I’ll never forget a foundational principle I learned nearly two decades ago, while authorizing in Indianapolis:

It should be hard to gain approval to start a new charter school. But it needs to be the right kind of hard.

Over time, that principle has been diminished, if not altogether lost, in some places. Today, the application process for opening a new school has become something it was never meant to be: bureaucratic, rigid, and overwhelming. This can have a chilling effect on the courageous and innovative applications we want to see, if we’re going to meet students’ learning needs in the years to come.

What began as an opportunity for bold education ideas and strong school leadership has devolved into a compliance and paperwork-heavy exercise. Too often, there’s too much focus on the “right” answers to a seemingly never-ending list of requirements, rather than on the demonstrated capacity of people to execute on compelling visions for students and communities.

That must change.

A New Path Forward

I’m pleased to share a major milestone in NACSA’s work: a completely redesigned New School Application process. This isn’t just an update. It’s a fundamentally different way of engaging and evaluating proposals for new schools.

After years of working with key stakeholders, we started from scratch and built a better process, resulting in guidance that:

• Focuses on what authorizers need most to make good application decisions and eliminates unnecessary requirements for this stage;
• Cuts the number of written prompts by more than half;
• Enhances the evaluation of the founding team through multiple touchpoints including interviews, performance tasks, and readiness milestones; and
• Offers clear criteria, model templates, and tools that help authorizers focus on what’s most essential at the right time in the process.

You can explore the full suite of resources—including the model application, templates, criteria, and implementation guidance—here.

Why this Matters

Our goals are clear: increase the number of high-quality charter schools available to students—especially in communities where opportunities are limited. To do that, we must reverse the trend of declining or stagnant academic performance by approving new and different kinds of schools that accelerate student outcomes and better respond to the needs of families.

What’s Next

In the coming months, we’ll share real-world examples of how authorizers across the country are already using this new approach to drive change.