Taking the Guesswork Out of Vendor Selection: Minnesota s Charter School Consultant Survey

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1 PROMISING PRACTICE Taking the Guesswork Out of Vendor Selection: Minnesota s Charter School Consultant Survey Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota SUMMARY Unlike traditional public schools that rely on the district s central offi ce for the delivery of essential goods and services, many charter schools have to make these decisions and manage operations on their own. Although a growing number of service providers offer everything from curriculum packages to accounting services, charter school leaders often are hard pressed to know which one provides the best goods and services. In this promising practice profi le, the National Resource Center on Charter School Promising Practice in: Charter School Finance Charter School Governance Implemented by: State Policymaker Charter Authorizer Charter Operator Other Inside: Implementation Details Impact Lessons Learned Additional Comments Useful Resources Contact Information Finance and Governance highlights the biannual Charter School Consultant Survey conducted by the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. The survey provides charter school leaders in the state with information on vendors used by charter schools, including a numerical ranking of the quality of services provided. BACKGROUND The Center for School Change (CSC) initiated the Charter School Consultant Survey in spring 2001 following a needs assessment survey that asked Minnesota charter school directors what information would be most valuable to them. The needs assessment survey included a list of activities the CSC could undertake, such as workshops on ways to assess student achievement beyond standardized tests. More than 70 percent of Minnesota charter school directors responded to this survey and indicated that their highest priority was obtaining information from other charter directors about their experience with vendors. In addition to the results of the needs assessment, CSC staff had heard several complaints about vendors that were selling services to charter schools and not providing complete information on their services and fees and that were not delivering the services they

2 had promised. CSC director Joe Nathan notes that charter school leaders often have limited experience with contracting and contractual relationships and generally need to obtain services from several vendors. This makes selecting and working with vendors diffi cult. The Charter School Consultant Survey aims to provide charter school leaders with meaningful feedback from schools that have had actual experience with the vendors. IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS Every two years, the CSC surveys charter school directors in Minnesota to ask them about their experiences with the outside consultants and vendors they use at their schools. The charter school leaders are asked to focus on two to four service providers with which they have had signifi cant experience, including organizations that provide: audit, tax, accounting, and other business services; food services; curriculum and evaluation services; human resources services; information technology services; payroll and legal services; project management aid; special education services; staff development and workshops; and strategic planning assistance. Charter school leaders rate the quality of the services provided on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 equating to very poor and 5 equating to excellent, and the CSC compiles the ratings and posts the average ratings on its website. Survey responses are collected through phone calls and s to all charter schools. The CSC requires at least two thirds of the state s charter schools to respond before publishing the data. In addition, only service providers receiving a rating from at least two charter schools are included in the survey results. The most recent consultant survey was completed by more than 90 of the state s 132 charter schools operating in the school year, with broad representation across the state. In addition, charter authorizers in the state are invited to participate in the survey based on their knowledge of the vendors used among the charter schools they authorize. According to Nathan, collecting the data and analyzing the information constitute the major costs of conducting the survey. The CSC at fi rst ed the survey to charter school leaders, but staff found they received a much higher response rate through phone interviews. However, the time and personnel costs are much higher when the data are collected by phone. IMPACT Users of the Charter School Consultant Survey fi ndings charter school directors, members of charter school boards, charter school authorizers, Minnesota Department of Education offi cials, and vendors report that the type of information provided is quite valuable. Many new charter school leaders have no or limited experience with the wide variety of vendors that sell goods and services to charter schools. The Center for School Change s Charter School Consultant Survey is the Angie s List of charter school services in Minnesota. Justin Testerman, Volunteers of America Doug Thomas, executive director of the EdVisions Cooperative, notes, [The surveys] are useful to help charter schools know who s out there and what services are available. Many charter school leaders are new to the charter school community and lack contacts that would enable them to gather the information on their own. As Thomas notes, It is useful for charter schools to have some idea of degree of satisfaction with vendors. Survey information has helped charter leaders make more informed decisions when evaluating and selecting service providers. Beth Topoluk, charter school liaison for authorizer Friends of Ascension, observes, What could be more valuable than enabling charter schools to wisely use their limited resources? The consultant survey is a charter school s fi rst stop for help when contracting with third parties. Justin Testerman, director of the Charter School Sponsorship Program for authorizer Volunteers of America, calls the Charter School Consultant Survey the Angie s List of charter school services in Minnesota and notes that as charter schools have grown in our state, the marketplace for supporting services has grown with it. An increase in vendors means increased choice for charter operators, but investigating and deciding on the available options can also prove diffi cult and time consuming for charter leaders. There are a lot of vendors out there that will take advantage of charter schools, asserts Aaron Drevlow, director of Great River School in St. Paul. When he joined Great River, he quickly discovered that the vendors with 2

3 which the school was contracting were very poorly rated in the Center for School Change s survey. We let go of a number of our vendors, went with different vendors, and found success.... The survey takes some of the fear out of deciding which consultants to use. Terry Tofte, executive director of the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, concurs that the survey provides invaluable information for school leaders looking for consulting support in areas in which they have little expertise and consequently fi nd it diffi cult to discriminate between qualifi ed and unqualifi ed vendors.... [The survey] enhances the likelihood that school improvement initiatives attempted by charter schools will be successful. Similarly, Aaron North, current director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association and former director of the Minnesota Charter School Resource Center, reports that association members would like to start something similar in Missouri, noting that the survey frees up charter school leaders to focus on student achievement. In addition to the benefi ts it affords charter school leaders, the survey has proven useful to vendors. Vendors that are given a good rating experience higher visibility and increased business. Nathan indicates that some vendors advertise at conferences that they are rated highly by CSC s survey. Mike Finger of School Business Solutions, Inc., a vendor that helps school business offi ces handle such tasks as payroll, disbursements, and fi nancial reporting, describes the importance of the survey this way: As one of the earliest service providers for charter schools in the state, we know all too well that the early charter school vendor marketplace has had its share of providers with questionable motives and quality. Those providers, and the bad press they generate, put all providers in the market at risk. The Center for School Change s survey, for the fi rst time, provided a place for comparison and measurement suddenly client satisfaction, not just sales pitch, could be compared. The survey unquestionably helped speed the much-needed maturing process for the entire marketplace. Vendors suddenly realized that poor quality and questionable results, as refl ected in client satisfaction, would be compared against others who had better results. Those with strong results could point to an outside source to document their value, which is a strong tool when dealing with new [and] energetic, but inexperienced, charter school boards. Unquestionably, our survey results have helped our organization grow and solidify a strong reputation. LESSONS LEARNED Implementation Challenges Nathan identifies several implementation challenges for states wanting to conduct a survey similar to CSC s Charter School Consultant Survey. Most of Minnesota s charter schools are located in the St. Paul/Minneapolis metropolitan area, so the consultant survey is highly relevant to most of the state s charter schools because they share the vendor pool. In addition, some vendors operate throughout the state; rating them is therefore useful to charter school operators throughout the state. However, ratings given to vendors focusing on rural areas are not particularly relevant to charter schools operating in the major metropolitan areas. In states where charter schools are dispersed across the state, the information given by one charter school operator may not be as useful to other operators in different locations if vendors do not operate there or the schools operate under very different circumstances. Nathan stresses the need to consider state context; the relative prevalence of local versus statewide vendors and the geographic distribution of charter schools suggest that states wanting to adopt this promising practice may need to survey at a local district or regional level rather than statewide. In addition, Nathan warns that some state charter school associations rely on vendors for sponsorship and fees paid at state conferences. In some cases, vendors pay member dues to the state association. This may mean that a state resource center is not well suited to conduct an independent survey of service providers on which it relies for revenue. In CSC s case, some vendors that have been rated poorly have been very unhappy with the negative publicity. In one instance, an unhappy vendor threatened to sue the CSC. For this reason, survey administrators in some states have opted to publish only positive reports of vendors rather than including low as well as high ratings. For example, the state charter school association in California opted to publish a vendor catalogue including only vendors with letters of support from at least two charter school leaders. Finally, Nathan adds that reaching charter school directors when they have time to respond is a challenge. These 3

4 people often wear multiple hats, he says, and unless they see a direct benefi t to participating, they may be reluctant to spend the time required to complete the survey. Nonetheless, users who have had a positive experience with a particular vendor are often eager to share that experience with others. As Karen Rusthoven, director of the Community of Peace Charter School in St. Paul notes, I have been happy to have the opportunity to share information about some of the excellent people we have worked with through the years. Keys to Success Nathan identifi es several factors that have led to the success of this promising practice. His advice for others considering whether to conduct a similar survey includes: Include a description of the research methods with the published survey; be sure to address issues such as the validity, reliability, and transparency of the data. Ensure a high response rate. CSC requires 2/3 of all charter schools to respond before publishing the results. Do not modify respondents answers or summarize their thoughts. Vendors can take issue if the results are paraphrased. Survey all charter schools in the state/area. This will ensure that no bias is perceived (e.g., by only surveying that have had problems with vendors). ADDITIONAL COMMENTS In the school year, the CSC worked with Humphrey Institute graduate students to compile several short case studies of relationships between charter schools and service providers, looking at both positive and negative experiences. Service providers and charter directors were interviewed so that both perspectives could be shared. From the case studies, as well as interviews with charter directors, the CSC developed a list of recommendations on the use of service providers. The recommendations include advice about what to do and what not to do to increase the likelihood that the relationship between the service provider and the charter school will accomplish the intended goals (see Tips section below). Tips from Charter School Consultant Case Studies Be as clear and specifi c as possible in writing a contract. The clearer you can be about what you want and when you want it, the more likely you are to get it. If it sounds too good to be true, trust your gut. Some consultants make promises they cannot fulfi ll. Some consultants make offers that turn out to be much more complex than initially presented. The least expensive is not always the way to go; the most expensive is not always best. Sometimes consultants who do a really good job for some schools get so busy that the quality of their work suffers. USEFUL RESOURCES The Center for School Change website, has the results of the latest Charter School Consultant Survey, along with recommendations from charter directors and selected consultants on how to get the most from a consultant-charter relationship. CONTACT INFORMATION Joe Nathan, Director Center for School Change Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs University of Minnesota th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN jnathan@umn.edu 4

5 This Profi le is one in a series highlighting promising practices in charter school fi nance and governance implemented by state policymakers, charter authorizers, and charter operators across the country. This Profi le was written by the Center on Educational Governance for the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance (NRC). Promising practices are selected from nominations received by the NRC on the basis of innovativeness, evidence of positive impact, and potential for transferability and usefulness. The NRC has not conducted program evaluations of the initiatives profi led and does not endorse particular policies, practices, or programs. For more information on this Profi le, please contact the Center on Educational Governance at (213) The contents of this Profi le were developed under a grant from the Department of Education (Grant No. U282N060012). However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal government. To nominate a promising practice for inclusion in this series, go to nomination.asp. 5