NACSA Blog

NACSA Blog

Press Releases


National Association of Charter School Authorizers Strongly Supports Public Charter School Program Reauthorization

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) endorses the efforts of Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Senior Democrat Bobby Scott (D-VA) to reauthorize NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and strongly supports …


Press Statement on 1/21 US Senate HELP Committee Hearing ESEA Testing and Accountability

In response to the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee hearing on testing and accountability, (scheduled for 9:30 am, Wednesday, January 21, 2015), Greg Richmond, President and CEO of …


Massachusetts Audit Obscures Successful Charter School Outcomes

The audit released today by the Massachusetts State Auditor of the administration of the charter school program by the Board of and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE and DESE) misses …


NACSA Launches New Communications Effort

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers is pleased to announce that Jobi Cates has joined the organization as Vice President of Communications. Cates comes to NACSA from Human Rights Watch, where …


NACSA Applauds Focus on Student Outcomes and Serving At-Risk Students

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) welcomed today’s release of the National Alliance for Public Charter School’s (the Alliance) new national report on charter school performance. “The Alliance report offers …


School Performance Analysis 2.0

Guest Post from Rob Kimball, Sr. Director of Operations & Policy, Grand Valley State University Charter Schools Office Regardless of the size of an authorizer’s portfolio, a laser-like focus on school performance is critical to …


The Tide Rises in Washington D.C.

Scott Pearson, Executive Director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, has a new two-part blog post up about the questions raised in Emma Brown’s recent article on charter school growth in the …


Standards and Accountability for Charter School Authorizers

Today, the Detroit Free Press covers an important new report submitted to the Michigan Board of Education. The report ranks, for the first time, the state’s 11 largest authorizers “based on student achievement, student growth over time, authorizer improvement …


Low-Performing Charter Schools Fight Closure in Indiana

Last month, the charter schools office at Ball State University announced that it was revoking the charters of seven of its lowest performing schools for failure to meet the performance expectations outlined …


Closing bad charters isn’t the only challenge

The Fordham Institute’s Adam Emerson emphasizes the critical role that new schools must play in the transformation of one million lives. The One Million Lives Campaign launched in the fall by the National Association of …


Visualizing the Need for Great New Schools

As part of its annual Call for Quality Options, the Louisiana Department of Education has launched a new interactive information center to accompany the various ways in which the department is seeking …


D.C. debates growth of charter schools

The Washington Post’s Emma Brown scratches the surface of some of the difficult issues that arise when a city’s charter schools educate the same percentage of kids as its district schools.


New schools, new opportunities—seven steps to strategic change

Crossposted at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Closing schools, district or charter, is almost always difficult and disruptive. We should not pretend, though, that the disruption that comes with closure is worse …


New CREDO Study Confirms Need for Smarter Replication and Faster Action on Failing Schools

The Charter School Growth and Replication study released last week by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) has important implications for charter authorizers. The study’s key findings–that charter school performance is …


Give Quality a Chance: Maine Commission Working to Set High Standards

One way to provide more children with an opportunity to go to a great school is to approve only those charter applicants that have demonstrated that they are ready to succeed. The …