Favorability was even higher among inner city parents. What's more, charter schools have also begun to reshape the educational landscape in Massachusetts for the better. Already, the competition from charter schools has helped reform-minded education leaders in Boston and other communities implement changes in regular public schools. Among the other promising practices in charter schools are a longer school day and year, longer class periods, school uniforms, more homework, individualized approaches to learning, character education, foreign language instruction at early grades, extraordinary teacher autonomy, and strict codes of conduct. These and other innovations in teaching, testing, governance, and finance, which are at the center rather than the periphery of charter school designs, doubtless will be borrowed and improved upon by reformers in other public schools.
People often ask what the main differences are between charter schools and other public schools.
Another difference is that charter schools have the freedom to pursue a mission, use innovative approaches, and create a budget, schedule, and curriculum without the constraints of collective bargaining agreements or school district rules. While different in these and other ways, let me reiterate that charter schools must follow the same state standards, take the same tests, and abide by most the same laws and regulations as other public schools. Taken together, the charter school initiative has made a promising start, but this early success does not mean that charter schools in Massachusetts can claim to have achieved their goals or that the waters ahead will be smooth. The single greatest challenge charter schools face, however, is a lack of access to capital for the acquisition, expansion, or improvement of adequate school facilities. While the Commonwealth provides charter schools with operating funds equal to the average cost per student of the school districts in which their students reside, charter schools receive neither facilities nor funding to acquire or renovate them.