Network members come together around their commitment to four specific policy ideas: high expectations, great educators, innovative options, and responsive systems. The details below reflect members work on innovative options. Read on for examples of how members are working to ensure that all families can exercise their power to choose and access diverse, innovative, and excellent educational options designed and resourced to meet the unique needs of their students. Click here to explore the full 2020 Network Member Priorities overview.

How many Network members are prioritizing policies to support innovative options?

Twenty members in 12 states are prioritizing public charter school issues in 2020, including public charter school finance and facilities and defending students’ access to options. Twelve members in 11 states are prioritizing other policies to expand access to innovative options, including Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and open enrollment initiatives.

What initiatives are members prioritizing?

Below, you’ll see lists of member organizations who plan to work on similar policies. Click on one of the orange bullets below to jump directly to that topic. If you’re interested in connecting with any of the organizations listed below, reach out for an introduction.

• Charter Accountability
• Charter Authorizing
• Charter Defense
• Charter Expansion
• Charter Facilities
• Charter Finance
• Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)
• Open Enrollment
• Other Policies

Charter Accountability

• Georgia | Georgia Charter Schools Association: Pursue the incorporation of fair, data-driven, verifiable/quantifiable performance metrics into state and local charter school performance frameworks.
• Louisiana | Democrats for Education Reform Louisiana: Defend strong accountability standards and public school choice at the Legislature

Charter Authorizing

• Georgia | Georgia Charter Schools Association: Develop and implement standards to measure the capacity of charter school authorizers in Georgia

Charter Defense

• Colorado | Colorado League of Charter Schools: Preserve and protect Colorado’s highly ranked charter school law
• Illinois | Illinois Network of Charter Schools: Defeat charter moratorium proposal
• Illinois | Illinois Network of Charter Schools: Defeat various charter regulation proposals
• Louisiana | Democrats for Education Reform Louisiana: Execute comprehensive communications strategy to elevate public charter schools in New Orleans
• Minnesota | EdAllies: Families have the power to choose the right school for their kids from a range of high-quality options especially for families from underserved communities and high-performing charter schools have the ability to serve families
• New York | New York City Charter School Center: Build support for charter schools among stakeholders (grassroots to grasstops)
• Washington, D.C. | Democrats for Education Reform District of Columbia: Prevent legislation from advancing that rolls back charter autonomy or hurts the charter sector
• Washington, D.C. | FOCUS: Combating threats to charter school autonomy

Charter Expansion

• Georgia | Georgia Charter Schools Association: Improve the quality of the charter school pipeline by strengthening and growing our charter incubator program.
• New York | New York City Charter School Center: Eliminate or otherwise lift/shift cap to allow for more charter schools in NYC
• New York | StudentsFirstNY: Charter cap lift

Charter Facilities

• Colorado | Colorado League of Charter Schools: Support legislation that will enhance charter school access to publicly-funded buildings and land
• Georgia | Georgia Charter Schools Association: Create a legal and policy framework for long-term charter school facilities solutions throughout the state
• Georgia | GeorgiaCAN: Explore ways to assist charter schools with facility financing
• Illinois | Illinois Network of Charter Schools: Establish charter school facilities funding task force
• Tennessee | Tennesseans for Student Success: Increase charter school facilities funding
• Tennessee | TennesseeCAN: Support legislation to increase charter school facilities funding
• Washington, D.C. | FOCUS: Equitable access to facilities

Charter Finance

• Colorado | Ready Colorado: Equalized charter funding
• Colorado | Democrats for Education Reform Colorado: Support legislation that increases funding for charter schools (CSI equalization fund)
• Connecticut | ConnCAN: Start building a strong coalition of legislators that support charter funding
• Illinois | Illinois Network of Charter Schools: Defend charter school funding equity language enacted in 2017
• Missouri | Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri: Support legislation to provide funding equity for charter schools
• New York | New York City Charter School Center: Ensure appropriate and equitable funding for charter schools
• New York | StudentsFirstNY: More funding for charter schools
• Ohio | Thomas B. Fordham Institute-Ohio: Support legislation to increase charter school funding equity
• Washington | Black Education Strategy Roundtable: Charter School equity in funding: access to local levy funds
• Washington | Democrats for Education Reform Washington: Charter school funding fairness

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)

• Georgia | GeorgiaCAN: Support ESA legislation for prioritized student populations
• Tennessee | TennesseeCAN: Support successful ESA implementation

Open Enrollment

• Delaware | DelawareCAN: Remove barriers in Delaware’s school choice application process
• Washington, D.C. | Democrats for Education Reform District of Columbia: Introduce legislation that will create a voluntary preference and seat set asides for at-risk students in the My School DC Lottery

Other Policies

• Colorado | A+ Colorado: Support school districts to adopt policies that increase low-income students’ access to high quality schools
• Colorado | Ready Colorado: Educational choice via new mediums
• Florida | Foundation for Florida’s Future: Strengthen, expand and secure funding for Florida’s choice programs
• Hawaii | HawaiiKidsCAN: Improve access to innovative educational options
• Illinois | Empower Illinois: Support legislation to expand tax credit scholarship program
• Ohio | Thomas B. Fordham Institute-Ohio: Continue to improve voucher programs and expand eligibility
• Missouri | Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri: Support legislation to enable private school choice
• Missouri | Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri: Build out new statewide collaborative called the MORE Network
• Missouri | Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri: Continue to support implementation of Missouri’s 2018 virtual education law
• New Mexico | NewMexicoKidsCAN: Ensure New Mexico families continue to have quality school options

Click here to return to the 2020 Network Member Priorities overview.