The promise of quality education is a cornerstone of American culture. Why, then, is this not the experience of every child in our nation? In the 1990s, the charter school movement began under the auspices of an avenue to address the disillusionment of education policy, the sense of powerlessness felt by parents and teachers, and the disparities…

Prior to the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the public was expressing discontent about the declining of students' test scores and the quality of public schooling. The federal government eventually began discussing and debating for education reform and the No Child Left Behind of 2001 was finally passed and signed by President…

Charter schools have become a leading alternative to traditional public education, where children of color have historically experienced low academic performance and dismal results on state-mandated testing. Whether these institutions are, in fact, the answer to what ails education is a matter of debate. Those who support charter schools point to…

By reducing class size we will close the achievement gap in public school education, caused by prior neglect especially since the civil rights era of the sixties. Additional, highly qualified and specialized teachers will more effectively manage a smaller class size and serve more individual student needs in the crucial early grades, where a solid…

A content analysis of charter school movements was conducted in order to gain insight on their substantive contents as well as to discern any explicit or implicit ideological underpinnings. Charter agreements in Indiana were obtained over a three year period of time, shortly after the Indiana General Assembly sanctioned the creation of charter…

A critical question in school choice programs is whether relatively low-income urban parents have the ability to gather the information they need to make good choices for their children. Choice is expanding, particularly in American cities. Without good information, the benefits generated from expanding public school choice (via No Child Left…

This monograph presents the results of the seventh annual survey of state school finance legislation with an overview of legislation passed in 2000, abstracts of all bills passed, and a trend analysis dating back to 1994, including both established and emergent trends. Established trends in the funding areas of educational technology, school…

The purpose of this study was to assess the presence and/or implementation of Special Education activities within charter schools by questioning principals about the presence of children with disabilities in their schools, types of services provided in the charter schools, and the beliefs and attitudes of the principals regarding Special Education…