Archived Information
The State of Charter Schools 2000 - Fourth-Year Report, January 2000
In exchange for freedom from state regulations (except those related to health, safety, and nondiscrimination) charter schools are to be held accountable for school and student outcomes. In order to determine whether and how schools are held accountable, the Study asked schools about the external monitoring they underwent during the past school year. State legislation and regulatory practices differ greatly across states, and charter schools reported varying amounts of external monitoring as well as variation in which areas were monitored.
- In 1998-99, charter schools in a selected sample most frequently reported monitoring in the areas of school finances (94 percent), compliance with state or federal regulations (88 percent), student achievement (87 percent), and student attendance (81 percent).
- Across states, there was greater variance for some areas of monitoring than for others. While a large proportion of schools in most states reported monitoring on student achievement and school finances, there was far greater variance among the states in other areas, such as student behavior and school governance.
- In those categories in which there was greater variance, patterns emerged among states. While more than 80 percent of charter schools in Louisiana reported monitoring of instructional practices, student behavior, or school governance, the proportion of schools reporting monitoring was below 55 percent in each of those areas in Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
- In the five states in which there was only one charter-granting agency, a pattern also emerged. Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New Mexico all had high proportions (above 75 percent) of schools reporting monitoring of instructional practices and moderate to high proportions (greater than 50 percent) of schools reporting monitoring in the area of school governance.
Estimated Percentage of Charter Schools that are Externally Monitored on Accountability Measures
Percentage of Selected Sample of Charter Schools Who Reported External Monitoring1
NOTE: We asked this question only on the 1998 and 1999 follow-up surveys administered to schools not in their first year of operation, resulting in responses from 531 charter schools, referred to as a selected sample in the text. The percentages in the table show the number of schools that reported monitoring during the year in each area divided by the total number of schools in each state. Of the 531 schools, 9 schools in 6 states (Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Kansas, Rhode Island, and South Carolina) are not displayed in the table because each state has 3 or fewer schools whichh provided information on this question and the percentages are not meaningful. The "Total" row includes data from all 27 of the charter states.
1 The number of schools responding varied across the individual areas of monitoring. The number of schools reported in column 2 represents the largest number of schools responding to any one area.
2 Responses on school completion are based on 308 responses because the question was only posed to middle and high schools. The number of responses for each state is displayed in parentheses before the proportion of schools reporting monitoring.
3 New Jersey did not have any middle or high schools answering the 1998 or 1999 follow-up survey.
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