Washington, D.C. Designed to help state and local leaders attract high-performing Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) to their states and cities, a new report details the conditions that CMOs seek in a community before deciding to expand there.
The paper, How to Recruit High-Performing Charter Management Organizations to a New Region: Results from the 2015 CMO Survey, surveyed 20 high-performing CMOs in 2015 and is jointly produced by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Foundation for Excellence in Education and Ampersand Education.
"Attracting the most successful charter management organizations to a city can accelerate the creation of public schools designed to meet the needs of children and families," said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "This report can serve as a helpful tool for policymakers and local leaders as they work to recruit high-performing CMOs to their communities."
The key priorities for CMOs to expand in a city or state include autonomy around curriculum and school culture, funding and facilities support, human capital policies, support needed to open new schools, and demographic characteristics of a new geography.
The paper also categorizes CMOs into three types that can be helpful to policymakers in selecting the best fit:
Established CMOs: that seek cities and regions with particular characteristics allowing CMOs to attain a significant enrollment share over time. These CMOs are typically already serving more than 5,000 students or are serving students within multiple regions.
Entrepreneurial CMOs: that are willing to open a few schools at a time in a given city or region and tend to be more flexible about the specific conditions they seek within a given locality. These CMOs may be thinking about multistate expansion for the first time.
Niche CMOs: that look for the specific factors to enable their models success over time. The characteristics these CMOs seek in a locality may vary from the priorities of Established or Entrepreneurial CMOs.
The paper offers recommendations for state and local policymakers that may help them put their best foot forward while remaining true to their particular assets and needs.
To read the full paper, please click here.
About Charter Schools
Charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.
About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter movement. For more information, please visit www.publiccharters.org.