Authorizer Culture and Characteristics

A look at what authorizers with strong portfolios do differently

Decision Making and Culture

Goal Setting

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Authorizer goal setting and planning tends to be focused on annual core authorizing activities and are not part of a long-term (multi-year) traditional strategic plan.
  • Authorizers tend to have goals and activities specific to cyclical authorizing functions (e.g., application season, renewal season, site visit season).
  •  Authorizing goals and key activities are updated at least annually and are specific to local context.
  • Authorizers have an intentional goal alignment process, in order to avoid conflicting goals and activities and/or to ensure they have adequate capacity to execute multiple goals.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • n/a

Data “Obsessed” Culture

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Actively and intentionally acquire school data, including collecting data that may be disconfirming to perceptions. Data is actively explored, and incorporated into decision making (aligned with key decisions that need to be made, used to make all high-stakes decisions).
  • Only ask schools for information they are unable to reliably and accurately get from other sources.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Use accumulation of evidence to answer key questions. Authorizer never relies on one piece of data/evidence.
  • Authorizing staff provides comprehensive, data-based rationales for unambiguous high-stakes recommendations to board. This is designed to provide the board with clear direction, information, and justification to make high-stakes decisions.

Decision Making

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Professional staff is not bound by protocols, templates, or other authorizing tools that limit their decision making. Staff has a clear belief and orientation that such tools assist, not dictate, decisions (a high degree of professional judgment is used in decision making).
  • Staff do not use professional judgement in decision making based on opinions or beliefs, or independent of tools and protocols. Rather, they make decisions grounded in facts, data, and expertise from a robust body of evidence.
  • Create and use protocols and processes that allow for nuanced discussions, and collect numerous qualitative and quantitative data to inform and justify decisions with evidence.
  • Do not require or prefer an “if-then” type of intervention system post school opening (i.e., a system that lays out an authorizer’s response/requirements to specific offenses/issues that come up a priori). Rather, preferred intervention system includes professional judgment, deliberative conversations, and utilizing past responses that were effective in remedying situations.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Have well-developed protocols and tools that are used in decision-making.
  • There are no “point totals” that solely dictate decisions.

Relationship to Schools

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Authorizers view role as supporting school success, not as a “compliance cop.” Yet they also draw a very clear line between providing “support” and “direction,” the latter of which is strongly avoided.
  • Intentionally develop relationships with school staff and leadership, typically through visits to the school and phone calls, outside of formal accountability processes.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  •  Authorizers have a sense of humility about their work in relationship to that of people in schools. This sense of humility results in an orientation that authorizers not only shouldn’t, but can’t, give schools direction on how to improve.

Continuous Creation, Improvement, and Dissemination

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Avidly seek out new/best practices from other authorizers (and at times other sectors), and modify to fit their context.
  • Structured, cyclical opportunities for staff reflection and self-critique on practices and systems.
  • Continually (typically annually) review policies and procedures, and roll back unneeded paperwork or compliance burdens on schools.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Entrepreneurial in creating new authorizing practices or new ways of executing existing authorizing practices.
  • “Open-source” culture; share practices with other authorizers.

Mission and Environment

Mission Statement & Purpose

Strong Portfolios Only

  • N/A

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Authorizers have a mission statement specific to authorizing that speaks to the organization’s unique strengths or circumstances. Authorizers that exist within a larger “parent” organization also have an authorizing-unique mission statement.
  • Mission and vision statements are varied, likely connected to local context.
  • Authorizers are principally focused on authorizing strong schools, but also explicitly see their role as larger than that function (e.g., filling community gaps/needs, catalyzing systemic change in public education, revolutionizing authorizing).

Organizational Values

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Organizational values are explicit and reinforced through a range of activities, such as being posted in visible locations throughout the office or staff readings and discussions about original and current authorizing purposes.
  • Authorizers actively share and inculcate staff in their “creation story” in order to influence and shape current culture (i.e., how they became an authorizer and important early actions that continue to reinforce their values and principles, such as early closure of low-performing schools).

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • N/A

External Environment

Strong Portfolios Only

  • N/A

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Authorizing often exists in a supportive charter school ecosystem with:
    • A state association (or equivalent) focused on state level advocacy and that is often aligned with authorizer needs around quality (although some healthy tension was noted in many places).
    • Support organizations that help with application and new school development, often explicitly aligned with the authorizer’s written expectations (application areas and pre-opening spaces).
    • Support organizations that help with existing school improvement.

Leadership & Staff Development

Authorizing Within Larger Parent Institutions

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Authorizing is a highly important and visible function within the larger “parent” organization.
  • Role of authorizing is explicitly mentioned in the larger parent organization’s strategic plan.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Non-authorizing staff within larger organization is encouraged to participate and add value to key authorizing activities (e.g., applications); however, decisions on which non-authorizing staff to include reside within authorizing senior leadership.

Senior Authorizing Leadership

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Highly empowered in decision making Examples include:
    • Authorizing head (e.g., Executive Director) reports to Board and/or authorizing staff makes high-stakes recommendations directly to the Board.
    • History of long-tenured senior leadership, including multiple long-tenured executive directors (typically 5+ years).
    • Senior authorizing leadership has needed exemptions from “parent” organization policies, if any, in staff hiring, development, and termination.
    • Authorizing office is not subject to institutional forced placement (formally or informally pressured).

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Set a tone of urgency, provide a buffer from political and other distractions, and build bridges to external sources of information and support.
  • Clear conceptual agreement between senior authorizing staff and board on purposes of authorizing and decision-making alignment.

Board Relations

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Board subcommittees help staff with high-stakes decisions including serving as a thought partner and facilitating larger board decision making.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • N/A

Staff Development

Strong Portfolios Only

  • Staff develop explicit strategies to ensure a shared understanding of and expertise in quality authorizing. Examples include:
    • New hires are trained in more than just their role (i.e., cross-training on other authorizing functions).
    • Cross-team work (“all hands on deck” work) is explicit and required, and leads to “bench strength.”
  • Authorizing staff development is a critical organizational commitment and tends to be developed around the needs of individual staff members aligned with organizational goals.
  • Staff attend and present at major conferences.
  • Specific and concrete steps are taken to ensure alignment among staff (e.g., retreats, re-norming exercises), and avoid decisions by anecdote or opinion.

Both Strong and Average Portfolios

  • Authorizing staff, not larger parent organization, drives professional development.
  • Parent organization provides relevant professional development opportunities typically outside of authorizing, but are still relevant to staff (e.g., trainings on new state laws/policies, human resources).
  • Authorizers have multiple examples and an organizational culture of “promotion from within.”
  • The number of staff dedicated to authorizing generally and to specific authorizing functions varied across authorizers, but each ensured enough staff to manage core authorizing functions.