Sacramento, CA: August 6, 2020 – California Charter Authorizing Professionals (CCAP) announced the appointment of charter school authorizing expert Tom Hutton as executive director.

Hutton served as the first executive director of the Hawaii State Public Charter School Commission, helping to bring oversight to a mostly unregulated sector. He had studied education law at Georgetown University, where he was part of a group of students and professors that founded the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Hutton later became a senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association and has taught education law at several universities. In recent years, he has been an independent education consultant based in Hawaii.

“The CCAP Board of Directors is very excited to welcome Tom Hutton as CCAP’s Executive Director,” said Dr. David Patterson, president of the CCAP Board of Directors. “Tom brings both a big-picture perspective and a deep understanding of specific systemwide changes necessary to support high-quality authorizing, and he has a strong commitment to equity and excellence.”

Hutton said he is excited to join CCAP as it embarks on a sweeping new project to improve charter school quality through dynamic and effective authorizing. Charter Authorizing 2.0 – Advancing Equity and Access Through Quality Authorizing (CA2.0) will provide tool kits, training, and support for California’s school district and county office of education authorizers.

He believes the work is critical to achieving the essential goal of charter schools. “The premise of chartering, to begin with, was to open up more doors of educational opportunity for students who had very few choices previously, [but] in the absence of good authorizing, those choices can be false choices,” said Hutton. “I have always been one who believes in the value, if often unrealized potential, of high quality, district-based charter authorizing and oversight.”

View the press release. View Mr. Hutton’s bio.