This debut edition of Hopes, Fears, & Reality provides new data on many aspects of charter schools in the United States and examines issues and controversies surrounding reform.
In this chapter, Andrew Rotherham reviews the sudden 2004 closing of California Charter Academy, which forced 10,000 student to find new schools. This event fueled concerns about the risks faced by charter school students and parents and the possible burden on school districts that might have to find hundreds of seats on short notice. Rotherham extracts lessons from the California experience and suggests how charter authorizers and school districts can avoid catastrophic school failure and sudden mass transfers of students.
