What are Charter Public Schools?
How are students enrolled in Charter Public Schools?
How are Charter Public Schools different from Magnet Schools?
How do Charter Public Schools help children achieve their highest potential?
Are Charter Public School teachers certified?
How are Charter Public Schools evaluated?
How are Charter Public Schools funded?
How are Charter Public Schools governed?

What are Charter Public Schools?
A charter public school is a public school, open to any student who applies. Charter public schools are required to meet state academic standards, but are allowed to operate free from many local district regulations that apply to other public schools, allowing for greater academic flexibility and innovation in the classroom.

Charter public schools are open to all students, regardless of income, gender, race or religion and cannot impose any admission hurdles. In exchange for increased public accountability, charter public schools have freedom to pursue a customized educational vision and to make their own choices about the school's design This freedom gives them the ability to use innovative curricula, teaching approaches, and school organization that best suits the needs of a given community. Charter public schools offer students, parents and teachers high-quality options within the public education system and bring untapped community resources and ideas directly into public schools.

How are students enrolled in Charter Public Schools? Don't they enroll only the best and brightest students, leaving the others in traditional public schools?
Charter public schools are required to run a random lottery to enroll students. Charter public schools only run a lottery if applicants outnumber the available seats; otherwise, all interested students are accepted. If there are more applicants than seats in the school, the school has to keep a waiting list. Schools aren't allowed to: 1) save seats for any category of student; 2) give preference to children of staff or board; or 3) administer admissions tests or screenings. On the other hand, schools can give preference to the siblings of enrolled students to enable families to have their children at the same schools. Because of this open and non-selective enrollment process, charter public schools do not pluck the "best and brightest" from the traditional public school system; rather, they operate on an open enrollment basis and are available to any student whose parents agree to enroll them in the school.

How are Charter Public Schools different from Magnet Schools?
Magnet schools have highly selective academic standards, requiring students to take entrance exams and meet a determined quota. Magnet schools can also require auditions or other methods for students to demonstrate specialized talents, whereas charters can't do this. Charter public schools don't require any testing for entrance; however, both charter public schools and magnet schools must require students to meet state and district academic standards, as well as to take state- and district-mandated tests.

How do Charter Public Schools help children achieve their highest potential?
Charter public schools employ highly qualified, dedicated teachers to educate their students. Classes are engaging and kept at a low student-to-teacher ratio. Charter public school teachers and administrators can immediately respond to current academic conditions with flexibility in scheduling and curriculum creation to allow maximum success for their students.
Charter public school leaders can design curriculums and set educational goals that best reflect the needs of their school's student population. Schools can have longer days, longer years, or Saturday classes. They can schedule in blocks of time to give greater emphasis to specific subjects, and they can incorporate parent involvement in core curricular activities. Additionally, charter public schools can integrate core studies with extracurricular activities, such as math programs that incorporate music or a high school curriculum that includes business internships.

Charter public schools can also require students to create presentations, maintain a portfolio, or report on their activities as part of the school's formal evaluation and grading process, integrating business skills along with allowing them to be connected to their own academic growth. Most charter public schools also establish parental involvement standards that require a student's guardian to be involved in their child's education.

Are Charter Public School teachers certified?
In Illinois, more than two-thirds of the teachers in charter public schools are state-certified, while the remaining are educators with a bachelor's degree, an average of five years of professional experience and successful completion of state exams of basic skills and relevant subject matter. Charter public school teachers receive twice the ongoing training than other public school teachers receive. All charter public school teachers meet federal No Child Left Behind and state standards above and beyond certification.

How are Charter Public Schools evaluated?
Charter public schools administer the same state standardized tests as traditional public schools and are held accountable to the results required by their charter agreement. And while one of the measures of student achievement may be standardized test results, there are others. Often a charter public school agreement sets a higher standard than traditional public schools, and they consistently exceed those standards. Charter operators are reviewed by the school board every five years, and if charter public schools do not get the results required by their charters, they are at-risk for termination of their charter and/or closure.

How are Charter Public Schools funded?
Charter public schools are public schools, and the funding follows the students. Funding that normally would be spent educating a student at a traditional public school simply follows the student to the charter public school. Every charter public school agreement between the charter operator and the School Board specifies a per-pupil allocation that is negotiated as part of the agreement. This allocation is typically less than what the traditional public school receives.

In addition to receiving a lower per-pupil allocation from the district, charter public schools are also barred from accessing the construction financing programs that are open to traditional public schools, and many charter public schools explore alternative options for funding such as donations from business and relying more heavily on volunteers.

How are Charter Public Schools governed?
Charter public schools are governed by non-profit boards of directors that could include parents, teachers and community leaders. They are free to adapt their governance structure based on the needs of the students enrolled. Charter public schools often partner with local businesses and other community organizations to achieve results that have a positive effect on public education.