Information about charter school authorizers
The charter school authorizer is the agency which receives a charter school application, reviews it, and then ultimately determines if the proposed charter school will open, or not. The authorizing agency is also tasked with providing some measure of oversight during the term of the charter school’s contract; it is sometimes referred to as the sponsor. One concern which has arisen in this era of rapid charter school expansion is inadequate staffing of those agencies’ charter school offices.
The top ten states with the most authorizers are:
CA | 293 |
WI | 84 |
OH | 69 |
OR | 67 |
PA | 51 |
MN | 49 |
CO | 47 |
FL | 45 |
GA | 39 |
MI | 32 |
“Shopping” for an authorizer occurs in states that have multiple authorizers with jurisdiction over the same physical area. For example in California, if an initial charter school application or renewal is rejected by the board of a local city school district, the applicant can then seek approval from