Not long ago, very few people had ever heard of charter schools. That’s understandable, as the first charter school only opened in 1992 (in Minnesota). As recently as the year 2000, when I would tell people in Philadelphia that I worked with charter schools, the most common reaction I would get was “What is a charter school?” and “How much does it cost?” Fast forward to today, 33 years after the opening of the first school, and now there are over 8,000 charter schools serving over 3.7 million students in 45 states–and there are almost as many charter school students in Philadelphia as there are traditional public school students. So, how did we get here? Was there a particular person who made a significant contribution to the rapid growth of these schools? And can understanding where charter schools have come from give us an idea of where they may be headed? Read on–let’s see if we can dig into these questions a bit.

How did we get here?

Education in America is a product of 50 individual state systems (and the District of Columbia), with much responsibility for carrying out academic goals left to individual localities such as School Districts. When the National Governor’s Association and then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and Governor (of Arkansas) Bill Clinton began pushing for America’s students to be more prepared to meet the demands of an increasingly globally competitive marketplace in the 1980s (e.g., billions of people entering the workforce from China and other Asian countries and Europe organizing as a competitive block), many ideas for how to bring more innovation to a relatively staid public education model began to be introduced. One of those ideas was charter schools–public schools run by nonprofits to serve parents and students who felt their current school district schools were not meeting their needs. The idea of “teacher-directed” charter schools (vs. school administrator directed) was first proposed by Al Shanker, head of the influential and powerful teacher’s union–the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Borrowing from this idea, one of the biggest advocates, and “influencers” of charter schools was a Minnesotan named Joe Nathan.

Was there a particularly influential person who helped the spread of charter schools?

Education advocate Joe Nathan is often credited as a leader of the movement, promoting and writing about the idea of charter schools as a way to improve American education. His widely popular book “Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity for American Education” (1996) told the story of the first schools and explored the idea of how charter schools could serve as laboratories and proving grounds for new methods that could spread throughout the larger public education system. What many people don’t know about Mr. Nathan is that he worked with the National Governor’s Association to develop a set of questions and guidelines for reforming education starting in the mid 1980s (Time for Results – The Governors’ 1991 Report on Education. Note: The 1991 date in the report was a target date for realizing reforms, not the date the report was published).  Following his introduction to the idea by Al Shanker in the late ‘80s, he worked with Minnesota’s governor and legislation to craft a law that ultimately became the first such charter school law in the nation in 1991.  Nathan’s vision, promoted tirelessly from that point on, was to create educational opportunities for kids and parents across the U.S. that provided free, unique experiences with no barriers to entry. Charter schools would be free from much of the regulations that were hampering changes to regular public schools. The innovative new schools would be started by teachers, parents, or other groups eager to make new paths in education.

So, where do charter schools go from here?

While charter schools only serve about 8% of America’s 50 million students today (2025), the number of charter schools and students has been steadily growing–even while the number of K-12 students in traditional public schools has stalled or fallen. Charter schools have increasingly provided opportunities for invention, increased parental choice and brought new models of accountability to education. With the future of U.S. public education in flux, it’s helpful to think of how charter schools can continue to provide opportunities for kids to learn and teachers to teach in innovative ways that don’t conform to a “one-size-fits-all” model of school.  

Charter schools are publicly funded, with oversight by state governments and their designees, such as local school districts and universities. In exchange for increased autonomy over things like curriculum, school day or school year configuration, charter schools operate with more accountability than typical public schools. They are required to meet objectives and benchmarks outlined in their charters (contracts between a school and its authorizing body, i.e., school district, state, nonprofit organization). The real selling point of charter schools is in their experimental design. Unlike most district-run schools, charter schools are allowed to develop unique curricula, teaching strategies, and governance models. Their ability to continue to operate is predicated on their ability to meet the educational goals established in their charters; if they fail, they risk being closed down. Their blend of flexibility and accountability creates ideal opportunities for educational exploration, and the potential for better outcomes for some underserved students. 

Charter schools have a multitude of unique offerings.

Charter schools often have more flexibility in geographic boundaries than traditional public schools, which are often bound by tight geographical zones. Students don’t have to attend the school closest to their home, which enables many students to break free of the low performing schools often associated with lower income neighborhoods. In this way, the schools can be seen as a way to level the playing field, providing a free, innovative option outside of a struggling neighborhood. The alternative has long been for parents who wanted better options to attempt to move closer to better schools, which for many parents is not desirable or affordable. The specific teaching philosophies or special learning methods charter schools offer may better align with a certain child’s learning style or educational needs than their local option. Schools offering innovative approaches like mixed grades, project-based learning or flipped classrooms can be provided by charter schools to better meet the diverse needs of students. Allowing parents to seek out the best possible fit for their children’s education without affecting their budgets encourages personalized, engaged approaches to meet individual learning needs. This may be the biggest advantage of all that charter schools provide–more engagement between parents, students and school teachers and administrators as they stay focused on the needs of individual children and their parents. The communities they provide create the proverbial mission-driven village that it takes to fully raise a child.

Charter schools have great potential to drive educational innovation, running for the most part outside of district regulations while they experiment with different teaching methods, school structures, and programs. Age-old problems within public education can be addressed and even solved more easily with the structural freedom afforded to charter schools. They empower families with greater choice, raise accountability standards, and contribute to efforts to close student achievement gaps. Recent studies of charter schools have found that they are outperforming traditional public schools, including an extensive study of charter schools nationwide conducted by Stanford University (https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/charter-schools-are-outperforming-traditional-public-schools-6-takeaways-from-a-new-study/2023/06).  

Charter schools can not only impact individual neighborhoods and families, their influence has been found to ripple outward to influence other surrounding schools. When a charter school successfully applies a new teaching strategy or educational model, traditional public schools may adopt similar methods to improve their own student performance and outcomes. Additionally, the accountability and outcomes-reporting focus of charter schools can provide an outcomes-orientation model for surrounding schools. The more schools talk about their students’ academic achievements and the value they are adding to their knowledge and skills, the more surrounding schools will be expected to focus on demonstrating the contributions of their own offerings to their students. With an emphasis on publishing student academic outcomes, the public can easily track a charter school’s students’ progress, at least theoretically. Different states have different accountability reporting requirements, which are not necessarily clear when indicating the strength of a charter or regular public school. Regardless of the configuration of the state accountability reporting system, the focus on demonstrating outcomes means that parents are constantly in a position to consider and evaluate whether their child’s school is a place where that child can be successful. If the current situation appears to not be working for a child, with charter schools the parent has an option to make another choice- either to move to another charter school or back to a district school. This pressure to continually attract parents means charter schools are generally oriented toward making ongoing improvements in their offerings and in their ability to serve parents and students well.  

Although charter schools are still only a relatively small part of the educational ecosystem in America, they are vitally important, serving millions of students with a wide variety of alternatives to traditional public schools. The ideas generated by and tested by charter schools serve to move the entire K-12 education industry forward. As we move into the next generation of charter schools, and as America seeks to build a better education system for all, we hope that we can see more of their initial promise realized. We hope that more of the innovative ideas, themes, and practices can spill out to more traditional public schools and private schools through a wider sharing of ideas and conversations about what we as a community think is best for America’s children. Charter schools may never become the central operating model for American education, but they hold immense promise for inspiring teachers, parents and students to innovate and tackle the many challenges that living in a globally interconnected, densely populated world creates for us now and in the future. Let’s make sure they continue to bring new light and new opportunities for students in this country, just as Joe Nathan envisioned for us three decades ago.