This is the third SERVE publication about charter school issues. It focuses on implementation concerns confronting policymakers and state-education agencies, with particular emphasis on charter-related issues and recommendations for policymakers. The text focuses on strategies for drafting charter school legislation, issues that affect state-agency staffing, concerns in screening charter applications, and other materials that relate to accountability, monitoring, racial balance, funding, groups other than state boards, bridging the gap between charters and other public schools, and barriers to change. These chapters are followed by a series of policy briefs: "Selecting High-Quality Charter Schools," by Bryan Hassel; "The False Friends of Charter Schools: What Policymakers Can Do," by Gregg Vanourek, Bruno V. Manno, and Chester E. Finn, Jr.; "A Close Look at Charters: What Your Board Needs To Know Before You Accept a Proposal for a Charter School," by Judith Brody Saks; and "A Study of Charter Schools: First Year Report--May 1997," an executive summary which provides the highlights from the first-year report of the National Study of Charter Schools, a 4-year research effort to document and analyze the charter-school movement. (Five appendices include information on charter-school resources, the status of charter schools in the southeastern U.S., and other data.) (RJM)