Strengthening Charter School Finance and Governance: The National Resource Center on Charter School

1
Strengthening Charter School Finance and
GovernanceThe National Resource Center on
Charter School Finance and Governance

• 2007 National Charter Schools Conference
• April 25, 2007

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Goals and Objectives

• Build capacity for improvements in charter school
  finance and governance in local communities
  nationwide
• Greater awareness among charter leaders of
  critical importance of effective finance and
  governance to success and sustainability of
  charter schools
• Keener understanding of how to build and
  strengthen the capacity of charter schools
• Greater availability of relevant and practical
  information, tools, and technical assistance
  resources to design, implement, and sustain
  finance and governance systems and practices

3
Audiences and Approaches

• Audiences
• Charter school operators
• Charter school authorizers
• State policymakers
• Approaches Work closely with leaders in the
  field to
• gather information on salient issues and
  challenges
• uncover and understand promising policies,
  systems and practices
• Develop and deliver useful tools and technical
  assistance

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Partners

• The Finance Projectinformation, tools, and
  technical assistance on charter school financing
• USC Center on Educational Governanceinformation,
  tools, and technical assistance on charter school
  governance
• WestEdevaluation to inform project development
  measure impact on targets

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Activities and Products

• Develop Information Resources
• Practical information and examples that charter
  leaders can easily access, understand, and use
• Examples promising practices compendium,
  strategy briefs, resource clearinghouse
• Create Tools and Training Materials
• How-to tools to help work through specific
  financing and governance challenges
• Examples policy and funding guides, cost and
  fund mapping worksheets, handbook for fiscal
  management
• Provide Technical Assistance
• Broad-based TA to address common issues help
  desk, teleconferences, webinars, workshops
• Customized TA to address specific needs 10
  on-site engagements in Year 3 of project
• Dissemination Activities
• Website, electronic communications
• Dissemination of published resources

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Year 1 Products

• State Policymaker Guides
• Legislative reviews
• State-level interviews
• Analysis of alternative policy approaches
• Federal Funding Guide
• Define funding uses
• Research funding sources
• Provide tailored catalog
• Promising Practices
• Nominations
• Profiles
• Web site to be unveiled this summer!
• Resource clearinghouse
• Help Desk
• Information Exchange

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Financing Issues and Challenges

• Operating Funds
• Adequacy, eligibility for funding sources, flow
  of funds, sustainability of funding
• Funding for specialized purposes
• Facilities
• Transportation
• Special education

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Financing Issues and Challenges (cont.)

• Effective fiscal planning and budgeting
• Projecting operating and capital costs, finding
  resources to match costs
• Managing fiscal resources
• Expertise in managing fiscal processes and
  assets exercise of fiscal controls producing
  and using financial data and reports

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Preliminary Findings on Financefrom Legislative
Reviews and State Interviews

• Operating Fundsmost state laws speak of
  equivalent per pupil funding. But
• Some specify less
• Administrative fees
• Local revenues
• Eligibility for categorical funds
• Facilities
• Planning and Start-Up Fundsmost states have no
  provisions. Some offer
• Grants
• Loans/loan funds
• Advance payments

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Preliminary Findings on Financefrom Legislative
Reviews and State Interviews

• Facilities Fundingmost states have some
  provision
• Make unused school district buildings available
• Facilities allowance/lease aid
• Bonding
• Special Education Fundingsome states
• Designate charter schools as LEAs for purposes of
  accessing special education funding
• Provide supplemental allocations for high-need
  student populations

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Preliminary Findings on Financefrom Legislative
Reviews and State Interviews

• Financial Management and Oversight
• Annual audits and financial reports required
• Reviews may be tied to renewal or may occur more
  frequently
• Some states offer technical assistance or
  training in application process, board or
  authorizer roles and responsibilities, financial
  management

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Examples of Promising Practices--Finance

• Leveraging Funds for Program Support and
  Expansion
• Friendship Public Charter School (DC)
• Facilities Funding/Partnership
• Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners
  Charter School (Philadelphia )
• Funding Specific Services or Programs Tutoring
• MATCH Charter Public High School (Boston)
• Community Partnerships and In-kind Resources
• Toledo School for the Arts

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Governance Issues and Challenges

• Building capacity of governing boards
• Membership composition, expertise of board
  members, understanding of function/duties,
  relationship with head of school
• Creating effective charter school networks
• Educational service providers EMOs CMOs
• Engaging parents
• Parent contracts, membership on board,
  participation in decision-making

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Governance Issues and Challenges (cont.)

• Forming public-private partnerships
• Attracting partners, resources and expertise
  maintaining a shared vision and mission
• Nurturing effective charter school leadership and
  management
• Recruitment, training, transitions
• Involving teachers in governance
• Collective bargaining, teacher cooperatives

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Preliminary Governance Findings The
Legislative Reviews

• Range of provisions and level of prescription
• Some laws differentiate among different types of
  charter schools (independent Vs dependent,
  site-based V non site-based)
• Legislative reviews focused on 6 areas
• Governing boards
• Networks
• Parent involvement
• Public-private partnerships
• Leadership and management
• Teacher involvement in governance

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Preliminary Governance Findings The
Legislative Reviews (cont.)

• Most governing boards operate independently,
  while others tied to local district school board
• IA The school board, in consultation with the
  advisory council, shall decide matters related to
  the operation of the school, including budgeting,
  curriculum, and operating procedures.
• Some laws specify how network schools are counted
• CA Sites that share educational programs and
  serve similar pupil populations may not be
  counted as separate schools.
• Applications often require parent involvement or
  support some states require parent satisfaction
  for renewal
• NY A renewal application shall include
  indications of parent and student satisfaction.

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Preliminary Governance Findings The
Legislative Reviews (cont.)

• Partnerships generally restricted around
  for-profit and sectarian involvement
• NC If a charter school leases space from a
  sectarian organization, the charter school shall
  not use the name of that organization.
• A few states address leadership management
  training
• MI An authorizing body shall not charge a fee
  that exceeds a combined total of 3 of the total
  state school aid and may use this fee only for
  training and technical assistance.
• Teacher involvement often one of the purposes of
  the law
• PA It is the intent of the General
  Assemblyto create new professional
  opportunities for teachers, including the
  opportunity to be responsible for the learning
  program at the school site.

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Preliminary Governance Findings The
State-level Interviews

• Purpose of interviews to uncover issues and
  challenges as well as identify promising
  practices
• Governing board most common governance issue
  cited by interviewees
• Attracting high quality board members
• Defining role of governing board
• Avoiding possible conflict of interest if
  principal on governing board
• Addressing tendency of parents to defer to
  professionals in decision-making

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Promising Governance Practice 1 EdVisions
Cooperative

• Minnesota interviewee pointed to EdVisions
  Cooperative as promising governance finance
  practice
• Started in 1992 with Minnesota New Country
  School, established as a self-directed
  project-based learning site organized around a
  teacher-owner cooperative (EdVisions Web site)
• EdVisions now provides fee-based services to 28
  charter schools in MN, WI, FL, NV, CA, NH, OR, WA
  11 more planning to open in Fall 07 and Fall 08
• Each school has site-management team responsible
  for curriculum, budgeting and determining
  salaries/benefits can pay to be voting members
  of EdVisions, eligible for patronage dividends
  and scholarships
• Eliminates traditional dichotomy of labor Vs
  management, as teachers are both!

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Promising Governance Practice 2 Authorizer-led
Trainings

• Michigan interviewee described university
  authorizers that provide training/technical
  assistance to charter schools
• These authorizers are high quality because
  theyre in charter schooling because they want
  to be in charter schooling, i.e., not forced to
  be authorizers against their will
• Idea is that since they have to collect data, we
  could just be oversight regulators and collect
  information, but why dont we help feed this back
  to the schools in some meaningful way
• Eastern Michigan University (authorizer for 7-9
  schools) holds peer evaluations by doing a round
  robin with their schools as they evaluate
  School A, theyll bring in School B, C, D and E
  as part of the evaluation process, and everybody
  looks at each others schools a little bit, so
  they learn from each other.

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Opportunities to Inform and Contribute to the
Resource Center

• Expert informants and reviewers
• Cooperative Inquiry Service
• Promising practice nominations and sites
• Pilot test tools and TA
• Exchange information on website

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Sharing Promising Practices

• What promising charter school finance or
  governance approaches or practices have you or
  others used?
• What were the goals and objectives of the
  practice?
• How did it work? What resources were required?
• What evidence of positive impact or results
  exists?
• What were the conditions for success? Is the
  practice replicable?
• What lessons can others learn from this
  experience or innovation?

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Contact Information

• Carol Cohen, Project Director and Co-PI
• National Resource Center on Charter School
  Finance and Governance
• The Finance Project
• 1401 New York Ave., NW
• Suite 800
• Washington, DC 20005
• 202-587-1000
• ccohen_at_financeproject.org

• Priscilla Wohlstetter, Co-Principal Investigator
• Joanna Smith, USC Research Team Lead
• USC Rossier School of Education, Center on
  Educational Governance
• Waite Phillips Hall, Rm 901
• Los Angeles, CA 90089
• 213-740-0697
• wohlstet_at_usc.edu
• joannasm_at_usc.edu