Charter schools are public, nonsectarian schools created through a business-like contract, or "charter", between the charter governance board and the sponsoring school board or other chartering authority. The Wisconsin charter school law gives charter schools freedom from most state rules and regulations in exchange for greater accountability for results. If they don't meet the requirements of their charter, they can be shut down. The charter school motto is "Autonomy for Accountability." The charter defines the missions and methods of the charter school and the chartering authority will hold the school accountable to its charter.
Wisconsin established charter schools to foster an environment for innovation and parental choice. While many goals between charter and public schools for educating and preparing children are similar, each charter school fulfills a specific local need in education. In districts with charter schools, the community, school boards, and parents have identified their public education needs and have established charters that meet them. Their leaders may experiment with different instructional theories, site-based management techniques, and other innovations to learn what works best for their student population. Public schools can then observe and learn from these charter schools and can implement similar practices.
What is a charter school? How is it different from a public school? WRCCS collaborated with TruScribe to create a new informational video all about charter schools! This minute and a half long video highlights the important distinctions that make charter schools stand out among the other schooling options.
Wisconsin was one of six states to pass charter school legislation in 1993. This law gives charters schools the freedom from most state rules and regultions in exchange for greater accountability for results. Wisconsin established charter schools to foster an environment of creativity. Learn more with this video
This video offers an in-depth description of what a charter school is and how they operate. You'll gain a better understanding of what charter schools have to offer and why they're essential to the public school system.
"A charter school is similar to a school district in that it acts like a school board. If it's authorized by a district, the board often times has the benfit of looking at the district's policies and practices to see if they want to adopt those." - a quote from the video above. Click the title to learn more.
Each charter school has had to present their case to the state of Wisconsin. They have to prove that there is a need not being met within a school district. They then have to present a solution to this problem. Oftentimes, it's the opening of a specific type of charter school catered to the need not being met within the district. This document highlights a handful of case studies done on the charter schools in Wisconsin that decided to meet a specific need. Each case study is short, informative, and easy to understand. This resource can be useful in helping identify needs that might not be met in your own school district.
