This guide is designed to provide guidance and practical help for the administrator to successfully fulfill the enormous responsibilities and avoid many operational challenges. This guide summarizes what a charter school administrator needs to be aware of and offers links to resources where more detailed information in a specific area can be found.

The U.S. test-based accountability model holds schools and teachers accountable for student outcomes with little attention to school improvement processes. Many other countries enact more school-centered accountability efforts, such as school self-evaluation followed by inspection (SSE/I) to examine school quality, as in similar systems in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Netherlands. Accountability models from other countries cannot be naively...