Giving Compass' Take:

• Alex Zimmerman reports that New York's Board of Regents has determined evaluation criteria for charter schools, relying on metrics including chronic absenteeism rates to determine success. 

• Is this method of evaluation complete and flexible enough? Should other states be following NY's lead? 

• Find out why donors should consider funding a charter school evaluation organization.

New York’s top education policymakers tentatively approved new rules on two hot-button issues: the penalties for districts and schools where many students opt out of state tests — and how nearly 100 charter schools across the state will be evaluated.

Here’s what you need to know about the new policies that the state’s Board of Regents set in motion.

The Regents narrowly approved a new framework for evaluating the roughly 100 charter schools that the board oversees across the state, 63 of which are in New York City.

The new framework is meant to bring charter schools in line with how the state judges district-run schools. Under the new federal education law, the Regents have moved away from emphasizing test scores as the key indicator of a school’s success.

In keeping with that shift, the new charter framework will require schools to have policies covering chronic absenteeism, out-of-school suspension rates, and other measures of school culture to help decide whether they are successful enough to remain open.

And while the new framework does not spell out specific rates of chronic absenteeism a school must fall below, for example, it does explicitly add those policies to the mix of factors the Regents consider.

Read the full article about evaluating charter schools by Alex Zimmerman at Chalkbeat.