Federal Policy Initiatives

Federal Programs

The federal government has played a key role in supporting the expansion of public charter schools; primarily through the enactment of three programs: the Charter Schools Program (CSP), the State Charter School Facilities Incentive Program, and the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program.  Additionally, several other pieces of federal legislation have important implications for public charter schools; in particular the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Representing the Movement

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools undertakes advocacy at the federal level on behalf of the nation’s charter schools, state associations, and resource centers. These efforts are many, from ensuring that charter schools are treated fairly along with traditional public schools in authorization and appropriations bills to making sure that charters have equitable access to funding from federal programs. The following briefly describes the Alliance’s work in key areas.

Throughout the development of the historic American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Alliance worked to ensure that public charter schools would have equal access to the $100 billion in new education spending and $58.4 billion in finance provisions supporting infrastructure construction, modernization and renovation. Click here to read more on the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, formula funding, discretionary grants, finance provisions and work by the Alliance to assist state associations. Click here to learn how the ARRA will affect the charter school movement in your state.

For a breakdown of initial ARRA progam funding by state Click Here.

In FY2010, the three federal charter schools programs will receive $256 million. Additionally, new flexibilities were granted to the Secretary of Education to support the replication and expansion of successful charter schools. This is the highest amount of funding ever appropriated for the programs and a $40 million increase over FY2009.

Read the Alliance statement on the FY2010 appropriations here.  

With assistance and input from working groups of charter school leaders and stakeholders, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools undertook a broad review of the Charter School Programs (CSP) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2005 and 2006, which included hosting four regional forums in the fall of 2005. Based upon these efforts, the Alliance completed a set of recommendations for redesigning the CSP, which it released in the spring of 2006. In September, 2007 Alliance President Nelson Smith testified before the House Committee on Education and Labor the draft reauthorization bill co-sponsored by Reps. George Miller and Buck McKeon. The Alliance also drafted a set of proposals for strengthening NLLB, “Creating the Schools Our Nation Needs,” which it release in March 2007. While the Alliance was deeply involved in the efforts to reauthorize No Child Left Behind through 2007 and 2008, no legislative action was taken by Congress. The Alliance will continue to work closely with the new administration and Congress as reauthorization is considered.

While public charter schools are explicitly defined as public schools in federal education law, other parts of federal law have no clear recognition of their status as public schools, which may lead to uncertainty about program eligibility. The Alliance works to identify potentially problematic parts of federal law (such as that pertaining to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Emergency Management Authority) and the most appropriate administrative, regulatory or legislative remedy.