The most important burden of charter schools is the need to demonstrate that the instruction they provide actually benefits students. They can hire their own teachers, make their own tradeoffs between spending on administration and teaching, locate anywhere in the community, and let parents know in advance what a child must do to succeed in the school. Therefore, charter schools are exempt from many rules, and instead are required to demonstrate student learning. Unlike conventional schools, however, charter schools can lose their public funding and be forced to close if they cannot demonstrate that their students are indeed learning. The question becomes whether performance can replace compliance as a mechanism of accountability to government? Does dependence on parents and teachers force charter schools to ignore their responsibilities to the public? This report studies individual charter schools and their authorizers with differing legal provisions in six states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Michigan. It asks how the schools' relationships with authorizers affect their day-to-day operations, and how they develop relationships of trust and confidence. Major findings regarding internal accountability are discussed. The appendix covers survey data and analysis methods. (DFR)