Caught between extraordinary public expectations and relatively modest constitutional authority, U.S. presidents historically have fashioned all sorts of mechanisms--executive orders, proclamations, memoranda--by which to move their objectives forward. William Howell asserts that under President Barack Obama's administration, presidential…

School districts held an exclusive franchise on public education services until 1991, when Minnesota passed the first law permitting public charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded, authorized by various agencies designated in public law, but independently managed. They operate outside district control, and most can draw students from…

The big battles over school vouchers in American education have focused on programs serving low-income children who live in urban areas. Milwaukee's program, begun in 1990, is the biggest and oldest in the country, and the District of Columbia effort, funded by the federal government, has been the most carefully studied. Both have been focal…

Proposals to reauthorize No Child Left Behind seek to ensure "equitable" access to effective teachers. The U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top fund rewards state plans for "ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals" and for "ambitious yet achievable annual targets to increase the…

This article discusses Michelle Rhee's style of leadership--as steely as the sound of her peekaboo high heels on a linoleum-tile hallway--which has angered much of Washington, D.C., and baffled the rest since she arrived as schools chancellor in June 2007. But it is also helping her gain control of a school system that has defied management for…

Considerable attention has been paid to the most blatant barriers that public charter schools face. By lobbying against good charter legislation and fair funding, financing anti-charter studies and propaganda, filing lawsuits, and engaging the public battle of ideas, teacher unions and other charter opponents openly wage what might be called an…