Good charter school policy must be part of the solution to address the public education system's greatest problem: too many children lack access to a transformative education. Getting authorizing policy right is critical because good authorizing has the power to transform the lives of not just a few children, but millions. While the quality of…

On August 30, 2016, the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and Recovery School District (RSD) released their Unification Plan to the public. The plan provides detail about Act 91 and the impending changes for local schools, teachers, parents, and students. The plan is necessarily detailed, providing an abundance of information on scheduling,…

In Michigan, schools and educators are held accountable for performance more than ever before. Charter school authorizers--the entities responsible for opening and overseeing new and existing charter schools--face almost no accountability for their performance. In Michigan's current charter landscape, the enormous responsibility of authorizing has…

This article is based on a case study to explore a model of teacher governance and illustrate the distinct challenges of entrepreneurship in public education. In the Sedona Charter School, each classroom principal educator serves as instructional leader and resource leader. Principal educators adjust curricula, hire their teachers, determine…

This paper draws on interview data gathered as part of a broader study around issues of equity and schooling. It features the voices of the Executive Director and four Head Teachers from one of England's top performing academy chains, "CONNECT". The notion of neoliberal responsibilisation is drawn on to examine, first, the ways in which…

The charter school model differs fundamentally from the district-based model of public education delivery that is still dominant in every state. Instead of creating government bodies that directly operate all of an area's public schools, the state approves entities that authorize and oversee schools run by nonprofit organizations. In this article,…

The Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School in Cambridge--winner of the 2019 Pozen Prize for Innovative Schools--was founded in 1996 by a group of Cambridge-area Black parents and concerned community leaders who acted on the reality that their children did not have access to a rigorous, high-quality education in the traditional neighborhood public…

Focused on educational quality, innovation and opportunity--both within and outside of the traditional system--ExcelinEd advances a broad range of student-centered policy solutions that are successfully: (1) increasing student learning; (2) Readying graduates for college and career; and (3) Advancing equity. This year's annual report highlights…

Relative to earlier research, this study from the Center for Reinventing Public Education provides a more in-depth analysis of policy features across the 27 states that allow online charter schools. It presents a well-organized description of policy features and includes a set of policy recommendations that generally, but not always, follow well…

Two distinct forces recently converged in Utah that led to the Board of Education office creating a training and mentoring program for new special education administrators and teachers: simultaneous steady growth of charter schools and nagging concerns about the quality of special education programs in these new schools and Results Driven…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the differing ways in which nonprofit charter and traditional public school board members define the concept of accountability in the school or schools they oversee. The findings speak to the governing consequences of shifting oversight of public education from democratically elected bodies to…

It is widely understood that school districts face significant barriers to designing and implementing sustained improvements in chronically underperforming schools. In particular, the size and complexity of urban districts pose daunting challenges to advance significant reform efforts, despite glaring need. A new wave of district-led…

This article is part of a Bridgespan Group research project that focuses on a new wave of district-led "innovation zones" that holds promise to overcome the challenges of turning around failing schools and deliver significant improvements in student outcomes. This new wave provides a subset of district schools with control over staffing,…

Drawing on ethnographic data, this article critically analyzes pedagogy in "no excuses" charter schools in New Orleans. Employing Ladson-Billings's framework for culturally relevant pedagogy, the author describes the level of academic rigor, cultural competence, and critical consciousness development across classrooms. This study…

For nearly three decades, charter schools have provided families with a public school alternative to traditional district schools, but they have not been without controversy. Charter schools often come under fire for "privatizing" education, for "creaming" the best students, or for taking money from district schools. The…