This study evaluated the effect of online instruction on the academic achievement of K--12 students in ten states as measured by the percentage of proficient students in reading and mathematics at the school level. We used publicly available data provided by the Department of Education in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania,…

This article examines the turnaround and closure rates of charter and district schools in 10 states to determine if one school sector has done comparatively better than the other at addressing chronically low-performing schools. Low-performing charter and district schools were identified in 2003-04 based on their reading and math proficiency rates…

Our nation's educational system has scored many extraordinary successes in raising the level of reading and writing skills in younger children. Yet the pace of literacy improvement in our schools has not kept up with the accelerating demands of the global knowledge economy. In state after state, the testing data mandated by No Child Left Behind…

This study investigates the successes of the charter and district sectors in eliminating bad schools via dramatic turnarounds in performance and/or shutdowns. It identified 2,025 low-performing charter and district schools across ten states, each of which is home to a sizable number of charter schools. These particular schools were tracked from…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a rapidly expanding network of public charter schools whose mission is to improve the education of low-income children. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 125 KIPP schools are in operation in 20 different states and the District of Columbia (DC). Ultimately, KIPP's goal is to prepare students to enroll and…

Although afterschool programs for children have been operating for decades in some communities, the afterschool movement--the great national awakening to the opportunity afterschool offers--is just a few years old. As public demand for afterschool has grown, so has the demand for accountability. That is particularly true in afterschool programs…