Schools became stand-alone units that answer to five central education agencies. Each school is governed by a board made up of five parents, one trustee and a principal. In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to enact legislation to allow charter schools. Since then, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Missouri have enacted charter school legislation. There is no hard data on the success of charter schools in any of these countries or states.
Charter schools are still in the experimental stage.
In Great Britain, charter schools have created competition between schools for students and created a new role for the principal, who has become more a business manager than a teacher. There is some evidence of a more bureaucratic structure at the government level to organize and monitor the grant-maintained schools.