This report presents the testimony of the president and program director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Based in Washington, DC and in Dayton, the Institute is a nonprofit organization that supports research, publications, and action projects of national significance in elementary/secondary reform, as well as significant education reform…

A charter school creates an Accountability Plan to articulate to the community and the state what goals the school will use to measure its success. These "Guidelines" are intended to give schools guidance on the type of data that provide compelling evidence, the desirable structure for goals and objectives, and how to most clearly present results.…

This report presents the findings of an analysis of the Academic Performance Index (API) scores based on SATs taken in 1999, 2000, and 2001. It focuses on charter schools in California that serve students from low socioeconomic-status (SES) families. The purpose of the study was to see how standardized test scores from charter schools serving…

As the charter-school option has expanded across the country, contracting for educational management services is an increasingly available and attractive choice for charter-school governing boards and founding groups. To make contractual relationships work well, charter-school boards need to strike an effective balance between fulfilling their…

Arizona has nearly 25 percent of the charter schools in the nation. These Arizona schools present something new: the first system approaching comprehensive school choice in the real world. This edited volume assembles the perspectives of social scientists and education practitioners and gives the first published account of the Arizona charter…

This workbook is part of a series devoted to all areas of charter-school development. The third of five workbooks, it focuses on assessment and accountability and examines such issues as academic accountability, fiscal accountability, public/parental accountability, rule compliance, assessment and evaluation, financial management, developing a…

The Education Freedom Index measures the extent of government-subsidized or government-regulated educational choices offered to families in each state. The Education Freedom Index score is the average of four components: charter school choice, subsidized private school choice, home schooling choice, and public school choice. This paper analyzes…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional strategy for preparing administrators whose basic unit of instruction is a project. Students are organized into teams and work on these projects to grapple with the problem and to achieve the learning objectives that are embedded in the project. In this PBL project, students design and prepare a…

Researcher Gary Gruber has stated, "No other singular variable is more important for the health and vitality of a school than the way that it is governed. Teacher competencies, student achievement, parental and community support, adequate facilities and resources are all critical and essential for success. Governance will determine how those…

Analysis of selected set of charter-school research reports through late 2001. Finds, for example, that charter schools are more autonomous than other public schools, but that the jury is still out on some of the most important questions, including those about innovation, accountability, equity, and outcomes. Provides a framework for examining…

Discusses accountability in U.S. K-12 public education today, describing three ideas of accountability: trust the experts (within the system reform), trust but verify (standards based reform), and trust the customers (free market reform). Examines political obstacles, mixed results of the various reform strategies, lessons learned about…

Neither standards/high-stakes testing nor privatization/charter-school improvement approaches will live up to proponents' ambitious claims. Standardized tests cannot uphold new performance goals. Charter schools serve limited numbers of students, siphoning off pedagogical reform energies that would benefit kids left behind. Rigor and innovation…

Studied charter schools in California, using case studies and more than 450 interviews with teachers, administrators, parents, and community members. Focused on four assumptions usually made about charter schools to show that these schools are not, for the most part, the highly autonomous, accountable, and efficient schools of choice promised by…

Reports on the establishment of a charter school in Michigan that serves home-schooling families and stresses a creationist curriculum. Describes the legal action taken against public funding of the charter school. (DDR)

The modern character education movement emerged in the 1980s as a consequence of growing parental and public concern for moral drift, or what sociologist James Davison Hunter referred to as "the death of character." This public anomie was captured in these words from Sanford McDonnell, chairman emeritus of McDonnell Douglas and chair of…