Report ranks nation's charter school law

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The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) today released its second annual report which ranks the nation's charter school laws from the strongest to the weakest. Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Public Charter School Laws analyzes the country's 41 state charter laws and scores how well each supports charter school quality and growth based on the 20 essential components from the NAPCS' model charter school law.

The new report captures all the legislative moves states made to be more competitive under the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top program. Overall, Minnesota's charter school law ranked the highest and Mississippi's new charter school law ranked the lowest.

As a result of positive policy changes made over the past year, Florida made the biggest jump from 2010, moving from number 11 to second place. Because of charter schools legislation passed in 2010, Massachusetts also made a jump, from number six to third place. And, the charter school legislation New York enacted in 2010 moved it from number eight to number five.

Conversely, the District of Columbia tumbled the furthest from 2010, dropping from second to eighth place. In addition, California fell from the third to the sixth position, Georgia fell from fourth to seventh, and Utah dipped from seventh to tenth.
As a new crop of governors and legislators prepares for the upcoming legislative sessions, the rankings provide clear indications of where some states excel and others come up short in charter school laws. They also offer a positive roadmap for how governors and legislators can take action to strengthen their charter school laws.

The 10 states with laws shown to best support the growth of high-quality charter schools are: Minnesota, Florida, Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, California, Georgia, District of Columbia, Louisiana and Utah.

The report also found that 24 states and the District of Columbia still have caps that impede the growth of charter schools. In nine of these states, such caps are severely constraining growth: Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. More than 420,000 students across the country are hoping for an additional seat at a charter school – and there is no correlation between caps and school quality or student achievement.

There are 10 states that have still failed to enact a charter school law: Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

See detailed state-by-state summaries and color-coded maps of how states measure against each component here.

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