States most friendly to charter schools

Many factors affect the ability of a charter school to open and deliver a high-quality education to students, not the least of which are the laws that determine how such schools are established and operated.

Not all states even allow the creation of charter schools, and among those that do, the laws enacted by individual state legislatures vary widely.

For the last seven years, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has kept track of the laws regulating charter schools and the changes that have been made from year to year.  For 2016, it ranked the laws in the 42 states that allow charter schools, as well as the District of Columbia.

The Alliance says it arrives at its rankings by evaluating 20 components that it believes are essential to a strong charter school law. Among those components: no caps on charter school growth; allowance for a variety of charter schools; allowing multiple authorizers to create charter schools; adequate funding for authorizers; and comprehensive monitoring and data collection.

Here are the 10 states that have the laws most friendly to charter schools, according to the Alliance. (note: Alabama did not have a 2015 score because the state did not enact a charter school law until 2015.)