Turning around low-performing schools is hard. Strategies financed by federal dollars have shown disappointing results, and states have avoided fundamental reforms even as they hired specialists and retrained school staff. State leaders can adopt or adapt three approaches already in use if they want to go beyond cosmetic remedies for troubled…

The purpose of this brief is to support stakeholders in their efforts to influence how states use the mandatory 7 percent Title I school improvement set-aside in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)--an allocation that could total more than $5 billion nationwide over the next five years. First, the authors provide an overview of the ESSA's school…

Charter schools have thrust state boards of education into new roles. Some directly authorize charters, some do so only on appeal, and some do neither. This article examines a relatively recent addition to this task list: evaluation and oversight of charter authorizers, the entities charged with approving and monitoring charter schools.

In this article, "Education Next" talks with Matthew Ladner and Nelson Smith on the topic of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). ESAs apply the logic of school choice to the ever-expanding realm of education offerings. Rather than simply empowering families to select the school of their choice, ESAs provide families with most or all of…

In "Redefining the School District in America," Nelson Smith reexamines existing recovery school districts (RSDs)--entities in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Michigan charged with running and turning around their state's worst schools--and assembles the most comprehensive catalog of similar initiatives underway and under consideration…

School districts held an exclusive franchise on public education services until 1991, when Minnesota passed the first law permitting public charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded, authorized by various agencies designated in public law, but independently managed. They operate outside district control, and most can draw students from…

What happens when policymakers create statewide school districts to turn around their worst-performing public schools? In Louisiana and Tennessee, Recovery School Districts (RSDs) have made modest-to-strong progress for kids and serve as national models for what the future of education governance might hold. In the Great Lakes State, the story is…

Traditional public school districts hold a monopoly over the financing and ownership of public education facilities. With rare exceptions, public charter schools have no legal claim to these buildings. This monopoly is an accident of history. It would never have developed had there been substantial numbers of other public schools, not supervised…

As the challenges of education governance loom ever larger and the dysfunction and incapacity of the traditional K-12 system reveal themselves as major roadblocks to urgently needed reforms across that system, many have asked, "What's the alternative?" Part of the answer is the Recovery School District, a new state-created entity that…

Is it time for Ohio to take bolder steps toward turning around its most troubled schools and districts? If so, what might the alternatives look like? Options for rebooting these troubled schools have come in the form of mayoral control, state takeovers, market competition through charter schools and other choice programs, as well as millions of…

"Reopening the school as a public charter school" is Option #1 on the list of NCLB's restructuring alternatives for failing schools. But this has not proved a popular choice. NCLB made the bold assumption that states and districts would voluntarily turn over the reins to charter operators. The authors of the legislation must have…

The Texas example illustrates the challenge faced by today's charter movement: how to meet growing demand while maintaining quality. Its considerable progress is sometimes obscured by headlines about the few schools at the top that generate enormous excitement and world-class achievement and the few at the bottom that use their autonomy for unwise…

This brief examines critical issues that charter schools and their authorizers will face as states respond to the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) new accountability provisions. The first section provides a context for the NCLB and summarizes its major accountability provisions, discussing timelines for states to put these systems into place and…

Data from a variety of sources were used to examine the status of charter schools in California. Home to 415 charter schools enrolling 157,000 students, about 2.4% of all public school students in the state, California is at the forefront of the charter school movement, with the number of charter schools increasing rapidly. The average overall…

This paper reviews how the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) will operate regarding different groups of students and schools, examining factors that could delay or dilute its guarantee of educational accountability for the academic achievement of all children. It discusses such issues as: what kinds of tests must be used and when, who must…