The American state of Minnesota passed the country’s first charter school law in the early 1990s. Since then, charter schools have spread from coast to coast. There are currently more than 6,700 charter schools, educating nearly 3 million students nationwide. Those numbers come from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a non-profit organization. Charter schools are a kind of public school that receives a special charter, or written rules, from a state government. A charter is a document, or series of documents, that gives rights to a person or group of individuals. Charter schools cannot require students to pay tuition for their education. The schools also cannot set admissions requirements. If too many young people asked to be admitted, the school must choose its students through a lottery system. Charter schools are different from public schools in many ways.