arizona charter schools association responds

Charter School Movement Stands for Fiscally Responsible Schools
The Arizona Republic's September 2, 2007 articles appear to focus on schools that overestimated pupil counts and
had other accounting errors. The Arizona Charter Schools Association applauds the Arizona State Board for
Charter Schools for finding these bad apples through its rigorous oversight process.

The Arizona State Charter Board audit process includes:

Fluctuations in attendance are monitored from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next. When
concerns arise, the Arizona State Charter Board gets parent signatures attesting to their child’s enrollment status. In
some cases the Arizona State Charter Board has gone to schools to check attendance. In the end, those estimates
are verified through the Arizona Department of Education’s student identification system ( SAIS ).

Charter schools submit a legal compliance questionnaire to the Arizona State Charter Board every year.

The schools must submit their audits by a licensed, independent CPA. The annual financial statement and
compliance audit are conducted under government auditing standards.

When flaws are discovered the first recourse is to inform the charter of the problem. Many charter operators are
educators first, financial managers second, and need only to be made aware of the problem. A second level of
recourse is to ask for corrective action. If none is taken, a third letter informs the school that they must appear
before the Arizona State Charter Board and risk revocation of their charter.

The legislature gave the Arizona State Charter Board $308,100 for Fiscal Year 2008 to create a sophisticated
database that can track performance measures and financial compliance issues. There is an additional $265,000 for
three additional full-time staff to expand oversight.

The Arizona Department of Education recently increased its audit staff, and those auditing functions include charter
schools.

If a charter school does not submit an annual audit, ten percent of the school’s funding is withheld within a few days.

Charter schools are growing because parents want flexibility and accountability.

Charter school enrollment has increased every year since their inception. Last year, enrollment grew by 5%, with
almost 9% of the state’s students attending a charter school. These students deserve fiscally healthy schools, as
well as the education they have chosen.

Research has shown that parents know the difference between strong and weak schools. A 2003 report to the
Arizona State Board for Charter Schools noted that when asked to rate their own schools, parents gave lower scores
to the same schools that the Arizona Department of Education had also identified as lower performing. Whether from
experience or intuition, parents were aware of the quality of their school. Based on the 2006-07 AIMS test scores,
92% of charter schools were rated as “performing” or higher. A full 20% of all High Performing and Excelling schools
are charters.

In the most recent survey of parents from 2007, about 93% of respondents gave their school a grade of “B” or
higher. Almost 90% gave a “B” or higher for the individualized attention that their children received at their charter
school. And these are not charter veterans, but parents who have fresh memories of previous non-charter schools.
One-third of the students were new to charters, and over 70% had been in charters for three years or less. Parents
chose these schools mainly due to small class size (57%), but also because of the quality of teachers (45%) and
specialized curricula (40%).

Additional opportunities to help schools be fiscally responsible are welcome. The Arizona Charter Schools
Association is pursuing two options to address charter school fiscal responsibility. First, we are developing technical
assistance for charter school boards. One area we will focus on is fiscal and fiduciary responsibility. We can help
charter school boards establish sound policies prior to an audit, establish a pre-audit checklist at the beginning of
the school year, and help the schools set up internal controls. Second, we are considering an accreditation for
charter schools. In order to receive this accreditation a charter school must demonstrate a high level of fiscal control
and accountability.

The Arizona Charter Schools Association is committed to high student achievement through quality charter schools.
Sometimes a “bad apple” appears, and fortunately Arizona has a system in place to find them.