Many reports on rural education give little attention to digital learning. At most, they tend to note either infrastructure needs or the potential of remote course access, with little focus on instruction, outcomes, or exemplars. This report intends to begin correcting that imbalance by connecting the dots between rural regions, rural education,…

This brief examines the series of events that led to the Highland Park school district being converted to a system of charter public schools in 2012. Used as a strategy to help the district eliminate its large fiscal debt while still providing resident students with a local public school option, Highland Park's charter conversion is one of the…

The author reports on a new study which reveals that the lowest-performing public K-8 schools often linger in that state for years, neither improving enough to get off accountability life support nor being shuttered completely. The study adds that persistently failing charter schools fare no better than regular public schools. Of 2,025 chronically…

This article investigates how Michigan's charter school policy influences the composition of students by race and socioeconomic status in urban traditional public schools. Using 2 years of student-level data in Michigan' urban elementary and middle schools, the dynamic student transfers between charter schools and TPSs are analyzed through a…

The 2014 Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card is the Mackinac Center's second effort to measure high school performance. The first high school assessment was published in 2012, followed by the Center's 2013 elementary and middle school report card, which used a similar methodology to evaluate school performance. The…

This study explores how public schools in Michigan are meeting the mandate to provide online learning opportunities as a condition of graduation. Michigan became the first state in the nation to mandate online learning opportunities as a condition for graduation with the passage of the Michigan Merit Curriculum. Although the mandate for compliance…

As an organization made up of Michiganders, we know well how our parents once prided themselves on the quality of our state's public schools. Sadly, we have little to be proud of today. Our state's educational performance is lackluster by practically any reliable measure. In this report, we lay out a common-sense agenda to raise Michigan's…

In spring of 2012, the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, the Colorado League of Charter Schools, and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools worked to collect evidence that would accurately portray both the adequacy of charter school facilities and the average amount of operating funds spent on facilities. Collectively, the…

In 2007, Andrew J. Rotherham proposed a new approach to the contentious issue of charter school caps, the statutory limits on charter school growth in place in several states. Rotherham's proposal, termed "smart charter school caps," called for quality sensitive caps that allow the expansion of high-performing charter schools while also…

During the last 20 years, the United States has experienced more attempts at education reform than at any other time in its history. Efforts to reform financing, the assessment of student performance, accountability and equity, and school choice have all been implemented--with varying levels of success. Michael F. Addonizio and C. Philip Kearney…

When it comes to public-sector pensions, writes lead author Michael B. Lafferty in this report, "A major public-policy (and public-finance) problem has been defined and measured, debated and deliberated, but not yet solved. Except where it has been." As recounted in "Halting a Runaway Train: Reforming Teacher Pensions for the 21st…

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…

Charter schools have moved from being widely viewed as a marginal force in public education reform to taking on a central role in our national, state, and local debates around improving education. And a growing number of policymakers--including superintendents, mayors, governors, and even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan--are using…

The role of for-profit educational organizations in the predominantly public and not-for-profit K-12 US schooling system is being fiercely debated across our nation. Little empirical research is available to help policy-makers develop informed decisions regarding the educational value that for-profit schools provide to our students. This paper…

This paper examines the competitive effects of charter schools on the efficiency of traditional public schools. The analysis utilizes a statewide school-level longitudinal dataset of Michigan schools from 1994 to 2004. Fixed effect and two alternative estimation methods are employed. Overall, the results suggest that charter competition had a…