Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise…

This report is the third in a series by the Local Control Funding Formula Research Collaborative (LCFFRC). This research seeks to help policymakers and others better understand ways in which the LCFF is changing fundamental aspects of resource allocation and governance and how these changes might lead to improved student outcomes. The work is…

The current wave of educational reform is complex and situated in market-based initiatives coupled with a renewed emphasis on local autonomy, deliberation, and community--middle-of-the-road reforms. In practice, schools are challenged to develop organizational forms that can support collaboration and community engagement, alongside the…

This phenomenological study examined the experience of fostering creativity and creative thinking in the classroom under high-stakes testing conditions, as described by teachers at a magnet elementary school in Central California. The tensions between standardization and professionalism, as well as performativity and creativity, served as the…

The First Amendment Schools project holds rich lessons in how to change school cultures into "laboratories of democracy"--as well as in how to increase the odds of success for any school reform effort. School reform programs of any sort need to make sure to build in sustainability, to provide ways to spread their lessons beyond the…

Indicator 14 is a federal accountability initiative that attempts to generate data on the outcomes of students with disabilities 1 year after leaving high school. Currently, there are only two areas, postsecondary education/training and employment, mandated for examination. Ultimately, the data are used to develop specific goals for 6-year State…

Teachers' understandings of second language learning influence their practices in the classroom. This paper analyzes interview and classroom data collected during a year-long ethnographic study of two high school English language development classes to identify (1) what the teachers understood about second language (L2) development and L2 academic…

Over the next three years, the California State Board of Education (SBE) and the California Department of Education (CDE) will refine the college and career readiness (CCR) measures in the state's school accountability system. Determining which measures to use, given that they need to be robust, useful, equitable, and cost effective--and…

This article presents an exploratory case study of site-level classification practices for language-minority students. The study examines individual classification data of 439 language-minority student cases from one California urban school district and two of its schools. The review process involved a thorough examination of data integrity,…

Background/Context: Performance funding finances public higher education institutions based on outcomes such as retention, course and degree completion, and job placement rather than inputs such as enrollments. One of the mysteries of state performance funding for higher education is that despite great interest in it for over 30 years, only half…

The superintendents have become more of educational leaders in order to meet the federal mandates of NCLB and IDEA which have the goal of students with disabilities being proficient in reading and math by 2014, while providing FAPE to meet their individual program and service requirements. The increased accountability pressure of NCLB for federal…

Accelerated transitional nursing programs (ATNPs) designed specifically for licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) to transition to become registered nurses (RNs) are graduating novice nurses who need critical thinking skills to solve patient problems. The health care industry and patient outcomes depend on graduate nurses to be proficient with quality…

Based largely on interviews with stakeholders in California, New York, Tennessee, and West Virginia, this report describes how these states have established initiatives related to early college readiness assessments and transition curricula. It then compares the development of these interventions across states and identifies factors that have…

The primary objective of this paper is to suggest a mechanism by which current trends in public education, in particular the rise of externally defined numerical metrics of achievement to define school success, operate to shape school policy, curriculum and practice. Here, we argue that the modern school's focus on the cognitive dimension of…

The number of school districts needing to focus their attention on ensuring that their students are receiving a 21st Century education has grown considerably with the creation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the looming deadline of the 2014-2015 school year when the new assessments will be given. The assessment dates,…