Decades of research point to the benefits of parent involvement in education. Research has also shown that white, middle-class parents are disproportionately involved. Charter schools, as schools of choice, have been assumed to have fewer involvement barriers for minority and low-income parents, but a 2007 survey of charter leaders found that…

Charter schools that have partnered with nonprofit, for-profit, and public organizations have leveraged a wealth of human, financial, and organizational resources to help the schools improve. The authors suggest that all schools can learn from the charter schools' experience. (Contains 8 endnotes.)

In this exploratory study, the authors examine the recent emergence of cross-sectoral alliances--organizations voluntarily working together to solve issues of mutual concern--in kindergarten through 12th-grade education. The article utilizes an economic approach to interagency collaboration and focuses on alliances in charter schools. The authors…

Examined 17 charter schools, focusing on key instructional and organizational practices that they established in their start-up years. Three major categories of issues that they all dealt with included: developing curricular and instructional programs; developing a meaningful accountability system; and developing management/leadership systems. In…

Explores legislative conditions that promote charter-school autonomy, applying a conceptual framework of autonomy to assess variations among state charter-school policies. Results suggest that state policies offer different self-governance levels and thereby influence charter schools' innovative ability and performance potential. Variations are…

Synthesizes research on the work of charter school teachers, juxtaposing it with case studies of teachers in six urban elementary charter schools. Charter schools, with increased autonomy over personnel and budget, were free to make decisions regarding hiring, salary, and working conditions. Charter teachers worked longer hours with less job…

Over the past 6 years, 28 states have authorized the creation of charter schools as an alternative form of public education. This policy brief examines the goals and implementation issues specifically related to teaching and learning. It presents findings of a study that explored how learning communities were created and sustained in 17 charter…

There has been a rapid increase over the past 5 years in both the number of charter schools in the United States and the enthusiasm for the concept. Most research about charter schools has not addressed how charter schools create and sustain high-quality learning communities. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated how learning…