Charter School Renewals

Charter Schools are some of the hardest working schools in the nation, outperforming traditional schools in both reading and math on average.

We all agree that schools should educate students, especially those living in poverty. But a neighborhood school can exist as long as the neighborhood does. A charter school is under significantly more pressure because it can be closed if students fail to show sufficient academic growth every year. Charter schools are held to a higher standard in every way: they are expected to do more for students, they receive less resources (estimates nationwide are between 6-25% less per pupil funding), and they lack the authority of a municipality. Being in charter schools isn’t for the faint of heart. What are some ways that charter schools can use data to ensure student achievement makes their charter renewal automatic?

Charter Renewal Rubric

The first and most important way a charter school can use its data is to simulate the renewal rubric and track all progress towards renewal. School accountability systems for academic progress, accountability, and sub-group indicators are not state secrets. These rubrics are codified in law and policy. Your charter should be able to model its school performance scores and renewal status at any point. It’s also important to have a dynamic model. You should be able to use your student goals (e.g. Sally is going to score proficient this year in math AND reading) to model how this will impact your school performance scores (e.g. ten more students meeting proficiency standards in third grade will move you from category B to category A). You should be able to change these goals midyear as circumstances evolve and then see how that impacts your school performance scores. One great example of this is in the cohort achievement tracker’s simulated SPS, which starts with student prior performance, suggests achievable goals, and shows the resulting school performance score. Which brings us to our next need: how to set those goals using data. 

Marginal Students: Sustainable Performance Score Growth

Here’s a scenario: you have two students who are below basic in math. One student was two points under basic. One student was twenty points under basic. Question: do these students need the exact same support? Absolutely not! Your student data should show you where these marginal students are so that you can support them to get to proficient. You need to support them differently and if you give both kids the same supports, you might end up with a repeat of last year’s below basic results. But, you can’t differentiate unless your data collection, analysis, and reporting systems are sensitive enough to flag and group these marginal students. 

Renewal timelines matter, but so do your reaction timelines

Charter schools are on too tight a renewal timeline to do things exactly like their traditional school counterparts. After many years in administration, I finally learned about systems thinking, and it was a complete paradigm shift. Systems-thinking is a rich field and I encourage you to learn more, but in brief a system is getting the results it is getting because of the way it’s set up. When you change one aspect of the system, you need to monitor how the changes interact with other portions of the system. I strongly encourage you to not just react. If your data is showing high rates of absenteeism in a certain grade, dig into the data so you can understand what’s going right, and use that learning to promote attendance. The more you review your data, and the more frequently you review your data, the better off your students will be. I’d recommend you also look at our series on the topic!  By promoting attendance, not just reacting to truancy, you build real change.

Separate lagging and leading indicators

School performance scores are essential for charter schools, but they look backwards at what students have done instead of looking towards the future and predicting what students will achieve. Your leading indicators, things like middle of year assessments or screener results.  Do not wait until your scores dip to course correct. Know what assessments are predictive of high stakes tests. 

Final Thoughts 

As former charter school teachers and administrators, we have a heart for charters at Instructional Data Solutions. We understand where you are and invite you to view our video tour of the CAT or sign up for a free one-on-one tour here. What are you looking to do with your data collection and analysis? How do you use data to its fullest? Join the conversation on social media and share.

About Instructional Data Solutions: Our mission is to remove barriers to enable education organizations to focus on what matters most. We assist school systems and education organizations of all sizes by collecting, analyzing, and clearly communicating data. We are committed to empowering educators through comprehensive data analytics and tailored support. Additionally, we provide dedicated support for operational needs, process improvement, and special projects, offering customized solutions to enhance effectiveness and success. Our solutions bridge the gap between data collection and instructional improvement in PK-12 settings.