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…

This exploratory research addresses the state of student self-regulation (SR) in an online secondary school. Students are more likely to be successful, especially in online schools, when they are self-regulated. Understanding these students' current SR abilities can facilitate targeted interventions. Data for this study was gathered from a student…

Background/Context: The "college-for-all" movement has guided education reform efforts over the last few decades. Of college-for-all adopters, the "no-excuses" charter school model is arguably the most successful and controversial. Schools that use this model produce high standardized test scores and four-year college…

A problem exists in NC Montessori schools with effective data analysis for specific learning disabilities (SLD) placement. The purpose of this study was to identify administrators' and teachers' perceptions of data collection and analysis within multitiered systems of support (MTSS) in a Montessori school. Fixsen's implementation science theory…

Unified enrollment (UE) systems were designed to improve efficiency, equity, and transparency in school choice processes, but research has focused on efficiency gains. This study examines whether moving from decentralized enrollment processes to UE mitigates or exacerbates racial segregation that often occurs in choice systems. Specifically, we…

Minnesota is known for its large concentrations of Hmong, Somali and Karen refugee-background students (RBSs). Drawing on an equity/heritage framework that centres educational equity and the sustaining of the cultural and linguistic practices of minoritized communities, this study examined how district/school websites with the highest enrolment of…

Teacher attrition is a significant issue in charter schools, particularly among Early Career Elementary Charter School Teachers. The high attrition rate intensifies issues, including increased burdens on remaining staff and a potential decline in the quality of instruction. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the influence of…

Influencing major education policies in the US such as school vouchers and charter schools, market theory assumes that organizational autonomy, parental choice, and competition between schools improve the quality of education. However, whether those policies can influence the instructional core of schools is not well understood. Comparing private…

Charter school authorizers shape which charter schools open, where they open, and who they serve. We draw on principal agent theory to investigate how the priorities and practices of nine authorizers intersected with charter school applications' attention to the needs of historically marginalized students. Using data from interviews and…

The work of teachers has historically been highly controlled, but one area teachers have been granted considerable autonomy is in instruction and planning. Teacher autonomy is a complex concept with important implications for both the quality of instruction and teacher persistence in the field. The rise of charter management organizations (CMOs)…

Public education, at least as it has been known for the past several generations in the US, is under threat. Conservative state legislatures from Arizona to Florida have enacted sweeping voucher legislation, channeling taxpayer dollars to private schools. At the same time, a vicious culture war has engulfed the public education system in…

Many public charter schools in the state of Hawaii are explicitly religious. For more than two decades, students at Hawaiian-focused schools have offered chants and prayers to the pantheon of gods who rule over skies, seas, and earth, including to the volcanic god, Pelehonuamea ("she who shapes the sacred land"), popularly known as Madam…

School-based education in England has undergone significant changes since 2010, with a huge expansion of academies, schools outside local authority control, funded directly by central government. Academies and local authority (LA) maintained schools are subject to different legislative and regulatory frameworks. This paper focuses on the…

Although the COVID pandemic dramatically expanded K-12 remote learning in its first years, little is known about the lasting effects on virtual schooling policies and practices. Drawing on evolutionary theories of change and qualitative data from 2019 to 2022, we explore this topic in Oregon, a state with a long history of virtual schools. We find…

This dissertation research is an exploratory multiple-case study of special education transition program structures in three virtual public charter schools in a southern state in the United States. Virtual public charter schools are extensions of public school systems or districts that are required to comply with state and federal-mandated special…