It has been 18 years since Minnesota passed the nation’s first public charter school law, and public charter schools have become a prominent feature of public education serving more than 1.5 million students in over 4,900 schools in 40 states and the District of Columbia. With the number of public charter schools and students steadily growing and the body of evidence documenting their success mounting legislative battles over charter laws are intensifying. As charter supporters fight these battles, the time is right for a new model law that supports more and better public charter schools based upon lessons learned from experience, research, and analysis. Our intent in developing this new law was to create a resource useful for guiding the 41 jurisdictions with charter laws as well as the 10 states that have yet to enact a charter law.
Download DocumentPublication Date: 22/06/2009
