What is a "charter school"?
Charter schools are relatively new creatures. They are public schools and they receive public funding just like regular public schools. Whatever per pupil monies a school gets, charter schools get the same per pupil monies. However, they don't follow the same rules as regular public schools. There are all kinds of guidelines - how much you pay teachers, what hours teachers can work, what curriculum your supposed to use - that are usually determined by the district, or by the state. In a charter school, the school writes up its own charter, which is basically its own set of rules. Within those rules there will be a kind of achievement of benchmark that the charter school are going to meet within a certain amount of time. For example, "All of our fourth graders are going to be proficient in these subjects by year three." As long as a charter school fulfills their charter - does what they say they are going to do in the charter - the charter will usually be renewed at the end of the year, or second year, or third year. The charter is what they follow, not the rules. Thus, they may quite often pay their teachers more then the base salary within the district, they may have their teachers work longer days or they make their teachers wear a pager and be available to students all the time. Charter schools don't make their charter full. Charter schools can do what ever they want as long as they follow their charter and they meet the targets they're supposed to. We've got a charter school here where part of their curriculum is knitting - they have the kids knit. There's an accelerated charter downtown and they have a whole yoga program. There's all sorts of things that these charters schools can do. There's social justice charter schools that really focus on activism and getting the kids out in the community and being politically involved. There's a lot of latitude in what charter schools get to do. As long as they fulfill their charter, and as long as nothing funky happens at the district or state level, they should be able to continue doing whatever they're doing.
