A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n
The State of Charter Schools 2000 - Fourth-Year Report, January 2000
The Expanding Charter School Movement | State Charter Legislation | Newly Created and Pre-existing Charter Schools
Charter schools have spread rapidly across the country since the first two charter schools opened in 1992. The number of states with charter legislation continues to rise, as does the number of charter schools. State laws differ, but all grant charter schools some degree of autonomy over their educational programs and operations in exchange for greater accountability for student outcomes.
- As of September 1999, 36 states and the District of Columbia had passed charter legislation and charter schools were in operation in 32 states. Three states--New York, Oklahoma, and Oregon--enacted charter legislation in the 1998-99 legislative session.
- As of September 1999, more than 1,400 charter schools were in operation. Counting "branch schools" in Arizona, in which similar instructional programs are operated at several school sites under one charter, there were more than 1,600 charter school sites in operation.
- Continuing the trend, the largest yearly increase in the number of charter schools came in the most recent year, with 421 new schools opened as of September, 1999. This growth in the number of charter schools was
driven in part by large increases in several states. In Texas, 64 new schools opened in fall of 1999, while California had 56 new schools open. Charter schools continued to be concentrated in a small number of states: 50 percent of charter schools were located in Arizona, California, Michigan, and Texas.
- By the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year, 59 charter schools, nearly 4 percent of all charter schools ever opened, had closed. The largest number of closures, 16 schools, came in Arizona, also the state with the largest number of charter schools. The closure rate in Arizona is slightly larger than the national average with more than 6 percent of schools closing.
Estimated Number of Operational Charter Schools, by Year
States with Charter Legislation by Year Passed as of September 1999
Estimated Number of Charter Schools in Operation as of September 1999, by State
NOTE: The Study reports the number of charters given to individual entities, though some charters may use space within another school or be connected to another school by another arrangement. The number of charters shown above does not include the total number of school sites operating under a charter. Some charters, particularly in Arizona, run similar programs in several sites. In those cases, the Study only counts the charter once. Several charters in California were awarded to districts or complexes of schools. Since previously each school within the group was a separate school, the Study counts each school as a separate charter school. Taking into account multiple school sites operating under a single charter (121), the Study estimates that the total number of school sites operating under charters was 1,605 (1,484+121) as of September 1999.
SOURCE: The Study contacted officials at each state department of education and supplemented their information from a variety of sources, including the Common Core of Data Survey (1997-98), charter school directories, and state charter school resource centers.
1 The column "Total schools closed as of Sept. 1999" reflects the cumulative number of charter schools closed since 1992.
2 The number of schools that opened in the 1998-99 school year is slightly different for some states than the number of schools reported as of September 1998. The 1998-99 column includes several schools that opened later in the 1998-99 school year.
-###-
