In a gentrifying area of St. Louis, Missouri, City Garden Montessori School is an integrated haven in a segregated city, as well as an active voice for racial justice and reconciliation. Realizing its power to both reflect and change its neighborhood, the school commits itself to harnessing its unique position to push for effective public policy…

The purpose of this paper was to explore how school leaders can create and maintain student diversity in charter schools. Based on a case study of two racially balanced schools in New York City, this study identifies three strategies that the schools' leaders took to create more student diversity: (1) develop curriculum-centred missions, (2)…

Skeptics of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter school network argue that these schools rely on selective admission, attrition, and replacement of students to produce positive achievement results. We investigate this using data covering 19 KIPP middle schools. On average, KIPP schools admit students disadvantaged in ways similar to other…

Civic and character education are both essential pillars that support the mission of public schools. Utah teachers and schools take this responsibility very seriously, and work diligently and creatively to provide content and pedagogy that supports effective civic and character education. This report is provided to the Utah State Legislature to…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a network of charter schools designed to improve the educational opportunities available to low-income families. KIPP schools seek to boost their students' academic achievement and ultimately prepare them to enroll and succeed in college. To achieve these objectives, KIPP schools leverage strong…

Though teacher educators nationwide are considering ways to provide urban placements for pre-service teachers (PSTs), little research has examined how PSTs experience placements in schools operated by charter management organizations (CMOs). This study considers CMOs--which often hold particular instructional and classroom management…

Named Charter Leader of the Year in 2010 by the California Charter Schools Association, Diane Tavenner, CEO of Summit Public Schools, is responsible for the generation of multiple transformative schools and a radically different teaching model for Summit. Summit's first charter high school, Summit Prep, launched in 2003, was featured in the film…

We used self-report surveys to gather information on a broad set of non-cognitive skills from 1,368 eighth graders. At the student level, scales measuring conscientiousness, self-control, grit, and growth mindset are positively correlated with attendance, behavior, and test-score gains between fourth grade and eighth grade. Conscientiousness,…

The article presents a longitudinal study of an urban charter middle school to examine the impact testing pressures can have on the education of students with disabilities and English language learners, and how this may lead to a narrowing of the content they are taught. The study examines various sources of data, including the school's evolving…

Word reading fluency and word reading accuracy play a critical role in reading development (Perfetti, 1985; Stanovich, 1986) and are related to multiple language components such as phonological, morphological, and vocabulary skills in monolingual children. Our knowledge about this relation remains limited in bilingual children, however. This study…

Some of the most dramatic gains in urban education have come from school districts using what many call a "portfolio strategy." Others call it "reinvention," a "21st century approach," or "relinquishment." By whatever name, it generally means that districts negotiate performance agreements with some mix of…

How does deep conceptual change occur when students play well-designed educational games? To answer this question, we present a case study in the form of a microgenetic analysis of a student's processes of knowledge construction as he played a conceptually-integrated digital game (SURGE Next) designed to support learning about Newtonian mechanics.…

The recipe for success of Strive Preparatory Charter School (formerly West Denver Preparatory Charter School) is not a secret. This summer program, turned four-campus, middle level phenomenon, is proving to satisfy the appetite of parents hungry for a change in their children's educational opportunities. The intent of this article is to share a…

The purpose of this correlational study is to understand the relationship between end-of-course grades as assigned by teachers and standardized end-of-course scores earned by students in Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Physical Science, and U.S. History courses at one virtual charter school in the State of Georgia. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation…

Some gifted students at a local elementary charter school were not performing at a level commensurate with their abilities. The purpose of this narrative study was to gain insight into why some gifted students struggled academically in the classroom by examining the perceptions of teachers who worked directly with these students. The theory of…