Charter schools were developed to integrate the strongest attributes of public and private education. They are secular and tuition free public schools. Using smaller classroom settings and more flexible rules and regulations, they provide for more individualized attention.

Charter schools also offer teachers and staff greater opportunity for ownership and professional growth by making them more accountable through performance-based rewards and incentives. Parents and community members also have a significant role in charter school decision-making.

What is an Accelerated School?

Accelerated Schools PLUS (AS PLUS) is a national endeavor designed to transform whole school communities – especially those set apart by high poverty, low academic performance and remediation -- to enriched environments characterized by accelerated instruction and gifted and talented teaching strategies that have been traditionally reserved for only the top 5% of students. The Accelerated Schools Project was conceived, founded, and developed by Professor Henry M. Levin at Stanford University in 1986, to address these communities and the questions and challenges presented in the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (United States Department of Education, 1983). Since its inception in 1986-87, Accelerated Schools have reached over 1,500 elementary, middle, and high schools. Now located at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, AS PLUS works in partnership with the National Research Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.