Giving Compass' Take:

• The National Association of Charter School Authorizers has found that new charter schools are opening under state education agencies rather than school districts and Greg Richmond explains both the positive and negative aspects of this shift. 

• The good part about new authorizers promoting charter schools is the commitment to providing a strong education system with effective authorizers leading the charge.  However, what are the potential challenges for surrounding communities? 

• Read about finding a middle ground for managing charter schools. 

New research from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers has found a shift in the national charter school landscape: For the first time, most new charter schools are opening under authorizers other than local school districts, with state education agencies and independent chartering boards leading the way.

It’s nearly 2.5 times as large as the decrease in new charter school openings under all other types of authorizers combined.

Nearly two-thirds of districts with charter schools did not authorize a single new charter school in the past four years. Conversely, 70 percent of state education agencies and independent chartering boards authorized a school in at least three of the four years examined.

This trend is a bad thing. Yet it is also a good thing.

It is bad because millions of children in the United States lack access to a good school that will prepare them for success in life. Rigorous research has found that quality charter schools are providing better educational opportunities to students, especially students from disadvantaged backgrounds. No other public education activity of the past quarter-century has been as effective for disadvantaged children as charter schools. We need to be doing more to make these schools available, not less. So when we see local school districts — a group of authorizers that at one point was helping 350 new charter schools open every year — walk away, we know they are shunning the opportunity to provide a better education and a better future for young people who need it.

But the trend is also a good thing.

Earlier this year, our research found that the authorizers with the strongest school portfolios have an institutional commitment to charter school authorizing and see it as their mission to provide more quality options to kids.

Read the full article about charter schools by Greg Richmond at The 74