Massachusetts Charter Schools

Proposed revisions to the Charter School Performance Criteria 2015

To:	Charter School Leaders and Board Chairs
From:	Cliff Chuang, Associate Commissioner
Date:	June 10, 2015

The Charter School Performance Criteria (Criteria) articulate the expectations for all aspects of charter school accountability, from the application process to the renewal process. The Criteria were first developed in 2005 and were subsequently revised in 2010. In June of 2013, the Department developed a third revision, version 3.0, after research and review of the best of what is available for high quality charter school authorizing nationally. The Department slightly revised the Criteria in April 2014. With another year of accountability activities coming to a close, the Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign is working to adjust the Criteria based on the best practices, suggestions and challenges that came up over the course of the year. The proposed Charter School Performance Criteria (version 3.2) is linked here. Changes are marked via track changes. Below please find a summary of the proposed changes.

Criterion Revised (page)	Description of Change
Criterion 5: Student Performance (page 6)	Since 2012, in order to meet Criterion 5, charter schools were required to attain a Level 1 status. While achieving Level 1 is still the goal, beginning in the 2015-2016 school year, the Department will also consider designating some Level 2 schools as meeting Criterion 5. In order to meet Criterion 5, in general, a charter school must attain Level 1, or a charter school must attain Level 2 status, be at or above the 45th percentile relative to other schools statewide within the same grade span, and demonstrate stable or improved performance trends.
Criterion 8: Capacity (page 8)	We have clarified the following key indicators: We have made minor edits to the key indicator: School Leadership to remove areas that are difficult to measure during the accountability site visit process. We have clarified the key indicator: Professional Climate.
Criterion 9: Governance (pages 8-9)	We have clarified and condensed the key indicators under the Criterion Governance to remove redundancy.

We welcome any questions or comments on the draft Charter School Performance Criteria version 3.2. We would appreciate it if you could provide feedback by June 24. 2015. We anticipate posting a finalized version on our website by June 30, 2015. If you have any questions or wish to provide feedback please contact Alison Bagg at abagg@doe.masss.edu or 781-338-3218. Thank you.

Attachment

Charter Performance Criteria with track changes

Last Updated: June 10, 2015