A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n
The State of Charter Schools 2000 - Fourth-Year Report, January 2000
Charter schools face significant challenges as they get underway and as they continue to implement their programs. We asked a knowledgeable individual at each charter school to rate the difficulty of overcoming each barrier in a list of possible barriers to implementation. Financial difficulties continued to be among the largest challenges that charter schools faced, although there has been a marked decline over time in the percentage of schools facing problems with start-up funding.
- In 1998-99, the most frequent barriers charter schools faced during implementation were lack of start-up and operating funds (49 and 37 percent respectively), lack of planning time (35 percent), and inadequate facilities (32 percent).
- Schools first surveyed in 1998-99 were less likely to face start-up funding difficulties than were schools first surveyed in earlier years, decreasing from 59 percent in 1996 to 39 percent in 1999. This finding likely reflects increased federal start-up funding for charter schools and that some states are providing charter school start-up funds. Schools surveyed more recently were more likely to face difficulties with hiring staff than schools in previous years. This finding may reflect the nationwide teacher shortage.
- Newly created schools were more likely than pre-existing schools to face difficulties with inadequate operating funds, lack of planning time, inadequate facilities, internal conflicts, school administration and management, teacher turnover, community opposition, and communication with parents.
- Pre-existing private and newly created charter schools were more likely than pre-existing public schools to face difficulties from lack of start up funds, health and safety regulations, and teacher burnout.
- Charter schools that converted from public status were similar to newly created charter schools in that they were more likely than pre-existing private schools to find state or local board opposition, district resistance or regulations, and hiring staff to be difficult barriers.
- Similar to last year, pre-existing private schools that converted to charter status were more likely than newly created or pre-existing public schools to report difficulties with state department of education resistance and teacher certification requirements.
Estimated Percentage of Charter Schools Reporting Difficulties in Implementing Their Charter1
NOTE: These data are drawn from questions asked only in the new school surveys and are based on responses from a range of 927 to 955 open charter schools that provided information on these questions. Five questions--on administration and school management, teacher burnout, teacher turnover, lack of parental support, and communication with parents--were asked only on the 1997 and 1999 new schools surveys, resulting in fewer responses to these questions overall (511 to 514 schools).
Estimated Percentage of Charter Schools Reporting Selected Difficulties in Implementing Their Charters, by Year of Charter Survey
Estimated Percentage of Charter Schools Reporting Difficulties in Implementing Their Charter, by Creation Status
1 We asked schools to rate the difficulty of each barrier on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being not at all difficult and 5 being very difficult. The percentages in these tables and the figure on the facing page represent the percentages of schools that rated each barrier difficult or very difficult.
2 These data are drawn from the first charter school survey. In some cases, we were unable to identify and survey charter schools in their first year of operation, but were able to later identify them and administer a "new school" survey. In these few cases, survey responses would not represent the first year of school operation, during which implementation difficulties may be greatest.
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