NACSA Blog

NACSA Blog

Press Releases


National Association of Charter School Authorizers Elects Leaders

James N. Goenner, Executive Director of Central Michigan University’s Center for Charter Schools, was elected last week to serve as Vice Chair of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). NACSA …


Charter Schools Perform when District & Political Backing is Evident

Chicago — Charter school performance varies considerably across the nation, as indicated by today’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, but the independent public schools outperform traditional schools when political and …


Strong Authorizing Practices Produced Better Schools for 230,000 Students in 2013

More than 230,000 students are attending better schools in 2013 because of the actions of charter school authorizers across the country, according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). Authorizers …


Strong progress toward One Million Lives

Just over a year ago, NACSA announced an ambitious goal to provide better schools to one million children over five years. We called it our One Million Lives campaign because we knew …


Low Expectations Are Not the Right Expectations

Last week Education Next published an article entitled “Choosing the Right Growth Measure” that compares three types of growth models and claims that the “best” model is a two-step value-added model (VAM) …


NACSA Core Performance Framework Guidance

Buckets of Charter Schools

The oversight of charter schools has changed dramatically from the beginning of the movement.  States and authorizers are applying increasingly sophisticated tools to assess the performance of the schools they oversee.  A …


Growing Charter Schools with a Strong Eye for Quality is Not Only Possible; It is Essential.

Guest Post:  Kevin Hall, President & CEO, Charter School Growth Fund As we navigate our decisions in our daily lives, we know that having the ability to make good choices is fundamentally critical …


National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the Charter School Growth Fund release recommendatons for successful replication of high-performing charter schools

State policies must change to differentiate and grow high-performing charter schools and weed out the low performers according to a report released today by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) …


A National Response to CSP Guidance

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) recently released a set of draft priorities that would be used in future competitions under the Charter Schools Programs’ (CSP) to award grants under the National …


NACSA Calls on Nation’s Charter School Authorizers to Act Now to Maintain Accountability

In a statement released today, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) cautioned that while the upcoming shift to Common Core standards provides a long-term opportunity to improve the nation’s schools, it …


No Time to Waste

Implementation of the Common Core State Standards will present an array of new challenges everywhere they are adopted. The biggest challenge for charter school authorizers will be maintaining strong accountability for school …


Accountability in Action

At the heart of the charter school concept is the idea that schools, like all organizations, are most effective when they have the flexibility necessary to be captains of their destiny and …