We’re excited to recognize NACSA’s 2025 Change Makers—individuals whose leadership and dedication are helping to move authorizing forward. From improving systems and policies to supporting schools and students on the ground, these Change Makers exemplify what it means to lead with purpose and impact. Congratulations to our 2025 Change Makers:

• Talia Gerstle
  Senior Policy and Communications Manager, BluePrint Labs
• Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter
  Managing Director, LeveragED Foundation
• Raj Thakkar
  Founder & CEO, Charter School Business Management
• Robin Lake
  Director, Center on Reinventing Public Education
• Colleston Morgan, Jr.
  Executive Director, City Forward Collective

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Dive deep into NACSA's recently released 2025 State Policy Recommendations with Veronica Brooks-Uy, NACSA's Senior Vice President of Strategy, Policy & Research.

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This episode takes you inside NACSACon 2025, where NACSA President and CEO Dr. Karega Rausch delivered powerful remarks about why strong foundational authorizing policies and practices have never been more important. It also features a special collaboration with our friends at the Charter School Growth Fund. CSGF President and host of the Leader to Leader podcast, Darryl Cobb, sits down with Dr. Adriana Tamez to discuss what it takes to build and sustain great public schools.

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At its core, academic oversight is about answering a single, powerful question: Are schools academically successful? NACSA's Academic Framework Guidance helps authorizers answer this question by capturing the impact a school has—or doesn’t have—on its primary stakeholders: students.

David Greenberg, NACSA’s Vice President of Authorizer Learning and Development, sits down with Jermaine Curtis, Charter School Coordinator, and Steve Osbourne, Student Opportunity Officer, at the Rhode Island Department of Education, and Ryan Marks, Chief of Authorizing and Accountability at the Colorado Charter School Institute, to dig into academic frameworks and accountability.

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Jay Whalen, NACSA’s Director of Authorizer and School Quality, and Dr. Windy Stephenson, Founding Executive Director at the Voorhees University Charter Institute of Learning, describe how NACSA supported Voorhees—which became a charter school authorizer in 2024—in developing and implementing its first new school application cycle.

Explore NACSA's New School Application Guidance.

Looking for tailored support? Contact Elisa Westapher at elisaw@qualitycharters.org

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Over the past year, we’ve been listening—to authorizers, educators, families—and asking a critical question: What does accountability look like in today’s context? The answers are reshaping how we think about our work.

In this episode, NACSA leaders David Greenberg and Veronica Brooks-Uy dive deep into the challenges authorizers face right now, and share NACSA’s renewed vision and strategy for equipping them with the knowledge, tools, and support to ensure every child has access to a high-quality school.

Register to join us in Houston, TX, October 20-23 for NACSACon 2025.

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In this rapid rewind, we’re giving you the most powerful moments from several pivotal conversations about the new school application. NACSA’s David Greenberg, Rachel Hannah with Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, Jason Moore with Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, Laurie Schroeder with Innovative Quality Schools, NACSA’s Jay Whalen, and Mabel Lajes-Guiteras, with Seed at Charter School Growth Fund, provide key insights into how NACSA is reimagining the new school application process.

Resources:

• After a Quarter Century: Time to Reboot the New School Application Process
• NACSA's New School Application Guidance
• The Power of People in the New School Application Process
• Accountability From the Start
• New School Applications: Shifting Rigor

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Chelsea Waite and Janette Avelar with the Center on Reinventing Public Education provide practical takeaways and trends from the most recent Canopy Project report.

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