The Next Era of Authorizing
By Jim Goenner, Ph.D., President & CEO, National Charter Schools Institute
Chartering began as a radical idea. It challenged an assumption so deeply ingrained it was almost never questioned: that the local school district should have the exclusive right to provide public education within its boundaries.
In his 1990 paper, The States Will Have to Withdraw the Exclusive, Ted Kolderie explained how states could change that arrangement.
He described two steps. First, give students and families the ability to choose a public school beyond their assigned district. Second, make it possible for new public schools to appear, sponsored by a public organization other than the district. The first change expanded the freedom to choose. The other opened a path for people with promising ideas to create new choices.
Kolderie and Joe Nathan helped shape the legislation, and State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge led the legislative effort. Minnesota adopted the nation’s first charter law in 1991. Today, 46 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico have charter school laws. What began as an idea is now a movement.
Chartering gave states a strategy for building a better system of public education. Making that strategy work required institutions willing and able to turn new possibilities into opportunities for students.
Charter Laws Do Not Implement Themselves
Every charter school begins with a decision to grant a charter. The institutions entrusted with that public authority are authorizers. The expectations that authorizers establish, the freedom they protect, and the commitments they enforce shape what happens next.
The authorizing role is distinct from operating a school. School leaders and governing boards are responsible for school design and operations. Authorizers establish expectations, evaluate results, protect promised autonomy, and hold schools accountable for delivering on their commitments. That separation gives educators room to find better ways to help students learn while preserving public accountability for performance.
Consider districts that both own and operate schools and serve as charter authorizers. Their interest in sustaining the schools they operate can conflict with their duty to make fair decisions about charter schools serving the same families. That conflict is inherent in the arrangement, even when the people carrying out both roles act in good faith. Clear responsibilities and safeguards can help them make sound decisions and earn public trust.
From the beginning, authorizers have been essential to chartering’s success and sustainability. Yet they received too little attention as the charter school movement took shape. Much of our early energy went to designing, launching, and operating new schools.
As Kolderie reminds us, “Change is a design question.” More than three decades after the first charter law, it is time to apply that thinking to authorizing itself. What have we learned? What should we preserve? What must we change? How should we design authorizing for the future we want to create?
Addressing these questions means examining how authorizers are structured and resourced, how their people are prepared, and how they find better ways and put them into practice.
A movement that is built to challenge the givens of public education must be willing to challenge its own. Our institutions and practices should create the conditions for excellence to thrive, and we must be willing to change them when they stand in the way.
Four Fundamentals for the Next Era
Fulfilling chartering’s purpose calls authorizers to be catalysts for change, guardians of opportunity, and stewards of possibility. At the National Charter Schools Institute, we call this being “Bold by Choice.” Four fundamentals give that commitment practical meaning.
1. Be a Change Agent.
An authorizer’s responsibility for opportunity begins before an application arrives. Authorizers should listen to students, families, and educators to learn about unmet needs; welcome capable people with promising ideas; and identify what keeps effective schools from reaching more students.
Chartering allows a school to organize time, staffing, or student progress differently and still make demanding public commitments. Authorizers need the expertise to assess those designs fairly and the willingness to revise tools that cannot distinguish an unfamiliar approach from an unsound one.
Authorizing decisions have consequences that are both seen and unseen. Approving a school that fails can carry a visible professional or political cost. The cost of blocking a school that could have succeeded may remain invisible. Risk aversion deserves scrutiny when it closes off possibilities for children.
We should judge authorizing by the learning opportunities it makes possible for students as well as the failures it prevents. Authorizers are responsible for both.
2. Protect Freedom. Expand Possibility.
The freedom promised in law must be protected in charter contracts and evident in the daily work of school leaders and educators. Charter contracts should establish clear public commitments, affirm the authority of governing boards and school leaders, and identify which material changes require authorizer approval.
Some barriers come from laws. Others come from regulations. Still others come from authorizers’ own practices. Authorizers should help policymakers understand the effects of those barriers and remove the ones within their authority. They should examine requirements for their public purpose and their cost to schools. Where their own practices limit opportunity without protecting students or the public, they should change them.
3. Be Proactive and Find Solutions.
Authorizers should anticipate changing needs and help public education adapt. States are expanding open enrollment and education savings account programs, widening families’ options. The Census Bureau estimates that the country had about 1.8 million fewer children under 18 in July 2025 than in April 2020. Where student populations are shrinking, expanding choice can intensify competition for enrollment and tensions between schools.
Some communities are growing and may need new schools. Others face declining enrollment and may benefit from partnerships, shared services, or carefully planned mergers. An empty seat in one school tells us that space is available; it does not tell us whether the education offered meets students’ needs. Authorizers should use local evidence to assess proposals and establish clear processes for schools pursuing these options.
Chartering should also serve as research and development for public education. That requires room to adapt proven approaches, develop new ones, and evaluate them honestly. As a movement, we should share what works, what does not, and the conditions that shaped the results—including lessons conventional public schools can use. That is how we build a system that keeps learning.
4. Be a Force for Excellence.
The measure of excellence is the difference education makes in students’ lives. Kolderie’s focus on the young person doing the learning should guide our work. Students bring different interests, aptitudes, and aspirations. Motivation and engagement matter. Educators need professional authority to design learning experiences that engage students and help them achieve more.
Reading, writing, mathematics, and academic knowledge remain essential. We should also know whether students can solve problems, exercise initiative, create, and apply what they know. Our expectations and evaluations should reflect this fuller understanding of achievement.
We should establish annual baselines, follow students over time, and judge whether they are progressing toward demanding standards within clear, reasonable timelines. The longer students attend a school, the higher our expectations should be for their achievement. Evaluations should distinguish learning gains from changes in who enrolls and leaves. Decisions should explain how evidence and professional judgment fit together.
Excellence must be recognized and rewarded. Strong results, responsible governance, and fulfillment of charter obligations should earn dependable renewal, oversight proportionate to demonstrated risk, and opportunities to serve more students.
States and authorizers should establish a right to grow when schools meet published, lawful conditions: demonstrated learning, capable governance, financial viability, and the capacity to serve more students well. Meeting those conditions should lead to approval within a clear timeline. A denial should identify the unmet condition and the evidence supporting it. Political discomfort, institutional competition, or our reluctance to change should not become additional, unwritten tests.
Persistent failure requires action. Repeatedly postponing it leaves children waiting. Where closure is warranted, care for children must shape the transition.
Make Our Own Commitments Count
Every charter school deserves a good authorizer—one that understands chartering’s public purpose, cares about the success of the school and its students, and is equipped to do the work well.
Good authorizers know that accountability must run both ways. Schools should answer to authorizers for student learning and growth, responsible stewardship of public resources, and fulfillment of their charter commitments. Authorizers should answer to schools for clear expectations, respect for promised autonomy, fair evaluations, and timely, transparent decisions grounded in evidence and sound judgment.
Both should answer to students, families, and the public, keep their commitments, and correct their mistakes. Schools make public commitments in their charters. Authorizers should make theirs just as clear, visible, and consequential.
Building on NACSA’s principles and standards and policy recommendations, I propose public authorizing commitments that boards can adopt, schools and families can understand, and independent reviewers can assess. These should include deadlines for decisions, requirements tied to a lawful public purpose, written explanations of consequential decisions, and credible review and remedies when we fall short.
Authorizer boards and staff need preparation, reliable evidence, and the capacity to exercise sound judgment. States must equip authorizers with the authority, people, and resources their responsibilities require. Technology should reduce routine burdens, make evidence easier to use, and preserve institutional knowledge when people leave.
We can act within our authority now and seek changes in state law where needed to protect autonomy, establish a right to grow, provide independent review and enforceable remedies, and address conflicts of interest. We should report publicly on whether we keep our commitments and what our decisions make possible for students.
Keeping those commitments would strengthen Jed Wallace’s case for “Authorizing for All”: extending responsible autonomy and credible accountability to all public schools.
Kids Need a Movement
Kids need a movement, not a sector. To advance chartering, advance excellence, and expand possibilities, we must strengthen the people, institutions, and relationships that make better learning possible.
School leaders, governing boards, educators, authorizers, advocates, policymakers, and support organizations each have work to do. Students and families must help shape it. School governing boards need the preparation and independence to oversee performance and management, address conflicts, protect access and students’ rights, and insist on improvement.
Shared vision and values, relationships of mutual trust and respect, and clear expectations—no surprises—make collaboration possible. Each organization should be able to raise concerns early and expect a fair response. We must distinguish responsible adaptation from neglect or persistent failure so that people can acknowledge problems and act on them. A movement grows stronger when people learn together, share what works, and help one another improve.
At the National Charter Schools Institute, we want to work alongside partners ready to put these fundamentals into practice. Bring forward a barrier, evidence of its cost to students, and a change you are prepared to help make. Together, we can test our commitments and share what we learn.
Our purpose is to help more children discover their gifts, pursue their dreams, and experience the transformative power of a great education, wherever they attend school.
Chartering began with people willing to challenge what stood in children’s way. The next era depends on our willingness to do the same—including when the barrier is one we built.
The arc of education won’t bend by itself.
Let’s be Bold by Choice—and prove the promise together.
Ready to strengthen what’s possible for your schools and students?
