Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

The research on full-day kindergarten and its benefits are robust, from improving literacy skills, greater math and reading gains during the school year, and overall academic growth. In addition, children with developmental delays and special learning needs are able to be identified earlier and supported with appropriate interventions. Fully…

In schools across the country, educators recognize the power of the arts to change young lives. They know that students' sustained engagement with enriching, high-quality experiences in the arts promotes essential skills and perspectives--like the capacity to solve problems, express ideas, harness and hone creativity, and persevere toward a job…

Charter schools represent an increasingly important form of school choice in the United States. Charter schools are public schools, with a difference. Compared to traditional public schools, they are exempted from some of the state laws and regulations that govern traditional public schools. In this way, parents come to have a greater number of…

A widely cited report by the federal Government Accountability Office found that charter schools enroll a significantly smaller percentage of students with disabilities than do traditional public schools. However, thus far no hard evidence exists to definitively explain or quantify the disparity between special education enrollment rates in…

The rapid expansion of charter schools reflects a growing interest in education reform and school turnaround efforts across the United States. However, national research on charter school performance remains inconclusive. Of particular debate is the impact of transferring from a traditional public school to a charter school on student achievement…

I study how competition played out between elementary schools in a Colorado school district. When the school board approved new schools without catchments, schools faced with declining catchment populations responded. Some schools adapted by altering programming away from the standard district curriculum. I model a school's success in recruiting…

As public schools, charter schools are legally required to educate all students regardless of the difficulties they bring with them into the classroom. Nonetheless, many are concerned that the charter sector fails to educate all comers. Charter schools are often criticized for not enrolling similar proportions of students with disabilities as are…

Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) commissioned Dr. Marcus Winters to analyze the factors driving the special education gap between Denver's charter and traditional public elementary and middle schools. Using student-level data, Winters shows that Denver's special education enrollment gap starts at roughly 2 percentage points in…

This policy brief is the sixth in a series of in-depth case studies exploring how top-performing charter schools have incorporated civic learning in their school curriculum and school culture. The brief reports on Ridgeview Classical Schools, an integrated K-12 public charter school in Fort Collins, Colorado. The school contains an elementary,…

Despite the prevalence of charter schools in the United States, few experimental studies evaluate the impact of charter school attendance on students in the early elementary grades. Using data from a randomized lottery in which kindergarten students and their parents applied to two oversubscribed and well-established charter schools in Denver,…

The educational outcomes of low-income and racial/ethnic minority students suggest that there is a fundamental disconnect between contemporary schooling and the needs of students in urban schools. Most attempts to address these problems in K-12 schools have focused on increasing students' mastery of content knowledge and skills. While the evidence…

The authors are presently in the fourth year of a six-year, lottery-based randomized control trial (RCT) studying the effectiveness of nine Colorado charter schools that have implemented Core Knowledge®. Core Knowledge (CK) is a comprehensive K-8 curriculum for language arts, math, science, social studies, visual arts, and music that is intended…

Over the past 15 years, federal, state, and local officials have pursued a broad range of reforms aimed at ensuring that the nation's public school system is more accountable--that it delivers a rich, full education for children in communities across the country. New research from the Kettering Foundation and Public Agenda suggests that there are…

This report provides essential new information on the relationship between the location of and enrollment in Denver public schools that meet the 2009 School Performance Framework (SPF) standards. Funded by the National Association of Charter School authorizers (NACSA), this research is designed primarily to identify and highlight those areas with…