As enrollment in charter schools continues to climb, a national organization is urging state legislators to set higher standards for opening those schools and ensuring that weak ones get shut down.
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a Chicago-based group that seeks to improve charters’ quality by working with the entities that create and oversee them, announced last week a campaign to get 1 million additional children into 3,000 high-performing charter schools over the next five years. There are about 5,600 charters in the country today, serving more than 2 million children.
The rate of charter schools closing during the periods when their contracts are up for renewal has risen recently, from 6 percent in 2010 to nearly 13 percent in 2012, according to the authorizers’ association.
