The National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC) created the High-Quality Charter Authorizing Policy Profiles (State Profiles) as summaries of states’ charter school authorization policy contexts. The new state profiles are intended to be used by state policymakers and practitioners to learn about their own authorizing policy environments. They also help leaders in charter school support organizations or charter management organizations who are working to deepen their understanding of state policy contexts and translate state education laws and policies into actionable practices that support all learners.

Guided by the Framework, the NCRSC has published state profiles for 27 recent state entity grantees. Eight new State Profiles are now available on the NCSRC website: California, Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. Like previous State Profiles, these newly published resources describe the key elements of the State’s policy context for supporting high-quality authorizing practices.

In total, 27 states are profiled and represent those who received a Charter Schools Program (CSP) State Entities (SE) grant between 2017 and 2020. They include:

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Delaware
  • Florida
  • Idaho
  • Indiana
  • Maryland
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Mississippi
  • Nevada
  • New Hampshire
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • New Jersey
  • North Carolina
  • South Carolina
  • Oklahoma
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • Texas
  • Washington
  • Washington D.C.
  • Wisconsin

Researchers reviewed legislation and policy in each state against the Policy Framework for High-Quality Charter Authorizing Practices (Framework), identified whether the authorizing practices specified in the Framework were present in state law or policy, and then asked representatives from active State Entity grantees to review the final profiles for accuracy. Each State profile includes a (i) Framework Snapshot, which is an assessment of a State’s authorizing practices using the Framework described in the first paragraph above and (ii) a more detailed description of the state context for each practice.