In response to concerns regarding school quality, state policy-makers reformed their charter school authorization processes to impose greater regulatory barriers to chartering. These barriers to market entry could impose substantial burdens for Black and Latino would-be charter operators, as well as independent operators, who may lack access to…

Minority students and students with disabilities are disciplined disproportionately from their peers. Discipline has led to many negative consequences in the lives of youth in the United States, including the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance encouraging school districts to develop policies that…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

This case study is part of a broader research project examining state policies and governance structures that span K-12 and postsecondary education. Oregon has been a leader in K-16 reform through its development of the Proficiency-based Admission Standards System (PASS), which articulated postsecondary expectations and linked them with K-12…