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August Monthly Newsletter Banner display:inline-block;

A NOTE FROM NINA

The summer is almost over and, like many of you, I cannot wait to send my daughter back to school! The daily routine is calling, and just in time. I hope all of you have found time to recharge for the work ahead.

At the National Alliance, we are eager for Congress to approve appropriations for the Charter Schools Program (CSP) for the 2019 fiscal year. Last week the Senate passed a bill that would provide $445 million for the CSP. The House has proposed $450 million. We’re hoping both houses send a final bill to the president by the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. You’ll find more details in the Washington Update below.

On a busy political landscape, we are always looking for ways to help our message break through. We’ll certainly be touting the new EducationNext poll results that show rising public support for charter schools (details below). But the best way to get lawmakers to support our work is to invite them to see our schools! Given the fall elections, members of the House and Senate will spend more time at home this fall, and our team has been busy scheduling charter school tours for members. If you are interested in hosting a tour, please contact elise@publiccharters.org for more details.

Warmly,

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Nina Rees
President and CEO
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

Survey Says

The annual EducationNext poll, released last week, shows support for charter schools increasing after a post-election decline last year. Forty-four percent of Americans now support charter schools, versus just 31 percent who oppose them. Divisions occur across party lines, with charter schools registering 57 percent support among Republicans and 36 percent support among Democrats. For the full results, including opinions on other forms of choice, education funding, and teacher pay, click here. For the National Alliance’s statement, click here.

Recent polling from Democrats for Education Reform finds that 65 percent of voters support some form of public school choice, as well as a slate of other reform measures. DFER characterized the results as showing that most Americans are “education progressives.” See the results here.

Prior to the release of both polls, Nina Rees joined a panel hosted by the Fordham Institute to discuss the role charter schools have played in elections and how support from President Trump and Secretary DeVos has affected support for charter schools. You can watch a recording of the panel here.

Overcoming Segregation

Excitement surrounded the recent opening of Sumter County, Alabama’s University Charter School, which remarkably is the first integrated public school in the county’s history. A local news profile of the school is available here, and NPR profiled the school here.

Despite evidence to the contrary, a recent New York Times op-ed sought to tie charter schools to educational segregation. Our Senior Vice President of Advocacy, Amy Wilkins, set the record straight in a letter to the editor. Former Obama Education Department official Peter Cunningham also weighed in strongly.

National Alliance Paper on Charter School Management Structure

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The National Alliance’s annual Charter School Management Organization Overview is out with updated statistics on the management structure for every charter school in the country. In 2016-17, 65 percent of charter schools operated independently, 23 percent were part of a Charter Management Organization (CMO), and 12 percent were part of an Education Management Organization. The prevalence of different management structures varies significantly at state and local levels, so be sure to check out what the breakdown looks like in your state. Click here for the report.

Washington Update

Washington Update

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a “minibus” funding package that includes Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 funding levels for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) bill. The bill includes $445 million for the Charter Schools Program (CSP), which would be an 11 percent increase over the FY18 funding level. The House version of the FY 2019 LHHS bill includes $450 million for the CSP. The House and Senate will now begin negotiations to reconcile the differences between their bills. There is some indication that Congress could complete that work by Oct. 1, the beginning of FY 2019. If not, final passage of the FY 2019 LHHS bill would likely be delayed until sometime after the November election. The bill also contains language, authored by Senators Murkowski (R-AK) and Reed (D-RI), requiring a report—within 18 months of the bill’s passage—on the state of public school facilities. The study may offer an opportunity to highlight the facilities challenges that are unique to charter schools. Stay tuned!

President Trump recently signed into law a reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which received bipartisan support in Congress. The Act authorizes more than $1 billion for states to use towards secondary and post-secondary training. The new flexibility and incentives create opportunities for charter schools to take the lead in identifying innovative pathways and improve student readiness for the rapidly changing needs of today’s workforce. Our Senior Policy Advisor Christy Wolfe detailed the charter school opportunities in a blog post here. The National Alliance also issued a statement.

The National Alliance submitted a comment letter in response to the U.S. Department of Education notice proposing priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for Grants to Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools under the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program. The Secretary may use some of the proposed priorities in future competitions.

News from the States

Ohio Statehouse_State UpdateEarlier this month, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed into law Senate Bill 216 (SB 216) to bring more transparency and accountability to full-time virtual charter schools in the Buckeye State. Among other provisions, SB 216 requires full-time virtual charter schools to automatically un-enroll students who miss a certain number of consecutive unexcused hours and creates a legislative committee to make recommendations on a performance-based funding model for virtual charter schools. A report from that committee is due in late 2018. The National Alliance issued a statement here.

In two local publications, our Senior Vice President of State Advocacy and Support, Todd Ziebarth, responded to baseless criticisms of charter schools and called on lawmakers in West Virginia and Nebraska to enact a charter school law in their states. The states are two of only six states that don’t have a charter school law.

Legal Update

Legal Update

The first charter school opened in Puerto Rico (read about the school here) after the commonwealth’s Supreme Court ruled that public charter schools are constitutional and are a viable option to help rebuild the island’s education system. Click here to read the National Alliance’s statement supporting the decision, which ensures that the public education system puts children first. We welcome the opportunity to help Puerto Rico establish a thriving charter sector.

The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Missouri public charter school parents seeking to intervene in a case threatening $50 million of funding to St. Louis charter schools. In a reversal of a prior decision, the Eighth Circuit determined charter school parents have standing to intervene in the suit. Read the National Alliance’s statement here.

The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned a previous Court of Appeals dismissal of Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota, returning the case to trial. In a statement available here, Nina Rees strongly urged the court to “refrain from limiting the ability of parents—­especially parents of students who have long been denied high-quality public school options—to choose among the best public schools available to their children, regardless of location or student population.”

Research Roundup

Research Roundup

The National Alliance serves as the largest clearinghouse of charter school data in the country—and we’re excited to share it! Our new and improved Charter School Data Dashboard provides national statistics on enrollment, demographics, curriculum model and school focus, grade configuration, and management structure. We are building out additional layers of the dashboard that will be helpful to the entire movement, including the ability to view data by state, management organization, authorizer, or school. Click here to access the Data Dashboard and keep an eye out for updates.

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers released a new report showing that a significant shift has occurred on the national charter school landscape: for the first time, most new charters are opening under authorizers other than local school districts. Read the report here, and an analysis by NACSA’s Greg Richmond here.

The National Indian Education Association recently released Sovereignty in Education: Creating Culturally-Based Charter Schools in Native Communities (available here), a handbook for nonprofit organizations working within Native communities and those considering starting charter schools. The handbook offers insight into the unique landscape within Native communities and provides a Native-centric framework for charter schools, as well as examples of successful schools including the Native American Community Academy, profiled here by the National Charter School Resource Center.

New research from the Progressive Policy Institute looks at urban districts that are giving greater autonomy to schools, sorting through the lessons learned about which autonomies are most important to student success. Read the report here and an article on the findings here.

Bellwether Education Partners finds that educator pension and health benefits are consuming a rising share of state and district K-12 budgets—but current teachers aren’t necessarily seeing the gains. Click here for the report.

A report from the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans finds that the city’s charter-led reform has resulted in higher achievement scores, higher college attendance rates, and higher college graduation rates. Read more here.  

New research from the Center on Reinventing Public Education finds that 8 out of 10 charter schools in Washington state are serving students with disabilities at rates higher than the state average and the average of the district in which they are located. See the research here.

From The Charter Blog

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The Charter Blog did not take the summer off! We’ve posted great material from across the country. Drop by to catch up. Some highlights:

  • Marty Walz, a former Democratic state representative from Boston and chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education in 2009-2010, explained why she believes all Democrats should support public charter schools.

  • Ohio State Rep. Andrew Brenner, a Republican, is a major school choice supporter wrote about why he supports charter schools, and how he responds to critics claiming that charter schools using gimmicky advertising to attract families.

  • After surviving the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people, Dab Christian found himself in Brooklyn, New York, struggling to find his place at a local elementary school. That all changed when he entered middle school at Achievement First. Now, he’s a recent graduate of Achievement First Brooklyn High School and will be pursuing his degree at the State University of New York at Oswego! Read more about his journey.

Public charter schools around the country are changing lives every day. At any given time, a charter school student is meeting the teacher who will change her life, and a teacher is meeting the student who will change his. Hear from the students, teachers, and parents who are choosing charters with our new Stories & Impact page on our website!

Rethinking School Discipline

All schools are grappling with how to make school discipline practices equitable, trauma-sensitive, and effective. School discipline is disproportionally applied to students of color and students exposed to toxic stress. Traditional motivational strategies attempt to change behavior using power and control. These strategies are not only ineffective; they are actually damaging to these very students. Think:Kids helps charter schools transform their disciplinary programs to be evidence-based and trauma-sensitive using Collaborative Problem Solving—a practical approach that recognizes that challenging behaviors are due to a lack of skill, not will—skills like frustration tolerance, flexibility, and problem solving. This approach helps at-risk students build those skills. Visit www.thinkkids.org or The School Discipline Fix to learn more.

 

Board Update

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We’re proud to announce several new members of the National Alliance Board of Directors: Former Mayor of Atlanta Shirley FranklinBill Kurtz, DSST Public Schools; Marc Lampkin, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; Political Consultant Mike MurphyAna Ponce, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy; and Tom Torkelson, IDEA Public Schools. Our board is a talented and diverse group of individuals, and we are honored to have their counsel as we work to expand high-quality educational opportunities for all students.

Welcome to the National Alliance!

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We’re thrilled to welcome Shaelyn Macedonio to the National Alliance team! 

Shaelyn is our Senior Manager of Media Relations, responsible for generating positive media stories and pushing back on all narratives with misleading information about the charter school movement. She serves as a spokesperson for the organization and ensures that our executive team is prepared to engage with media at all events and speaking engagements. Before working at the National Alliance, Shaelyn worked as an account executive at the Pinkston Group, a strategic communications firm in Alexandria, Virginia, and as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where she served on the Dallas office internal communications team. Shaelyn graduated from Texas A&M University with a BA in Communications and a minor in Business. Outside of work, Shaelyn teaches an English as a Second Language (ESL) class at Casa Chirilagua, a nonprofit serving the Hispanic community in Alexandria. Welcome, Shaelyn!

Interns

Over the past few months we’ve had the pleasure of working with our outstanding fellows and summer interns—Cody Puckett (LEE Public Policy Fellow), Adam Gerstenfeld (National Alliance Research Fellow), Reed Mitchell (intern), Ben Bowman (Urban Institute Urban Leaders Fellowship), and Allison Brown (intern; not pictured). We’re grateful for their many contributions to our work and mission and wish them great success in their future education and careers!

Great Talent Needed!

The National Alliance is currently recruiting a Senior Director of Research and Evaluation to lead our innovative research and data program and manage the research and evaluation team. Please click here for more details, and pass the word to great candidates!

We want to connect great talent with great opportunities throughout the charter school movement. Our Charter School Job Board includes job openings for a variety of positions across the country. It’s a great resource for organizations looking to hire and for individuals looking to make a difference in the lives of students.

Support the National Alliance

Donate

The National Alliance is a non-profit organization that relies on generous partners like you. Please consider supporting the growth and sustainability of charter schools by making a tax-deductible gift or adding your name to our advocacy list. Thank you!