About BCSQ

Eighteen years after the nation's first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992, more than 4,900 charter schools currently serve approximately 1.6 million public school students in 39 states and the District of Columbia. As the charter school movement continues to grow, one of its key challenges is the wide range in charter school quality. While a growing number of charter schools rank among the country's best schools, a notable minority are chronically poorly performing.

To address this challenge, four leading educational organizations came together to spearhead the Building Charter School Quality (BCSQ) project as a force for improving the performance of charter schools nationwide. The convening partners were the Colorado League of Charter Schools (the League), the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (the Alliance), and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA).

Over the course of four-years, these partner organizations created a variety of important Publications and Tools designed to help align expectations and create clarity among charter school operators, charter support organizations, authorizers and policymakers around how a quality charter school performs and how different stakeholders can work together to hold these schools accountable for both academic and operational quality.

This four year project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement as part of a Leadership Grant for (Grant # U282N060030) for Building Charter School Quality: Strengthening Performance Management Among Schools, Authorizers, State Charter Support Organizations, and Funders.