12 Questions to Ask on Every Charter School Tour

A school tour is a sales event. That is not cynicism; it is stagecraft, and every school does it. Your job is to ask questions the stagecraft cannot absorb. These twelve, asked politely, tell you how a school actually runs.

About teaching

1. "How long has the average teacher been here?" Charter teacher turnover varies enormously. A school that keeps teachers five-plus years has figured something out.

2. "What curriculum do you use for reading and math, and why?" You are not testing the answer; you are testing whether there is one. Strong schools answer instantly and specifically.

3. "How do you handle a student who is two grades behind in math?" The real answer involves specifics: assessment, grouping, intervention time. "Our teachers differentiate" is not an answer.

4. "Can I see a regular class in session?" Watching ten minutes of an ordinary Tuesday beats an hour of presentation. Schools that refuse are telling you something.

About results

5. "How did your students do on state tests last year, and what is the trend?" They should know cold. Then check their answer against the data yourself, and read how to interpret it honestly.

6. "How many families left last year, and why?" Attrition is the metric schools least want to discuss and the one that says the most.

About operations

7. "How does the lottery work here, exactly, and how deep did the waitlist run?" (Lottery mechanics here.)

8. "What does discipline look like in practice? Walk me through a real example."

9. "How do parents raise a concern, and how fast do you respond?"

10. "What happens when a teacher is out?" Substitute plans reveal operational maturity.

About fit

11. "What kind of student struggles here?" Honest schools answer this. Evasive ones say "everyone thrives," which is never true anywhere.

12. "Why do you work here?" Ask any teacher you pass, not the tour guide. The face before the words is the data.

Take notes, tour at least three schools, and compare answers side by side. The school that answered everything plainly is usually the school that runs plainly. Build your shortlist from your state's list first so the tours are spent deciding, not discovering.