§7221d National activities

Summary

The Secretary of Education must split the money set aside under the law this way: use no more than 80% for competitive grants to charter management organizations to open, copy, or expand high-quality charter schools; use up to 9% for competitive grants to carry out certain activities in States that did not get a separate grant; and use whatever is left to give technical help to states and grantees, share best practices about charter schools, and study how the charter school program affects student learning. A qualifying applicant is a charter management organization. To apply, an organization must send student test scores for each school and for student subgroups, attendance and retention rates and, if available, 4-year and extended graduation rates, and any major safety, finance, or compliance problems from the past 3 years. The application must also describe how many schools will be opened or expanded, the education program and grades served, how the schools will stay open after the grant (with a multi-year budget), how students will be recruited and served including children with disabilities and English learners, any federal waivers requested, and plans to close low-performing or mismanaged schools and place their students in other good schools. The Secretary picks winners based on application quality and past success raising student achievement, a clean record on school closures and charter revocations, and good compliance history. Priority goes to applicants who plan racially and socioeconomically diverse schools, have worked with state-identified low-performing schools, plan to serve high school students, or focus on dropout recovery. Grants under the 80% and 9% rules follow the same terms as the state grants.