Charter schools are a popular option in school choice reform. Parents often choose to enroll their children in charter schools because they are disenchanted with traditional public schools. Many charter schools are independent from local school districts and promise to be innovative when implementing their curriculum. Despite charter schools'…

How can access to public elementary schools of variable quality be justly distributed within a school district? Two reasonable criteria are: (a) that children should have equal opportunity to attend high-quality schools, and (b) school assignment policies should foster an overall increase in the number of high-quality schools. This article…

Academies (and free schools) in England and independent grant-aided schools, "fristående skolor" (or "friskolor"), in Sweden have been the subject of much academic debate, but there is a paucity of comparative research relating to policy development or outcomes. This paper adopts a comparative perspective, outlining the…

The Mississippi Association of Independent Schools was born out of the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Era. "Plessy v. Ferguson" in 1896 had established the doctrine of separate but equal facilities, including schools. While the decision in "Brown v. Board of Education," handed down by the Supreme Court in 1954, ruled that…

This article argues that one possible avenue for addressing and increasing student body diversity in charter schools may lie with the authorizer. In particular, we focus on the role of university-based authorizers, a group of sponsors that would appear to be especially concerned with educational opportunity given their faculties' traditional…

This critical policy analysis uses critical race theory to provide a counter narrative to the P-16 initiative in Texas known as "Closing the Gaps 2015". Findings indicate that while these reforms aim to increase educational access and achievement for people of color, they fall short of addressing systemic inequities such as enduring…

Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

Youth homelessness is a distressing trend in the United States (U.S.). In 2013, more than one million homeless students were enrolled in the U.S. public school system. The District of Columbia, the nation's capital, is also experiencing a surge in the number of homeless youth. In April 2015, one in every twenty-four students attending the District…

Non-government organizations and policy makers agree that the best route to eradicating the widespread discrimination and poverty among the Roma is to improve the quality of and access to education. A cursory glance at the Hungarian Government website suggests that policy makers are on top of the problem with good laws and initiatives in place.…

This year's KIDS COUNT report delves into disparities in child well-being based on race and ethnicity in an effort to shine a light on issues where Colorado can and must do better at creating equitable opportunities for children. The disparities seen in many areas of child well-being did not just happen by coincidence; nor are they the result of…

Educational opportunities and outcomes for California's Latino students have improved over the last half century. Even so, Latino students continue to face barriers in opportunity that make it harder for them to achieve college, career, and future success. The goal of this report is to describe what Latino students currently experience in…

This article explores the issues surrounding the establishment of an Africentric public school in Ontario. It provides a historical overview of the foundation of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. as well as the benefits they provide to Black students, communities and the labor force. It extrapolates the tropes…

The idea of charter schools arose as a means to allow for innovation by creating schools that were free from traditional regulations, but were held accountable for their performance. More recently, however, charter school advocates have suggested that increasing school choice options will create competition that improves the quality of education…

Drawing from a range of secondary data sources, this paper succinctly overviews patterns of access to good-quality education in Turkey over the last 15 years. It also maps the policy context within which issues of access, quality and equity are examined. As a result of effective supply and demand side strategies, enrolment ratios beyond the…

This report compares various measures of school segregation and reviews research findings on the extent of school segregation, trends in school segregation over time, and the relationship between academic achievement and segregation by income and race. The role of school quality in mediating and moderating the associations between school…