Helping the Sponsors (Authorizers) of Chartered Schools

As the chartering laws began to develop the states began to let organizations other than the local district approve the establishment of a new school: colleges and universities, large non-profit organizations and new public agencies created solely for the purpose of sponsoring new schools.

In the early years not a lot of thought was given to the operation of these new surrogates for the state, and to the process for authorizing a new school. Quickly, however, it became clear that the quality of the sponsors' decision about start-up -- and the quality of its oversight of the school during the term of the contract -- were critical to the success of a given school and critical to the success of the state's chartering program.

In about 2003 Education|Evolving began working to strengthen sponsors and sponsoring in Minnesota. We started simply by getting representatives of the sponsoring organizations together, to share experience. Out of this grew the Sponsors Assistance Network, supported by the state of Minnesota and run through Education|Evolving until mid 2007.

In this part of our site you will find much more about all these questions: the role of sponsors, the challenges in sponsoring, the ways in which quality can be improved both in the initial approvals and in the oversight of the operating schools.

For more information, see the about us section.