The superiority of market mechanisms in educational provision is a premise that has received renewed emphasis under the regime of public-private partnerships (PPPs). The central idea of PPPs--enthusiastically embraced by a range of international organizations, development agencies and scholars--is grounded in the assumption that competition…

Improving the quality of education has been a central goal of the People's Republic of China since its founding in 1949. Particular concern has been focused on ethnic minority areas where educational quality lags behind that of other regions. Since 1986 the State Education Commission has been working toward the implementation of nine years of…

Muralidharan and Sundararaman report a randomised controlled trial of a school voucher experiment in Andhra Pradesh, India. The headline findings are that there are no significant academic differences between voucher winners and losers in Telugu, mathematics, English, and science/social studies, although because the private schools appear to use…

In 1956, southern Congressmen signed the Southern Manifesto, rejecting the Supreme Court's "Brown v. Board of Education" ruling. This moment, in the general American consciousness, marked the rise of White massive resistance to Black advancement, a racist foray doomed to be swept aside by civil rights forces and a determined federal…

Competing in a new global economy is a top national priority. Citing declining student performance in core subjects, policymakers are calling for solutions that give students an edge. The Association of American Educators (AAE) knows that a growing network of professional educators will be instrumental in building the bridge between sweeping…

Improving academic achievement for students of color has long been the subject of debate among advocates of education reform (Anyon, 2013; Breitborde & Swiniarski, 2006; Payne, 2008). Some scholars have advocated for the Montessori method as an alternative educational approach to address some chronic problems in public education (Lillard,…

"Middle-class School Choice in Urban Spaces" examines government funded public schools from a range of perspectives and scholarship in order to examine the historical, political and economic conditions of public schooling within a globalized, post-welfare context. In this book, Rowe argues that post-welfare policy conditions are…

Students attending a University-Model® school participate in a hybrid approach to education which combines homeschooling with private education. This allows parents a primary role in their child(ren)'s education with the guidance of licensed teachers. The question of how students' academic needs are addressed in this model remains unexplored. This…

The Rhode Island Education Policy Primer provides an overview of how public education operates in Rhode Island. The Introduction offers context on the inequitable origins of Rhode Island's public school system, as well as the role that activism has played in expanding educational opportunities. The At a Glance section provides a quick look at…

This report provides an overview of education structures and policies that influence equity in school education. It connects these system-level features to student performance in international student assessment surveys (PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS). Looking at 42 European education systems, the report identifies which policies and structures are…

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics and science, and what they can do with what they know. It provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date. Results from PISA indicate the quality and equity of learning…

Too many talented students who go to under-resourced schools do not achieve their full potential. Though they may perform very well relative to their classmates, these students do not receive the same kinds of academically challenging opportunities throughout their educational journey as do their counterparts in better-resourced public and private…

We measure the relationship between travel time to school and students' likelihood of transfer (and where they transfer to), attendance, and test scores in Washington, DC. Travel time to school is especially salient in DC, where roughly three-quarters of students attend a school other than the one tied to their neighborhood. A longer commute is…

Charter schools are a relatively new phenomenon in American education. Since the first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1991, they have expanded to 42 states and represent 6.2% of all public schools in the country. This growth has been attributed to a number of factors, chief among them evidence that charter schools can improve performance…

Using individual-level student data from Pennsylvania, this study explores the extent to which charter school racial composition may be an important factor in students' self-segregative school choices. Findings indicate that, holding distance and enrollment constant, Black and Latino students are strongly averse to moving to charter schools with…