Can Charter Schools Revitalize Public Education?

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Charter schools

Charter schools phenomenon forms the most controversial debates and least understood phenomena in American education today (Peter2002 William2003 . At the core of these debates is a contested question of accountability . Charter schools are basically elementary or secondary schools that do not get direct funding from the state but are funded by the public . They have been exempted from some rules and regulations that apply to other public schools . This is in exchange for accountability for producing certain results that are

normally set by school 's teacher A school charter is simply a document bestowing certain rights on an institution . The charter schools may be founded by among others parents , teachers and even some activists . According to (William , 2003 they are usually established by non-profit making groups , government entities and universities among other groups . The history of charter schools dates back in 1988 in United States . This idea came from a professor at the Massachusetts Amherst University called Ray Budde . The ideal model of the charter schools was to be financially and legally autonomous public schools . This meant that they were to be free from any religious affiliation , without tuition or selective student 's admissions . Minnesota passed a charter school law in 1991 being the first state , then followed by California in 1992 .Presently , 40 states have charter school laws

The structures and characteristics of these charter schools have at least two guiding principles . Firstly , these schools to be conducted as autonomous public schools with several exemptions of the procedural requirements of the district public schools . Secondly the charter schools are wholly accountable for the achievement of the students (Paul , 2002 . The structure and rules these charter schools are dependant on the state authorizing legislation and this may differ from one state to another . It is authorized to function when it is given a charter , and a defined statutory performance contract with details of the school 's vision , mission , goals , and programs , methods of evaluation or assessment and ways of measuring successes (Paul , 2002 . The contract for these schools usually varies from between 3-5 years . They are held accountable to their sponsors to produce good results and go by the contract of the charter . Chartering authorities vary from state to state . For example a state Board of Education in Arkansas authorizes charters while in other states the local schools district is the one responsible for issuing school charters like the state of Maryland Other states like the district of Arizona and District of Columbia developed independent school charter authorizing bodies . Minnesota and the state of Michigan have been said to have the strongest laws on charter schools in that they allow a combination of authorizers . Despite the fact that most of the applicants of these charter schools are non-profit corporations , some states like California and Wisconsin allow charter schools to be run by profit corporations

The funding for these charter schools is state dictated . In many states , they are funded by per-student state aid...