Public K-12 education in the United States is distinctively a local affair: school districts are governed by local boards of education, composed of lay members typically elected in non-partisan elections. These boards have decision-making power over hundreds of billions of public dollars and oversee complex agencies that, in addition to preparing…

In this paper, we draw upon in-depth interviews with teachers and administrators in 18 unionized charter schools around the country to investigate teachers' motivations for unionization. Our results suggest that while mismanagement and distrust are often the proximate cause of charter unionization efforts, both material and purposive…

This article analyses the narratives and counter-narratives which characterised the struggle between the Chicago Public School Board (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) preceding the 2019 Chicago teachers' strike. This was an extraordinary event which has received little scholarly attention. The paper explores the types and uses of the…

What happens when forces attempting to privatize education create and produce a Hollywood film with an education reform plot line? This essay explores "Won't Back Down" through cultural studies and progressive education lenses in an effort to unveil misrepresentations of education and education reform. Drawing on scholarship in these…

This report compares average rates of frequent teacher absence (more than 10 days) for teachers with and without union or union-like contracts in traditional public schools and charter schools. The study's rationale is that such absences substantively harm students and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. It finds that teachers contractually…

For 20 years, charter schools have held a precarious existence in Canada. Implemented in the province of Alberta in 1994, only a handful of charter schools remain in the entire nation. In this article, I explore the ideas of school choice and charter schooling and how they have largely disappeared as educational policy issues for Canadians. While…

The public narrative generally frames teachers unions and the charter movement as mistrustful opponents locked in an unresolved impasse. There is little scholarly literature to correct this simplistic narrative of the relationship between charters and unions. This article examines the teachers union-charter relationship through a recent case of…

About 12 percent of all charter schools have bargaining agreements. Why do charter schools unionize? What is in these charter school contracts? Can they be considered innovative or models for union reform? And how do they compare to traditional district/union teacher contracts? Center on Reinventing Public Education legal analyst Mitch Price…

This report presents findings on the numbers and types of public elementary and secondary local education agencies (LEAs) in the United States and other jurisdictions in the 2009-10 school year, using data from the Local Education Agency Universe Survey of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system. The CCD is an annual collection of data that…

There are a number of critical tests ahead for the charter school sector. This volume of "Hopes, Fears, & Reality" explores these issues. In chapter 1, Jon Christensen, Jacqueline Meijer-Irons, and Robin J. Lake lay out the basic data on charter school growth in the last several years. They examine the growth and character of the…

The documentary "Waiting for Superman" has become one of those rare things, a (supposed) documentary that generates a wider audience. It also is one of the more recent embodiments of what Nancy Fraser (1989) labels as the "politics of needs and needs discourses." Dominant groups listen carefully to the language and issues that…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed in February 2009, included nearly $100 billion in new funding for the Department of Education (DOE). Over $36 billion of it remains unspent, and bills in both the House and Senate are calling for even more funding for teacher jobs. It is unlikely that billions more in federal spending will…

Communities across the country are grappling with different approaches to improving their schools. Introducing or expanding charter schools is one of the approaches that states and school districts have considered or implemented. Charter schools serve more than 5 percent of public school students nationwide and make up close to 7 percent of all…

This report presents findings on the numbers and types of public elementary and secondary local education agencies (LEAs) in the United States and other jurisdictions in the 2008-09 school year, using data from the Local Education Agency Universe Survey of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system. The CCD is an annual collection of data that…

From zero in 1991 to 3,800 eighteen years later, charter schools (public schools under contract) today educate well over a million students. This updated, second edition examines the unusual experiment that is charter education and the controversies that surround public choice and charter schools as a means of educational reform. Written by…