More Education Plays

Like any new enterprise, starting a charter school requires extensive legal, financial, and managerial support, as well as educational planning and expertise. The problem is that many prospective charter school founders do not have expertise in all these areas and lack resources, funding, and space for planning. In the business world, venture capitalists have established start-up incubators to help promising entrepreneurs succeed in the vulnerable early stages of an enterprise. State and local policymakers should consider how a few charter school incubators have successfully applied a similar concept to help charter school founders plan and open charter schools.

In addition to hands-on support and technical assistance, incubators can provide founders space for planning the charter school launch, help for accessing foundation and other funding, and expertise for finding building facilities or securing financing for such facilities.

"Creating a new schools incubator, an entirely new organization designed to provide expertise and support to school founders during their planning process, is one solution that may meet the needs of school founders facing the challenges of planning effective new schools." -- Abigail Winger, University of Washington

A number of states have resource centers that work like incubators by providing technical assistance, staff and administrative supports, and other resources to help emerging charter schools. The AppleTree Institute in Washington, D.C., is a good example that shows how states and cities can actually provide start-up buildings for charter schools' use for a few years, before they are ready to obtain a building of their own. Other incubators, like the Innovative Schools Development Corporation in Delaware, help charter schools access loans, credit enhancement, or technical assistance to purchase or build their own facilities. Policymakers can find other good incubator ideas in the models offered by the Charter Schools Development Center Incubator Project at California State University, the Colorado Incubator for Charter Schools, and the Education Resource Center in Dayton, Ohio. The incubator model is clearly flexible for policymakers to adapt it to the particular needs of their communities, their state charter laws, and the interests of the children, parents, and founders of the individual charter schools.

Most charter school incubators today are privately established programs funded primarily by foundation grants and individual donors. However, federal, state, and local policymakers should also provide funding to create charter school incubators or expand the operations of existing charter incubators and other support systems. In addition, strengthening state charter laws to provide more opportunities to create new charter schools will also add incentives for private and nonprofit donors to invest in incubators. As state and local policymakers work to comply with the "No Child Left Behind" federal requirement to expand public school choice for children in low-performing schools, charter school incubators offer a promising way to meet that demand by increasing the supply of quality charters in low-income communities.

Resources for Action

Charter Schools Development Center
www.cacharterschools.org/charter.html

AppleTree Institute
www.appletreeinstitute.org/

Innovative Schools Development Corporation
www.innovativeschools.org/

Additional Reading

Abigail Winger, Stimulating the Supply and Building the Capacity of New Schools and School Developers, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington, June 2000
www.crpe.org/pubs/introStimulatingNewSchool.shtml

Contacts

Mr. Jack McCarthy
Managing Director
AppleTree Institute
415 Michigan Avenue, NE
McCormack Pavillion, 3rd Floor
Washington, DC 20017
(202) 488-3990
jackmacapp@aol.com

Mr. Gary Fredericks
Innovative Schools Development Corp.
100 W. 10th Street, Suite 403
Wilmington, DE 19801
(302) 656-4737
gfredericks@innovativeschools.org

Dr. Bryan Hassel
Director
Public Impact
504 Dogwood Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-5102
(919) 928-8473 (Fax)
bryan_hassel@publicimpact.com

Mr. Eric Premack
Co-director
Charter School Development Center
7750 College Town Drive, Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95826
(916) 278-6069
(916) 278-4094 (fax)
epremack@calstate.edu

Mr. James Griffin
Executive Director
Colorado League of Charter Schools
725 S. Broadway, Suite 7
Denver, CO 80209
(303) 989-5356 ext. 110
(303) 985-7721 (fax)
jgriffin@coloradoleague.org

Andrew Rotherham
Co-Founder and Co-Director
Education Sector
1201 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 850
Washington, DC 20036
(434) 973-2173
arotherham@educationsector.org