Archived - The State of Charter Schools Third-Year Report -- A. States and Charter Schools

Archived Information

The State of Charter Schools Third-Year Report — May 1999

A. States and Charter Schools

The Expanding Charter School Movement
State Charter Legislation
Newly Created And Pre-existing Charter Schools

The Expanding Charter School Movement

Charter schools have become an accepted part of the landscape of public education in 33 of the 50 states. The seven years since the 1991 passage of the first state's charter legislation have seen growth in both the number of states with charter legislation and in the number of charter schools opening in those states. While each state's law is unique, 34 states (including the District of Columbia) have legislation that authorizes an entity to grant charters to schools that frees them from some or all of the state's regulations in exchange for greater accountability for student outcomes.

As of September 1998, 34 states had enacted charter school legislation. 1996 saw the greatest increase in the number of states with charter legislation, with eight states passing legislation in that year.
Four states — Idaho, Missouri, Virginia, and Utah —enacted charter school legislation in the 1998 legislative session. Idaho's first two charter schools opened in September 1998, while the first charter schools in Missouri, Virginia, and Utah are projected to open in the fall of 1999.
Twenty-eight states had operating charter schools as of September 1998. Although Arkansas, New Hampshire, and Wyoming passed charter legislation during the 1995 legislative session, no charter schools had opened in those states as of September 1998.
Since the first charter schools opened in 1992, the number of charter schools has grown rapidly with 361 new charter schools opening in September 1998. Demand for charter schools remains high; 70 percent of the charter schools reported having a waiting list.
As of September 1998, the total number of charter schools in operation was approximately 1,050; if multiple branches of Arizona schools operating under one charter were included, the total would be approximately 1,129.
Charter schools are not distributed equally across states; 44 percent (457 schools) of charter schools are located in three states: California, Michigan, and Arizona. On the other hand, 12 states have 15 or fewer charter schools.
By the beginning of the 1998-99 school year, 32 charter schools had closed. This represents about three percent of the charter schools that had opened since 1992.

Estimated Number of Operational Charter Schools by Year

number chart

States With Charter Legislation By Year Passed as of September 1998

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998¹

Minnesota

California

Colorado

Arizona

Alaska

Connecticut

Mississippi

Idaho

Georgia

Hawaii

Arkansas

District of Col.

Nevada

Missouri

Massachusetts

Kansas

Delaware

Florida

Ohio

Virginia

Michigan

New Hampshire

Illinois

Pennsylvania

Utah

New Mexico

Louisiana

New Jersey

Wisconsin

Rhode Island

North Carolina

Wyoming

South Carolina

Texas

Estimated Number of Charter Schools in Operation as of September 1998 by State

	Number of charter schools starting in the year						Total schools closed as of September 1998²	New schools as of September 1998	Total schools operating September 1998
	1992-93	1993-94	1994-95	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98³	Total schools closed as of September 1998²	New schools as of September 1998	Total schools operating September 1998
Total	2	34	64	154	178	289	32	361	1,050
Minnesota	2	5	7	3	3	8	2	12	38
California		28	36	30	21	19	6	17	145
Colorado		1	13	10	8	19	1	10	60
Michigan			2	41	33	36	4	24	132
New Mexico			4	0	1	0	0	0	5
Wisconsin			2	3	6	7	0	12	30
Arizona				47	58	45	14	44	180
Georgia				3	9	9	1	7	27
Hawaii				2	0	0	0	0	2
Massachusetts				15	7	3	1	10	34
Alaska					2	13	0	2	17
Delaware					2	1	0	1	4
District of Columbia					2	1	1	16	18
Florida					5	28	1	38	70
Illinois					1	7	0	6	14
Louisiana					3	3	0	4	10
Texas					17	21	0	49	87
Connecticut						12	0	4	16
Kansas						1	0	14	15
New Jersey						13	0	17	30
North Carolina						34	1	26	59
Pennsylvania						6	0	25	31
Rhode Island						1	0	1	2
South Carolina						2	0	3	5
Idaho								2	2
Mississippi								1	1
Nevada								1	1
Ohio								15	15

NOTE: The Study reports the number of charters given to individual entities, though some of these charters may use space within another school or be connected to another school by some other arrangement. The number of charters listed above does not include the total number of school sites operating under a charter. Some charters, particularly in Arizona, run similar programs in several sites around the state. In those cases, the Study only counts the charter once. Several charters in California were awarded to districts or complexes of schools. Since each school within the group was previously a separate school, the Study counts each school as a separate charter school. Taking into account multiple school sites operating under one charter, the Study estimates that the total number of school sites operating under charters was 1,129 in September 1998.

¹ New York enacted charter legislation in December 1998 as this report was going to press.

² The column "Total Schools Closed as of September 1998" reflects the cumulative number of charter schools closed since 1992.

³ The number of schools that opened in the 1997-98 school year is slightly different for some states than the number of schools reported last year as of September 1997. The 1997-98 column includes several schools that opened later in the 1997-98 school year.

State Charter Legislation

State authorizing legislation for charter schools establishes the state's charter school context; charter legislation differs dramatically from state to state. In many ways, the 34 states with legislation represent 34 different approaches to charter schools. Charter laws are not static — during the 1998 legislative session, six states made significant changes in their laws. Charter laws differ on a number of characteristics; some of the key characteristics are highlighted here.

Who can grant charters: State laws differ on the number and types of agencies that are allowed to grant charters and whether potential charter schools can appeal those decisions. In 15 states, only local boards can grant charters. Local boards are the final authority in seven of those states (AK, KS, LA, PA, VA, WI, and WY), while local decisions can be appealed to another entity in the other eight of those states (CA, CO, FL, ID, IL, MO, NH, and SC). Only the State Board can grant charters in six states (AR, GA, HI, NM, RI, and UT). In New Jersey, only the State Commissioner can grant charters and in Connecticut and Nevada both the local board and state board must approve a charter. The remaining ten states allow multiple agencies to grant charters.
Types of charters allowed: Charter schools either come into existence as charter schools (newly created) or were previously either public or private schools. State charter laws differ on the types of schools allowed. All states allow the conversion of pre-existing public schools to charter status and all but three states (AR, MS, and NM) allow newly-created charter schools. Most states prohibit the conversion of private schools to charter schools — pre-existing private schools are allowed to convert to charters in just nine states (AZ, DC, MI, MN, NC, PA, SC, TX, and WI).
Number of charter schools allowed: State laws contain provisions governing the number of charter schools allowed. Sixteen of the 34 states have no statewide limit on the number of charter schools allowed. The 18 remaining states limit either the absolute number of schools, the number allowed by district, or the number allowed per year. In three states (MS, NM, and UT), the statewide limit on the number of charter schools is fewer than nine schools.
Duration of charter term: Charter laws require schools to renew their charter after their charter term. The length of the charter term ranges from an annual review required in Pennsylvania to 15-year charter terms in Arizona and DC. Most other states have charter terms ranging from three to five years.
Collective bargaining: Collective bargaining is allowed in all but three states with charter legislation. Of the remaining 31 states, 22 had operating charter schools in the 1997-98 school year. The table below shows the percentage of schools with teachers covered by collective bargaining agreements in each of those 22 states.

Key Dimensions of Charter Legislation

State	Who can grant charter	Charter creation status			Number of charter schools allowed	Duration of charter term	Collective bargaining allowed (% of schools ¹)
State	Who can grant charter	Newly created	Pre-exisiting public	Pre-exisiting Private	Number of charter schools allowed	Duration of charter term	Collective bargaining allowed (% of schools ¹)
Alaska	Local boards	Yes	Yes	No	30	5 years	Yes	(100%)
Arizona	Local boards, State Board, and State Charter Board	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit	15 years	Yes	(2%)
Arkansas	State board	No	Yes	No	No limit	Yes	3 Years	(57%)
California	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	No	100 annually ²	5 Years	Yes	(57%)
Colorado	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	No	No limit	5 Years	Yes	(8%)
Connecticut	Both Local boards and state boards	Yes	Yes	No	24 ³	5 Years	Yes	(18%)
Delaware	Local boards for conversisons and state Board for newly created	Yes	Yes	No	no limit	3 Years	Yes	(0%)
District of Columbia	Local boards, State board, and State charter board + appeals	Yes	Yes	Yes	20 annually	15 Years	Yes	(0%)
Florida	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	No ⁴	Other limits ⁵	3 years	Yes	(3%)
Newly created	Pre- existing Public	Pre- existing private	Number of charter schools allowed	Duration of charter term	Collective Bargaining allowed (% of schools¹)
Georgia	State board	Yes	Yes	No	No limit	5 years	No
Hawaii	State board	Yes	Yes	No	25	4 years	Yes	(100%)
Idaho	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	No	60 ⁶	12 years	Yes
Illinois	Local boards with State board review + appeals	Yes	Yes	No ⁷	45	3-5 years	Yes	0%
Kansas	Local boards	Yes	Yes	No	15	3 years	Yes	100%
Louisiana	Local boards and State board + appeals	Yes	Yes	No	42	5 years	Yes	0%
Massachusetts	Local boards for conversions and State board for newly created	Yes	Yes	No	50	5 years	Yes	(0%)
Michigan	Local boards and IHEs	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit	Up to 10 years	Yes	(5%)
Minnesota	Local boards and IHEs + appeals	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit	3 years	Yes	(8%)
Mississippi	Local boards and State board	No	Yes	No	6	4 to 6	Yes
Missouri	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	Yes	Other limits ⁸	5-10 years	Yes
Nevada	Both Local boards and State board	Yes	Yes	No	Other limits ⁹	3 years	Yes
New Hampshire	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	No	10 annually ¹⁰	5 years	Yes
New Jersey	State Commissioner	Yes	Yes	No	135 ³	4 years	Yes	0
New Mexico	State board	No	Yes	No	5	5 years	Yes	(75%)
North Carolina	Local boards, State board, and IHEs	Yes	Yes	Yes	100	5 years	No
Ohio	Local boards and State board	Yes	Yes	No	No limit	3 years	Yes
Pennsylvania	Local boards	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit	Annual review	Yes	(0%)
Rhode Island	State board	Yes	Yes	No	20	5 years	Yes	(100%)
South Carolina	Local boards + appeals	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit	3 years	No
Texas	Local boards for conversions and State board for newly created	Yes	Yes	Yes	No limit ¹¹	Specified in charter	Yes	(21%)
Utah	State board	Yes	Yes	No	8	3 years	Yes
Virginia	Local boards	Yes	Yes	No	2 per district	3 years	No
Wisconsin	Local boards	Yes	Yes	Yes ¹²	No limit	Up to 5 years	Yes	(94%)
Wyoming	Local boards	Yes	Yes	No	No limit	No	Yes

¹ The last column of the Table states whether collective bargaining is permitted in the state. The number in parentheses is the percentage of schools that have teachers who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement. States with "Yes" without a percentage in parentheses had no operating schools during the 1997-98 school year.

² In California, the cap was raised from 100 to 250 in 1997-98, with 100 additional charters allowed per year thereafter.

³ Charter legislation in Connecticut and New Jersey requires a legislative review (including a review of the number of charter schools allowed) in 1999 and 2000 respectively.

⁴ Although Florida's law does not allow private schools to apply directly for charter status, the state allows private schools to convert to charter status if they disband, reincorporate as a new organization with a new board, and enroll students in a public lottery.

⁵ The Florida legislation does not specify a statewide limit on the number of charter schools, the legislation does restrict the number of charters granted in each district based on district size. The effective cap for the state is 974 schools.

⁶ The Idaho legislation limits the annual number of charters to 12 with a statewide limit of 60.

⁷ Illinois state legislation stipulates that a private school must cease operation as a private school before applying for charter status.

⁸ Missouri law states that no more than 5 percent of the buildings used for instruction in a district may be converted to charter schools.

⁹ Nevada law limits the number of charters granted in each district based on district size, creating an effective cap of about 17 schools, with an exception for schools focusing on at-risk students.

¹⁰The New Hampshire legislation allows 10 charters annually until the year 2000.

¹¹Texas legislation does not limit campus charters, but limits open-enrollment charters to 100 with no limit for charters serving at-risk students.

¹²Wisconsin's law allows the conversion of private schools only in Milwaukee.

Newly Created And Pre-Existing Charter Schools

State charter legislation determines whether charter schools can be created from scratch and whether previously public or private schools can convert to charter status. The states' charter laws differ greatly in this regard. Some states restrict charter status only to previously operating public schools while others allow newly created, pre-existing public, and pre-existing private schools to become charters. Throughout this report and our previous reports, we show that newly created, pre-existing public, and pre-existing private school conversions differ greatly in terms of school size, grade levels, the reasons that charter schools were started, the difficulties they encounter during implementation, and their autonomy.

State charter legislation in all 24 states that had operating charter schools in the 1997-98 school year allowed for the conversion of public schools to charter status. Legislation in 22 states permitted the creation of newly created charter schools. Laws in eight states allowed for the conversion of private schools to charter status, but in two other states— Florida and Illinois — private schools must cease operation and be fully reconstituted if they are to convert into charter schools.
As of the 1997-98 school year, most charter schools — 70 percent — were newly created, while 19 percent were pre-existing public schools, and 11 percent were pre-existing private schools.
In Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas, one in five charter schools converted from private schools. Each of these states permitted the conversion of private schools into charter status and had more than 10 open charter schools in 1997-98.
The percentage of newly created charter schools has increased over time: 84 percent of the schools that opened in 1997-98 were newly-created in contrast to 53 percent of schools that opened in the 1994-95 school year or earlier.

Estimated Percentage of Charter Schools by Creation Status

pie graph

Estimated Number And Percentage of Newly Created And Pre-existing Charter Schools By Year of School Opening

	Number of Charter Schools	Newly created	Pre-existing public	Pre-existing private
Total in 1997-98	619	434	120	65
% of Total		70.1%	19.4%	10.5%
Open 1994-95 or earlier	98	53.0%	43.9%	3.1%
Open 1995-96	143	64.3%	21.0%	14.7%
Open 1996-97	163	67.4%	16.0%	16.6%
Open 1997-98	215	83.7%	9.8%	6.5%

Estimated Number And Percentages of Charter Schools By Creation Status And State, Spring 1998

Total		Newly created		Pre-existing public		Pre-existing private
All Schools		#	%	#	%	#	%
Total	619	434	70.1%	120	19.4%	65	10.5%
Alaska	12	12	100%	0	0	NA	NA
Arizona	127	88	69.3%	14	11.0%	25	19.7%
California	120	68	56.7%	52	43.3%	NA	NA
Colorado	49	45	91.8%	4	8.2%	NA	NA
Connecticut	11	11	100.0%	0	0.0%	NA	NA
Delaware	3	3	100.0%	0	0.0%	NA	NA
District of Columbia	3	100.0%	33.3%	1	33.3%	1	33.3%
Florida	31	29	93.5%	0	0.0%	2¹	6.5%
Georgia	18	NA	NA	18	100.0%	NA	NA
Hawaii	2	0	0.0%	2	100.0%	NA	NA
Illinois	6	4	66.7%	1	16.7%	1²	16.7%
Kansas	1	0	0.0%	1	100.0%	NA	NA
Louisiana	6	5	83.3%	1	16.7%	NA	NA
Massachusetts	21	19	90.5%	2	9.5%	NA	NA
Michigan	45	68	71.6%	7	7.4%	20	21.1%
Minnesota	25	22	88.0%	2	8.0%	NA(1³)	4.0%
North Carolina	27	21	77.8%	1	3.7%	5	18.5%
New Jersey	6	6	100.0%	0	0.0%	NA	NA
New Mexico	4	NA	NA	4	100.0%	NA	NA
Pennsylvania	4	2	50.0%	0	0.0%	2	50.0%
Rhode Island	1	0	0.0%	1	100.0%	NA	NA
South Carolina	1	1	100.0%	0	0.0%	0	0.0%
Texas	29	19	65.5%	3	10.3%	7	24.1%
Wisconsin	17	10	58.8%	6	35.3%	1⁴	5.9%

NOTE: These data rely on responses from the 619 open charter schools that responded to the telephone survey.

NOTE: NA indicates that the state's legislation did not allow for that type of charter school when the schools that responded to our 1998 survey received their charters. Several states have since changed their laws to allow more types of charter schools.

¹ Although Florida's law does not allow private schools to apply directly for charter status, the state allows private schools to convert to charter status if they disband, reincorporate as a new organization with a new board, and enroll students in a public lottery.

² Illinois state legislation stipulates that a private school must cease operation as a private school before applying for charter status.

³ One Minnesota private nonsectarian school converted to charter status. The Minnesota Attorney General has issued an opinion that casts doubt on whether other private schools can convert unless the developers had first tried to establish a newly created charter school and were denied.

⁴ Wisconsin's law allows for the conversion of private schools only in Milwaukee.
-###-

[About This Report]

[B. Basic Characteristics of Charter Schools]

1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998¹
Minnesota	California	Colorado	Arizona	Alaska	Connecticut	Mississippi	Idaho
		Georgia	Hawaii	Arkansas	District of Col.	Nevada	Missouri
		Massachusetts	Kansas	Delaware	Florida	Ohio	Virginia
		Michigan		New Hampshire	Illinois	Pennsylvania	Utah
		New Mexico		Louisiana	New Jersey
		Wisconsin		Rhode Island	North Carolina
				Wyoming	South Carolina
					Texas