Many states have defined specific schools, referred to here as alternative education campuses or AECs, that qualify for some form of alternative accountability. A-GAME partner Momentum Strategy & Research (Momentum), has conducted extensive data collection and analysis into how AECs are defined across the country. While there are some commonalities across these definitions, there is also considerable variability. A-GAME capitalizes on that research by identifying common elements of state definitions to describe the schools that are the focus of this work:

“Charter schools that both have a mission to focus on and serve a high proportion of high-risk youth.”

High-risk youth are students who have dropped out of school or are at the highest risk of doing so. High-risk youth include, but are not limited to, pregnant or parenting teens; adjudicated youth; youth experiencing housing instability, including homelessness;  those in the foster care system; students who are overage and under-credit;   and those who have been expelled or are chronically absent.

High-risk youth are not to be confused with “at-risk” students as defined in federal Title 1 policies (i.e., low income students, English language learners, or special education students). While there is considerable overlap in the two populations (High-Risk Youth and at-risk students), at-risk factors alone do not qualify students as High-Risk Youth. Thus, for this project charter schools serving high percentages of low income, special education, or English language learners that do not also serve high percentages of High-Risk Youth are not considered AECs.

According to the Momentum database (Alternative School, Performance, and Policy Database), there were 614 alternative charter schools across the country in 2018-2019. The blue and grey map below summarizes how these AEC charters are distributed across the US.

The 614 charter AECs are authorized by 196 different authorizers, the distribution of which is shown in the tan and red map below.