At the beginning of the 1970s, busing students to public schools was common, with about 43 percent of the nation’s schoolchildren riding buses each day. Busing children from school to school in order to provide school districts with racial balance, however, was new. An individual, group of people, or Charter Management Organization (CMO) sees the need for a school that the current system is not fulfilling. The charter applicant must confirm that their state allows charter schools and that this school would be allowed under any state capacity limits. Once confirmed, the potential charter operator writes mission and/or academic statements, establishes their governance, sets a budget and identifies sources of funding, chooses a location and develops their charter application.
