Data Collection and Reporting

NACSA’s 2022 survey (covering the 2020-2021 academic year) asked authorizers to complete 47 questions on a range of topics related to charter school authorizing, including application practices, renewal decision making, as well as indicators used to hold schools accountable. The 2022 sample includes authorizers collectively overseeing nearly 2/3 of all charter schools across the country. Like prior surveys, the 2022 survey is self-reported by authorizing institutions, and was collected via a secure online platform.

NACSA collects data from authorizers of all sizes and types but focuses on authorizers with some scale, that is authorizers overseeing 5 or more charter schools. Similar to prior samples, the 2022 sample is expansive (i.e., authorizers overseeing nearly 2/3 of all charter schools in the country) enabling reliable claims about general trends across the sector. It is also representative of authorizers with some scale (i.e., those with 5 or more schools). Caution should be used in applying these data to smaller authorizers (i.e., those with less than 5 schools) as the sample under-represents those authorizers.