By David Greenberg and Jason Zwara

Raising the Bar on Accountability

Last year, we made several important updates to our state policy recommendations. These changes were critical to accountability in public charter schools and to authorizers’ ability to do high-quality work. Our recommendations ensure that state laws not only uphold rigor and accountability, but also support innovation, sustainability, and equity across the public charter school sector. 

How Authorizers Rely on State Accountability Systems

As part of this work, NACSA conducted a policy review to better understand how reliant performance frameworks are on state accountability systems. We found that although most authorizers rely heavily on state accountability ratings in practice, statute generally gives them broad authority to add other metrics and build customized accountability systems. Many authorizers rely on their state’s accountability rating for most of their academic performance framework rating, while authorizers in at least one state use that state’s rating as the only academic performance metric. 

In the background of this work are clear signals, including from the U.S. Department of Education, that academic accountability still matters. As USED was considering ESSA waiver requests from states, NACSA strongly advocated for protecting and upholding existing federal accountability protections and USED has affirmed this position in both its actions and communications. 

When Schools Don’t Fit the Mold

But as we did this work, a question continued to emerge for us: What happens when state policies and authorizing practices are in place and stable, but the school model isn’t “typical”? Quality authorizing should be the right kind of hard, because high standards and accountability are important. But it gets even harder when schools don’t fit the mold those systems were built around. And many authorizers are evaluating an unfamiliar model for the first time, without a colleague down the hall who has seen one before. 

New Tools to Help Authorizers Evaluate Innovative Models

That is exactly the kind of gap NACSA exists to fill, so authorizers don’t have to figure it out alone. This fall, we’re going to release our first round of tools and resources to help authorizers understand and evaluate new school applications from unique and innovative school models. These tools will include virtual learning series, practical one-pagers on design elements and authorizer considerations, and online resource modules. Later, we will be developing and releasing resources to support ongoing oversight and evaluation of these unique and innovative models. Our goal is for innovative, high-quality options to thrive everywhere families want and deserve them. 

Much of our policy and advocacy work at NACSA, including our revised state policy recommendations, protects authorizers’ ability to evaluate schools. Our next chapter is about expanding it. We want every authorizer equipped to confidently answer the question, “Is this a good school?” Because when authorizers can answer that question well for every kind of school, more students learn in high-performing schools.  

What to Do Next

So, if you haven’t already, take a look at our updated state policy recommendations to help update laws, strengthen regulations, and align practices with these recommendations. Then, stay tuned for our new tools and resources later this year can ensure that every charter school, no matter the model, delivers on its promise of excellent outcomes for students and families.