In 2023, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools elevated the voices of charter school students, educators, families, and advocates. The organization persevered through challenges and expanded access to high quality public charter schools for a greater number of students around the nation. This annual report covers what the sector…

Background/Context: In New Orleans, Louisiana, in the years following Hurricane Katrina, predominantly white education reformers have used entrepreneurial support to dismantle the predominantly Black city's public education system. Using racial domination without community approval, these education reformers have educationally disenfranchised the…

In this study, the authors draw on 58 interviews with state policy makers and experts in five states to examine how state policy makers and education leaders think about school choice policy and how issues of equity show up in state-level discourse and action. The findings from these interviews suggest that more could be done to advance equity in…

The task of principals to improve teaching and learning by establishing and sustaining a cohesive school culture is very challenging. In an urban setting, the task is more challenging due to so many deficits that students, staff, and leaders are faced with that their counterparts do not encounter. The researcher's review of the literature yielded…

In the national expedition for ways to improve PK-12 public education, teacher hiring emerges as a considerable factor in academic achievement. The intersection of federal, state, and district policies, recruitment and hiring processes, decision-makers' criteria and preferences are some factors that impact teacher selection. More importantly,…

The need for a variety of practice approaches and practice activities for social workers in the schools is a priority. The purpose of the current exploratory-descriptive study was to examine the roles of school social workers (N = 378) and the ways these roles change in different school employment settings and with different caseload sizes.…

Finding funds to build and renovate facilities is a major hurdle for public charter schools because most state laws do not provide charter schools with the full amount of state and local funding that other public schools receive. Although an increasing number of states are passing laws to address charter school facility funding gaps, inequities…

In the 1995 legislation establishing charter schools in the state of Louisiana, the Louisiana Legislature indicated their intention "that the best interests of at-risk pupils be the overriding consideration in implementing the provisions of this Chapter" (Charter School Demonstration Programs, 1997). Furthermore, the legislation required…

This special report looks at how arts-based charter schools in the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Maryland and North Carolina provide access to arts education and integrate the arts schoolwide across curricula, community engagement and teacher professional development.

The need for more quality public schools for U.S. children is as great as ever. One policy solution to help meet this demand is to grow more of what is already working. To expand access to existing high-quality charter schools, policymakers and authorizers remove barriers and make it easier to grow enrollment and expand locations. Behind every…

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way that families and policymakers view K-12 education. Learning loss is having an outsized impact on students who were furthest from opportunity before the pandemic. And families are increasingly looking for new educational options for their children. For decades, access to educational options…

Universal screening continues to be a missed opportunity for addressing mental health in schools. The current study compared three separate self-report screening tools: the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Third Edition: Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BASC-3 BESS), Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Screener (YIEPS),…

Some still view arts education as a non-essential extracurricular activity despite its benefits. Even though the Every Student Succeeds Act acknowledges arts education is a healthy and well-rounded subject, local, district, and state administrators still control budget allocation and cuts, which generally affect arts education. There has also been…

A coalition of districts and schools serving high-need students in Louisiana are partnering with the nonprofit National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to increase equitable access to effective educators for students in high-poverty schools. Through a five-year 2016 federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant, called the LA BOLD (Building On…

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the charter school movement. This 2018 annual report shares many of the accomplishments achieved by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools for the year, including securing a record $440 million in funding for the federal…