Public school choice has become a common feature in American school districts. Any potential benefits that could be derived from these policies depend heavily on the ability of parents and students to make informed and educated decisions about their school options. We examined the readability and complexity of school-choice guides across a sample…

School districts across the country are shifting away from their traditional management paradigm--a central office that directs its schools through uniform mandates and policies--toward a new vision where district leaders support autonomous schools while holding them accountable for student performance. The advent of new governance mechanisms…

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local…

This article examines the paradox of Teach For America's diversity gains and its support for policies that contribute to Black teacher decline in urban communities. TFA has countered claims that its expansion is connected to teacher displacement, but its two-pronged structure--as an alternative certification program and an influential policy actor…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every aspect of education in the state and across the nation, irrevocably impacting the lives of students, families, and educators like no crisis before it. Educators, families, and leaders responded to the crisis with extraordinary resilience. In the face of an unprecedented threat to public health, the state…

We examine Illinois educational data from standardized exams and analyze primary factors affecting the achievement of public school students. We focus on the simplest possible models: representation of data through visualizations and regressions on single variables. Exam scores are shown to depend on school type, location, and poverty…

This article focuses on the increased power of venture philanthropy to shape education in urban communities of color in the USA. The author situates venture philanthropy's expanded influence in urban school districts in the nexus of urban disinvestment, neoliberal governance, wealth concentration, and economic crisis. The author argues that…

Urban high schools are in trouble--high dropout rates, low student academic achievement, and graduates who are unprepared for college are just some of the disappointing indicators. However, recent research points to a select number of approaches to improving student outcomes and reforming underperforming schools--from particular ways of creating…

This article examines education accountability as a mechanism of coercive neoliberal urban governance in the USA. Drawing on Gramscian theory of the "integral state" as the dialectical synthesis of coercion, consent, and resistance, the author argues that as the crisis gives the state less room to win consent, it intensifies coercion as…

Objectives: To investigate whether smoking prevalence in grade-level networks influences individual smoking, suggesting that peers are important social multipliers in teen smoking. Methods: We measured gender-specific, grade-level recent and life-time smoking among urban middle-school students who participated in Project Northland Chicago in a…

In 2006, New Leaders contracted with RAND to conduct an independent evaluation of its principal-preparation program. The analysis included all principals who have been prepared by New Leaders since the inception of the program, comparing outcomes of their students and outcomes of similar students in other, comparable schools in the same districts.…

Background: Manuscript written for the Adult Education Research Conference based on dissertation research completed at National Louis University. Purpose: To increase knowledge base of art based learning as a mode of anti-racist pedagogy and the use of an Africentric framework for continuing and professional education. Setting: African Centered…

Budget constraints and difficulty raising taxes limit school districts from expanding education programming, even when research shows that additional expenditures would generate economic benefits that are greater than costs. Recently, coalitions of private investors, philanthropists, education practitioners, and government finance analysts have…

The study examined whether the Chicago Public Schools' Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), which provides mentoring, leadership opportunities, and financial incentives to teachers, improved student academic achievement and teacher retention. The study examined the academic achievement of more than 7,600 students in grades 4-8 from 34 schools in the…

This article explores the work of the Grassroots Curriculum Taskforce (CGCT), a Chicago-based collaborative that engages in collective production of curricula that more adeptly capture the cultural, economic, and political realities of Chicago Public Schools' students. We first examine the collaborative processes CGCT undertook with parents,…