Since the early 1990s when charter schools were first established, the number of charter schools and students enrolled in them has grown significantly. Charter school enrollment reached nearly four million students in the 2024-2025 school year, representing about 7% of all public school students in the country. By 2025, 47 states and the District of Columbia had passed laws allowing charter schools to operate. States with the highest charter school enrollment include California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona.
Support for charter schools is not universal, and tensions persist between traditional public education and charter school advocates. Nonetheless, charter schools have a significant role in the K-12 educational ecosystem and are a valued option within many communities. Among the factors that undergird the popularity of charters is the fact that many believe they offer choices for families to select an educational setting and model that aligns with their preferences, needs, or values. For example, some charter schools offer specialized programs (e.g., STEM, arts, language immersion) that might not be available in traditional public schools in some areas. Others focus on serving students in economically disadvantaged areas or from historically underserved populations that provide high-quality educational options in areas where such options might be limited. Finally, some charter schools offer smaller class sizes or student-to-teacher ratios, which can lead to more individualized attention for students.
Leveraging Federal Dollars for Brand Expansion
Among the many charter management organizations (CMOs) is ResponsiveEd Texas (formerly Responsive Education Solutions), a non-profit organization authorized by the Texas Education Agency and Arkansas Department of Education to operate charter schools for students in grades Pre-K through 12. ResponsiveEd was founded in 1998 to develop a dropout prevention and recovery program in 15 locations (known as Premier High School), specifically tailored to meet the needs and interests of educationally disadvantaged and disaffected high school students. ResponsiveEd has since expanded its offerings to five distinct charter school models operating in 123 tuition-free schools in Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, and Arizona and serving a combined population of over 25,000 students in grades K-12.
In 2019, ResponsiveEd engaged Metis to support the development of a discretionary grant application to the U.S. Department of Education’s Expanding Opportunities through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP) to replicate and expand its successful school models. Working closely with the ResponsiveEd team, Metis developed a winning CSP application, which proposed to replicate or expand 10 sites across three brands (Classical, Premier High School, and the Foundation School for Autism) in the state of Texas. Reflecting an ambitious scale-up plan, ResponsiveEd proposed to add 1,406 seats across five campuses, increasing to an additional 5,026 seats across all 10 schools by the end of the grant. ResponsiveEd was one of only 15 charter management organizations to secure these funds with a five-year grant in the amount of $14,945,568.
Turning the Curve for At-Risk Youth
The following year, ResponsiveEd again turned to Metis for help with a second CSP grant. Returning to its roots, in 2020, ResponsiveEd applied to the US Department of Education to replicate or expand 27 Premier High Schools (PHSs) across Texas and Arkansas. The winning grant, among only 13 awarded nationwide, provided $40,804,633 to support a more than 25,000 at-risk population of students across urban, suburban, and rural areas. With the grant, ResponsiveEd expanded and augmented its proven PHS model by adding new career and technical education (CTE) programs, providing comprehensive postsecondary counseling and supports for all students through its Project Path program, and implementing a research-based social emotional program called Capturing Kids Hearts across all campuses.
Expanding Nationwide Reach and Innovation
Building on the success of its previous CSP grants, ResponsiveEd partnered with Metis once again in 2025 to pursue its most ambitious expansion to date. The organization applied for a five-year CSP grant in the amount of $72,054,096 to support 36 program sites across four states—Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, and Arizona. This comprehensive initiative is designed to replicate 27 high-quality charter schools, expand eight existing campuses, and reopen one poor-performing school under ResponsiveEd management. The project encompasses three of ResponsiveEd’s innovative educational models: Founders Classical Academy, iSchool (STEM-focused early college high schools), and PHS. By the end of the five-year project period, ResponsiveEd will serve a total of 26,286 students in grades K-12, offering both brick-and-mortar and virtual learning options. The expansion includes reopening a failing public school, as a Founders Classical Academy, demonstrating ResponsiveEd’s continued commitment to turning around struggling schools and providing high-quality educational options to educationally disadvantaged students across multiple states.
Measuring Success
Since 2019, Metis has supported ResponsiveEd’s two CSP grants as an external evaluator. In this role, Metis has gathered and analyzed data to fulfill federal reporting and evaluation requirements and has worked with ResponsiveEd to provide formative feedback on the implementation and impact of grant-funded activities and services. Metis administers surveys to and conducts interviews with various members of the school communities, including students, parents, teachers, and school leaders to learn about their experiences in grant-funded schools and to help ResponsiveEd document and augment its impact.
Through comprehensive evaluation of both grants, Metis documented significant achievements in expanding access to high-quality education. Across both initiatives, ResponsiveEd successfully replicated its proven models at 21 new campuses and expanded 11 additional sites, providing new educational opportunities for close to 4,000 students, most of whom were educationally disadvantaged students. Stakeholder satisfaction with the schools was consistently high throughout both grants, with over 85% of parents and students reporting they were satisfied with the education they received.
Metis’s CSP grant evaluations also documented impressive student achievement gains. Four-year graduation rates increased by 8 percentage points; college and career readiness rates jumped by 22 percentage points to reach 67% and reading proficiency improved across both grant programs. These gains met or surpassed statewide averages, which is impressive for schools that serve high proportions of educationally disadvantaged students. Additionally, PHS students gained valuable career preparation through expanded CTE programming, with industry-based certification rates almost doubling. Throughout both grants, families consistently praised the flexible, self-paced learning environment, caring teachers, and opportunities for credit recovery—core strengths of ResponsiveEd’s model that enabled thousands of at-risk students to successfully earn their high school diplomas and prepare for postsecondary success.
Winning over $110 million in federal funding across three cycles took both strong proposal and a proven organizational track record of results. See how our grant writing services and program evaluation services work together to help charter networks like this one grow.