School Choice & Charters

Laws in 11 States Require Closure of Low-Performing Charters

By Katie Ash — April 21, 2014 1 min read
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Eleven states have passed laws that require charter school authorizers to shut down the schools if they do not reach certain benchmarks, according to a policy brief released last week by the Washington-based National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

The 11 states are California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Washington state. Such laws have been growing in popularity over the past several years, the brief notes.

In some cases, like Ohio, the laws have arisen out of lawmakers’ frustration that authorizers have not been pro-active enough about closing low-performing charter schools. The measure appears more precautionary in Mississippi and Washington state, where charter schools have just recently been allowed.

The brief includes a snapshot of the automatic charter closure policy for each state and advises policymakers to “give serious thought” to issues such as how often authorizers close low-performing charters and if special consideration should be made for charters that serve high percentages of struggling students.

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Charters & Choice blog.