Q: What is a charter school?

A charter school is an independent school operating under a “charter,” or contract, usually with the local school district.

Q: Who can start a charter school, and how are the schools funded?

Nonprofit groups, colleges and municipalities can create their own charter schools, which must be approved by the local school board. School districts then provide tax dollars to charter schools on a per-student basis, making up the bulk of their revenue. Unlike traditional school districts, charter schools cannot levy taxes.

Q: Who runs a charter school?

Charter schools are typically governed by nonprofit boards, which set policies and approve school budgets and contracts. These boards are often made up of volunteers, and sometimes include parents or educators.

Q: What is a management company and what does it do?

Management companies are for-profit entities that provide services to charter schools. Some do “back-end” services, including payroll, human resources and budgeting. Others also handle academics and classroom technology.

Q: What does a typical charter school look like?

Charter schools come in many shapes and sizes. Many have fewer than 100 students; the largest in South Florida, the City of Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary School, has almost 2,000. The schools also vary wildly in their financial health. Many struggle to break even from year to year. In Broward County, almost one-third of charter schools lost money in 2010. Yet some larger charter schools net as much as $900,000 annually.

Q: How do charter schools perform academically?

On average, children in charter schools perform about the same as their counterparts in traditional public schools on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests.

Q: What is next for charter schools?

This year, Florida school districts received almost 400 applications for new charter schools. Miami-Dade alone received 93 applications. Some are applications for virtual charter schools, which are allowed after the most recent legislative session. There are also a handful of applications for charter colleges, a new concept that could take off in South Florida.

Correction: This story originally stated that the principal and several teachers at the Ben Gamla schools in Hollywood and Plantation were significantly higher than those paid at other charter schools.

The story listed principal Sharon Miller’s salary at $225,000 and said 11 teachers make more than $100,000 yearly. According to documents from the school, Miller was actually paid $106,505 last year and the teachers were paid in the $40,000-to-$50,000 range. The incorrect figures have been removed.

The salaries reported in the story came from a database published by the Florida Department of Education, which says its salary information is provided by the local school districts, which receive the information from the schools themselves. Neither the Ben Gamla schools nor the Department of Education had an explanation for how the disputed salaries ended up in the state’s database.