsible for results than most public schools. For charter schools today, financial solvency is the only real form of accountability. Although a few states require charter schools to take state assessments, very few charter schools have been closed for lack of strong student outcomes. (Center for Education Reform, 2000b). There have been 24 charter school closings in Florida since 1996, mostly due to management or financial related reasons. (Bowman, 2003).

This article asserts that charter schools must be measured by student outcomes on state standards-based assessments. Charter schools must meet or exceed the results of comparable public schools to prove that their educational outcomes justify their additional autonomy.

Standards-based reform (SBR), a top-down reform effort implemented through state legislatures, attempts to create high standards and accountability. SBR practitioners set standards that outline statewide curriculum objectives, but leave the delivery of those objectives up to individual districts, schools and teachers (Vinovskis, 1996).

Although some academics have concluded that the method of setting goals necessarily dictates a single, inflexible curriculum and delivery vehicle (McNeil, 2000b), many others believe that with properly specified objectives and improved testing methodologies, SBR will be effective (Webb, 1997).

Charter schools and state-level SBR policy makers should work together to create a model for holding public schools accountable to state standards. Charter schools are the ideal setting to implement standards-based reform. Principals at charter schools can implement standards-based frameworks and assessment without interference from district officials. Teachers and parents at the school will either buy in to the school's choice to implement standards or choose to leave the school.

A charter school can be more effective in implementing standards-based reform, because it can align goals among all of its constituents without outside interference. SBR reformers should pro-vide both punishments and rewards for achievement in charter schools. Charter schools should be reconstituted if they deliver inadequate academic outcomes as measured by state assessments. By marrying charters and SBR, legislators can create models for flexible public schools that are ac-countable to state standards.

RESISTANCE TO STANDARDS

Despite the benefits of embracing standards-based reform, many charter operators have resisted this type of accountability. Charter laws are vague about school accountability, leading to different implementations of accountability within charter schools. Charter operators often argue that standards-based assessments limit their ability to create an innovative curriculum. This is the same criticism leveled by SBR critics in the public schools (McNeil, 2000b).

Some charter advocates argue that, because chartering agencies can close charter schools, they are more accountable (Fulford, 1997a). Other proponents maintain that charter schools should be accountable to parents and teachers, their primary stakeholders (Hill et al., 2001). While these are all legitimate points of view, they miss the fundamental thesis of charter schools.

To be considered successful, the charter school movement must effect a change in the entire public school system. Only by delivering equivalent or better educational outcomes than comparable public schools can charter schools apply pressure to the nearby school district.

INEFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT

Even when schools are tested, many chartering authorities do not have the resources to hold schools accountable for anything more than fiscal solvency. Through 2001, only four charter schools had been closed explicitly for academic failure (Center for Education Reform, 2000c). Some states have already addressed this problem.

States like Michigan have created multiple chartering authorities and a financial incentive for chartering authorities to grant and monitor charter schools. This structure creates the financial means for chartering authorities to create organizational capacity to adequately administer charter contracts. States should implement mechanisms similar to Michigan to ensure adequate resources for charter school oversight.

ACHIEVEMENT RESEARCH NEEDED

Researchers are divided on the achievement gains shown by charter schools. Some research shows that charters do outperform schools with similar populations (WestEd, 1998), but other re-search reports argue that the difference is not meaningful (Wells, 1998). These reports take extremely small samples of charter schools, typically less than twenty, over short periods of time, typically two to three years. Therefore, the assumptions and selection biases of the chosen schools and public comparisons can lead to widely varying results.

Further research is needed to highlight differences in student outcomes of charter school and typical district school students. Standards-based tests have changed significantly in many states over the past several years, creating difficulty in comparing results from year to year. Many states do not include student demographics along with test results. Limitations in each of these areas prevent conclusive research. These limitations need to be highlighted to apply pressure on states to improve the usefulness of testing results.

Accountability suffers today because charter school operators and chartering authorities focus primarily on financial accountability. In order for charter schools to achieve legitimacy, they must prove that they improve student outcomes. Accountability can be improved legislatively by tying charter school assessment directly to achievement on state tests and improving the organization capacity of chartering authorities. Researchers should focus on analyzing academic achievement in order to highlight and learn from charter school educational success and failure.

EQUITY

Charter schools represent a major change in the delivery of public education. Although charter schools have followed national enrollment averages for low-income students, selection biases in charter schools have the potential to attract certain types of students. Charter schools are also under-funded relative to district schools, a situation that creates inequity between students at charter schools and district schools. Special needs students are currently under-represented in charter schools. It is beyond the scope of this article to propose solutions to this problem, but it is an area that merits further study. This section focuses on issues related to selection biases and funding inequities in charter schools.

SELECTION BIASES

Charter school methodology for selecting and dismissing students may inhibit their ability to recruit a representative sample of students from their district. This section discusses issues related to notification, neighborhood bias, and standards for admission and dismissal.

NOTIFICATION

Students in district schools are typically sent to the school based on the geographic zone where they reside. The parents of these children do not have their choice of public schools. However, parents can choose to send their children to any charter school in the district. Many critics argue that giving parents a choice is inherently inequitable. Well-organized and involved parents make better choices than parents who are not (O'Rourke et al., 1998).

Many scholars advocate that information dissemination should be conducted by the state board of education, school districts and chartering agencies to ensure proper coverage (Arsen et al., 1999). If parents are properly notified, they will have more opportunity to choose a quality school than the district zoning. Houses in low-income neighborhoods are often zoned for schools with poor educational outcomes and parents have no alternatives (Wells & Stuart, 1998).

As state and federal school reconstitution standards are increased, parents will become better informed about failing schools. This will help to alleviate problems related to notification, because parents will be more active in looking for alternatives.

STANDARDS FOR ADMISSION AND DISMISSAL

Charter schools typically must recruit students in their first few years in order to meet their registration goals. After that time, 70% of charter schools have more applicants than can be admitted. This over-subscription is typically resolved by the use of a lottery where every child has an equal opportunity to attend. However, many charter schools spend time talking to parents before admission, and require contracts with parents and students after they have been admitted.

Contracts often commit parent to helping their children with homework, making sure their children attend school, and sometimes spending time working at the school. We could not find any evidence of a school that has dismissed a student because the parents did not live up to their contract.

However, although most charter operators are committed to equal access for all students, this counseling process has the potential to dissuade parents who are not willing to make a commitment of their time to ensure their child's success. Schools that require parental involvement may be excluding some parents from their selection pool. Parents with significant work schedules, other young children at home, or no means of transportation may not be able to commit to this level of involvement. However, it is clear that raising the level of involvement for parents has a significant impact on their school buy-in and students' attendance (Wells & Stuart, 1998).

Post-admission contracts should be allowed, because they do create a stronger sense of commitment for both students and parents. However, it is crucial that chartering authorities monitor this process closely. Chartering authorities should be vigilant about inspecting any student who is rejected or dismissed. Charter school operators must display flexibility in demanding commitment from parents. Parents should propose ways that they can involve themselves in the school or methods that they can use to ensure that their students do their homework and attend school. In this way, charter schools include parents in the responsibility for their children's education.

FINANCIAL INEQUITIES

Charters are under-funded by current legislation in the areas of start-up funds (Nelson et al., 2000), facilities (Dornan, 1998), transportation (Wells & Stuart, 1998), and access to federal funds (Finn et al., 1997). Additionally, charter legislation often does not determine the amount and timing of payments to schools, leaving charter schools to negotiate with their chartering authority.

The ramifications of these funding inequities translate to inequities for the charter students relative to students in other public schools. Under funding of charter schools ultimately necessitates that resources will be taken from teaching and learning, and used to pay for facilities, transportation, and other areas.

Each area of under-funding causes distinct equity effects. Lack of start-up funds makes it difficult to adequately hire teachers, because many teachers use resume editing services, which in turn describe the strengths of the teacher and it doesn't give such a result for children during classes, and prepare a curriculum for the first year of operation. Lack of transportation means that low-income families have less choice to send their children to a distant charter school than wealthy families. Without facilities funding, many charter schools lack funds to build a building or rent space (Dornan, 1998).

This makes it easier to start schools in wealthy areas than in low-income areas, because parents and community members in wealthy areas have better access to capital (Wells, 1998). Federal funds flow through districts, are often slow in coming, and require significant paperwork.

In Massachusetts, federal funding was found to be one year behind the delivery of schooling (KPMG, 1998). Lack of access to federal funds, which are primarily directed at low-income and special needs students, biases charter schools away from serving those populations. It also creates funding inequities between that population at charter schools and their peers at other public schools in the district.

Many of these areas of financial inequity are negotiating points between charter advocates and opponents. Facilities funding has been widely denied in charter legislation, although states like California have amended the charter law to provide adequate student per-diems for facilities. This effort took several years of legislative wrangling to allocate California state funds to pay for charter school facilities (Center for Education Reform, 2000a). Transportation has been addressed legislatively in all but four states, but the implementation in many districts is not acceptable (Nelson et al., 2000). Start-up funds have become a much smaller problem after the federal government created a program to provide several hundred dollars in per-pupil startup funding to schools (Nelson et al., 2000). Charter advocates must fight for financial equity in every state. The federal government needs to restructure federal education aid to eliminate paperwork, efficiently work with single schools, and eliminate funding delays.

Issues of equity in charter schools must be scrutinized. Charter schools have a responsibility to provide equal access to quality education for all students in a district. Legislators and regulators also bear a burden to ensure that this is possible. A mechanism for dispersing information about charter schools to prospective parents should be specified in charter laws. Monitoring agencies must focus on equity issues any time a student is not accepted or leaves a charter school. Finally, legislators need to correct financial inequities between charter schools and district schools.

CONCLUSION

Charter schools are rapidly approaching the point where they will change the way our public education system operates. I estimate that ten thousand charter schools will create the necessary critical mass to provoke a response from school districts. This milestone could be achieved within the next six years. However, for policy-makers there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that charter schools maintain their momentum.

There remain significant limits being placed on charter growth through the imposition of caps on the number of charter schools in each state. Florida legislators eliminated the cap on charter schools in 2003. Additionally, inequitable funding for charter schools makes them less viable and may perpetuate the under-resourcing of low-income students unless corrected. The size of individual charter school has been limited by inequitable funding. There is a need to consider capital outlay and facility issues in many states.

Finally, states without multiple chartering authorities are leaving the fate of the charter movement in the hands of school districts, direct competitors to charter schools. Policy-makers must focus on improving charter laws in their state to address these major obstacles to critical mass.

There is also significant work to be done to ensure that the changes brought about when charter schools reach critical mass will improve our public education system. Under-resourced chartering authorities may not be fulfilling their role to ensure that all students have access to charter schools. Chartering authorities must publicize and monitor charter schools to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to attend.

Charter schools should also be the model for school accountability. There must be real consequences for failure to meet academic standards. Charter school proponents and standards-based reform policy-makers should work together to make charter schools the most accountable public schools. SBR reformers should entrust the reconstitution of failing schools to charter operators. In this way, we can provide a nationwide system of accountable schools and a model for our school districts to follow.

Education researchers need to focus on charter schools. The number of in-depth studies of crucial problems in charter schools is slim. Charter schools are becoming the de-facto standard in school reform. Instead of arguing about their validity, researchers need to focus on issues of equity, accountability, effectiveness, and impact. Only by putting charter schools under a spotlight can we ensure that they will positively impact our public school system.