The causes of teacher attrition are varied and complex. In urban environments, these challenges are more pronounced. In particular, special education teachers in urban environments seem to leave the field disproportionately compared to their general education counterparts. Some estimates state that as many as 40% of new special education teachers…

Over the past two years, there have been calls for racial justice in nearly every sphere of social and political life, including the field of education. As much of the nation reeled at yet another life violently taken at the hands of a police officer, education workers faced the challenge of responding to local and national demands for policy…

This issue brief seeks to add to the discussion of educational pluralism by highlighting the history, features, and successes of the classical education model. The model is unique for its emphasis on building the student to be a scholar and an active citizen. Classical schools come in the form of private and charter schools, homeschooling, and…

Charter schools are publicly funded schools freed from some of the regulations placed on traditional public schools (TPS). In exchange for that greater level of autonomy, public charter schools are required to meet performance goals contained in their authorizing charter or face the prospect of closure. Most public charter schools may enroll…

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 virus shuttered schools across the country and world and calls for racial justice expanded into nearly every sphere of social and political life as the nation reeled at another life violently taken at the hands of a police officer. School system leaders faced difficult decisions about delivering instruction…

In this research brief, we describe and decompose school segregation by race and ethnicity in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, in which we include: the District of Columbia; Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax County in Virginia; and Montgomery County and Prince George's County in Maryland. We find only modest segregation within all but one…

"Rules of the game" are the social expectations one must enact for success in a specific environment. From veteran public high school educators in Washington, D.C., this study found: (1) "Rules of the game" for high school success are most consistently communicated through interventions after students have not met academic,…

In this article, I draw on interviews with teachers and administrators at a secondary neighborhood public school in Washington, DC about their perceptions of how the school is viewed by external stakeholders and the impact of those perceptions within an urban education market. Extant empirical research on market forces and effects has not…

The U.S. Department of Education's School Climate Survey (EDSCLS) is a free, open-source school climate survey available for any local or state education agency to use to measure three domains of school climate: engagement, safety, and environment. The present study leverages EDSCLS data from 3,416 students from 26 middle and high schools in…

Families of children with disabilities must constantly work to advocate for their children, find the school that provides the best fit, and assess whether educators are providing the right interventions. This can be exhausting and frustrating, especially when it comes on top of the unique demands of parenting a child with a disability. The Center…

Internationally, there has been a growing interest among educational systems in reassessing the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for success in the 21st-century global world. This paper aims to add to the literature about how and to what extent the global emphasis in education is approached, framed, and practiced within different…

Nationally, the number of charter schools opening and the enrollment size at charters is on the rise. But what happens when charter schools are low performing? For most charter schools and their authorizers, closing low-performing schools seems inevitable. However, school closures have dramatic impacts on students, families, and communities --…

Innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are a cornerstone of the United States' economic prosperity, yet national and international assessments paint a poor picture of students' STEM competencies (reference 1; reference 2). These data have led to transformative approaches to improve STEM education including…

Purpose: Nearly all schools in the United States closed in spring 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze traditional public and charter school reopenings for the 2020-21 school year in five urban districts. We provide a rich and theoretically grounded description of how and why educational leaders made reopening decisions in each…

Many school districts have closed public schools, despite opposition. The controversial nature of closures has inspired extensive newspaper coverage. This article addresses two questions: How do newspaper media frame public school closures? To what extent does this coverage fulfill media's democratic functions? I examine coverage of school…