Happy National Charter Schools Week!

This week, May 4 through May 10, is National Charter Schools Week. Charter schools, charter school authorizers and charter school associations across the country are holding events to raise awareness about charter schooling and celebrate the successes and growth of the nation’s 4,300 charter schools, as well as the 1.2 million students they serve.

We’ve written previously about the often overlooked potential charter schools have to improve early education. Charter schools are independent public schools of choice that are publicly funded, free of charge to students, and accountable to the public, but operated by organizations other than local school districts. Many charter schools are already delivering high-quality early elementary school programs, and are a valuable source of potential capacity as states seek to expand pre-kindergarten programs.

Moreover, charter schooling provides a model for how policymakers can integrate diverse providers into emerging state pre-k and early childhood public education systems. One key question for policymakers seeking to expand early education investments is the extent to which pre-k and other early childhood services should be delivered through public schools, or through the diverse network of “community providers”—childcare centers, community- and faith-based preschools, and private nursery school—that already serve many 3- and 4-year-olds. Charter schools, which are community providers delivering public education in the K-12 sphere, suggest that this division between “public schools” and “community providers” needn’t be so stark. Policymakers can get the best of both worlds—the community connections, diversity, and parent choice of community based providers, as well as the public school system’s academic orientation, teacher quality standards, and stability of state school funding formulas—by building pre-k and early childhood education systems premised on diverse delivery, parent choice, and public accountability.

The charter school and universal pre-k movements are also dealing with similar challenges of managing growth, ensuring quality across diverse providers, developing the supply of human capital, obtaining adequate facilities, and building political support. And they could learn from one another’s successes–and struggles–in responding to these challenges.

As both charter schooling and state pre-k continue to expand, the universal pre-k and charter school movements should be natural partners and allies in addressing these shared challenges. One of the first steps in building that partnership would be expanding the number of charter schools delivering high-quality early education programs.

Charter schools across the country are already offering high-quality early education programs. In Los Angelese, Calif., the nationally recognized Accelerated School and Camino Nuevo Charter School offer both high-quality early elementary programs and pre-k programs with funding from Los Angeles’ Universal Preschool (LAUP) program. Many Florida and Georgia charter schools offer pre-k with funding from their states’ universal pre-kindergarten programs. Here in Washington, D.C., where charter schools receive full per-pupil funding for each 3- and 4-year-old they enroll, dozens of charter schools offer programs for 3- and 4-year-olds. Even in states without significant state pre-k programs, some charter schools are able to offer pre-k programs paid for with a mixture of parent funding, private philanthropy, and federal or state childcare subsidies for low-income students.

Yet, even as many charter schools offer high-quality early education programs, others face barriers–including difficulties obtaining state pre-k funding, inadequate funding to deliver quality pre-k programs, lack of state pre-k funding, overly restrictive zoning and licensure codes–that prevent them from doing so. Going forward, both the charter school and pre-k movements must consider ways to remove these obstacles and grow the supply of charter schools offering high-quality pre-k and early education programs.

The theme of this year’s National Charter School Week is “Growing Excellence”—a theme that reflects the charter school movement’s dual goals of improving educational quality and expanding the number of school choice options available to families. National Charter Schools Week provides an opportunity to think about how charter schooling can support efforts to grow excellence in early education, as well.