In March 2020, COVID-19 appeared in the State of Maryland, resulting in strict stay-at-home orders and the shutting down of physical business operations. These restrictions directly impacted College Park Academy (CPA), a public charter middle and high school in Prince George's County, MD that typically follows a hybrid approach to in-person and…

As U.S. suburbs become more racially and ethnically diverse, they have the opportunity to make their schools similarly diverse. But integration is not assured, even in districts with significant demographic diversity. Iris Rotberg draws on Montgomery County Public Schools, a suburban Maryland district, to illustrate the opportunities and risks…

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…

For the last decade, in districts big and small, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has emerged as the largest private funder of educational efforts. This began with an initiative around small schools in the early to mid-2000s, mostly abandoned now, and has gained traction in the past few years in areas such as teacher evaluation, the Common…

An institutional analysis is presented of the policy, political, and legislative events associated with the failure of an attempt in 2006 by the state of Maryland to take control of 11 schools in Baltimore City and turn them over to independent managers or into charter schools under No Child Left Behind. The place of the failed…

The authors' school's second-grade science curriculum has always focused on trees and their role in the ecosystem during the first half of the year. Curricular goals have largely emphasized what students ought to "know" by the end of the semester, such as identifying the parts of a tree, describing the process of photosynthesis, and…

Leaders of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools are optimistic that they can reach a long-term agreement with the Baltimore (Maryland) Teachers Union in a nationally watched dispute over teacher pay for an extended school day, reducing the likelihood that the charter network will carry out its threat to close its two schools in…

Integrating our schools is a goal that many of us share. But some seem to have given up on the idea, as plans to boost racial diversity have come under attack, and as the fixation on test scores has narrowed some people's concept of a good education. There is, however, new hope: integration by socioeconomic status. It's a cost-effective, legally…

In the United States, there is a pressing need to bridge the divide between the higher education institutions where teachers are prepared and the school sites where they work with students. Linking the theoretical foundations of teacher education programs with practical experience in K-12 classrooms offers future teachers the fundamental…

Calls for schools to "improve" are everywhere, but recently calls for schools to "transform" have proliferated, based on the idea that schools are not simply underperforming but outdated if not obsolete. Most prominently, scholars and authors such as Phillip Schlechty, Peter Senge, and Francis Duffy have targeted school and…

The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 brought new urgency to the task of turning around low-performing schools. While many schools have been identified as needing improvement under NCLB, only a small percentage have failed to make progress for long enough--six years--to be subject to restructuring, the most serious consequence…

This is a case study of a state institution granted charter status in 1992 in exchange for capping its request for state funds. St. Mary's College of Maryland received widespread freedom from state procedural controls, including procurement, personnel, and some capital development processes. The state, however, retained its oversight of the…

Across the U.S., urban school districts are losing students and shuttering schools. In Detroit, some 35,000 students have left the city schools in less than a decade, and the city will close 34 schools and reassign more than 10,000 students in 2006. However, the trend is not limited to Rust Belt cities like Detroit, although their problems tend to…