Policy & Advocacy

Phil Andrews has been advocating for positive charter school legislation in Georgia since 2002. In that time he has gained valuable experience in the most effective ways to support legislation and assist in achieving its passage. His lobbying efforts helped to achieve the following major changes in Georgia’s Charter Schools Act:

• Restoration of automatic waivers from most state and local regulations for charter schools.
• Clarifying language regarding the funding for charter schools.  These 2005 changes resulted in many under-funded charter schools receiving more than $1,000 per student in operating funding over what they had received before the legislation was passed.  In some cases schools are receiving more than $2,000 in additional funding per student.
• Creation of a needs based, per pupil funding program to provide state funds to help charter schools pay for facilities and other capital needs.
• Initial appropriation of $500,000 for the capital funding program in the fiscal year 2006 Georgia state budget.
• Appropriation of an additional $950,000 for the capital funding program in the fiscal year 2007 Georgia state budget.

Phil brings that advocacy experience to Charter School Solutions along with countless hours studying and analyzing charter school laws and regulations and service on many committees and working groups dealing with best practices in charter school policy. Serving on these committees has allowed Phil to interact with many national leaders in charter school policy. As a result, CSS is able to provide clients with a detailed analysis of the charter school laws in their state and to help those clients develop strategic plans to promote improvements to those laws. As part of this work Phil co-authored an Issue Brief with Todd Ziebarth of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools called “Accelerating the Success of Kansas Charter Schools” in February of 2008.