The authorizers of charter schools are an understudied piece of the charter reform process. The local school boards, state agencies, and higher education institutions that act as authorizers play a significant role in the market, determining which operators get to enter the market and which are forced to exit. This article provides an economics-based framework for understanding the objectives of authorizers that can be used to test empirically the relative importance of three main objectives: student achievement, parental satisfaction, and political influence. Which of these objectives authorizers pursue could have a significant impact on which schools are authorized and renewed and therefore on the success of the charter schools generally.