In the United States, long-standing school choice policies and practices in Arizona have developed into a market-based system of schooling for many residents in the state, especially in the larger cities. In this study, I analyze qualitative data gathered from school leaders and parents in one Arizona district public school who discussed marketing…

Crises have a way of shaking up the status quo and creating space for new thinking. When shocked out of their familiarity, people start to ask questions as to why things are the way that they are and brainstorm ways to make them better. Enter entrepreneurs. They are the people who take those ideas that are lying around and attempt to create…

Urban charter schools targeting Black communities struggle to recruit Black teachers and even more to retain them. At the same time that scholarship has begun to recenter Black and Brown teachers' lives, the narrated perspectives of Black women teachers are often drowned out in urban educational reform's Hollywoodization. In this article, we story…

This article examines interview responses from prominent education researchers who were asked to consider the role of major educational policies in the underrepresentation of Black teachers in public schools. Participants considered policies related to accountability and market reforms including testing, school choice and charter schools, and…

Public schools have, for generations, played a critical role in the lives of the vast majority of North Carolinians-they are ingrained into the fabric of identity as a state. Many of the issues in the Top Ten highlight where the erosion of the historic commitment to public schools for the public good is seen. The Public School Forum of North…

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) and the Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission (PEPSC) of the State Board of Education are working on a new teacher licensure pathways proposal, Pathways to Excellence for Teaching Professionals (Model). This proposal, if enacted, would restructure the state's system…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine school leaders' preferences and practices in an environment of widespread decentralization, privatization, and school choice. In New Orleans, such reforms have been enacted citywide since Hurricane Katrina, making it an ideal site to examine what happens when policy makers lift restrictions for…

Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools (DPS) became one of the fastest-improving large districts in the country--achieving significant improvement across all student subgroups. Unlike many city districts, DPS included charter and innovation schools as integral parts of their system and improvement strategy. DPS' journey demonstrates how much…

This article examines the ways that the charter school movement is experienced and negotiated by educators who entered the profession through Teach For America (TFA). TFA's impact has been significant in the larger educational trend towards market-based reforms and, in particular, the charter school movement. Analyzed through a critical…

I study how competition played out between elementary schools in a Colorado school district. When the school board approved new schools without catchments, schools faced with declining catchment populations responded. Some schools adapted by altering programming away from the standard district curriculum. I model a school's success in recruiting…

In November 2010, Baltimore's Fund for Education Excellence and the Annie E. Casey Foundation approached the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and requested a case study of the implementation of Baltimore City Public Schools' (City Schools) portfolio strategy. These local foundations were interested in understanding how the district…

Under new school-choice policies, schools feel increasing pressure to market their schools to parents and students. I examine how school leaders in New Orleans used different marketing strategies based on their positions in the market hierarchy and the ways in which they used formal and informal processes to recruit students. This study relied on…

The purpose of this paper was to explore how school leaders can create and maintain student diversity in charter schools. Based on a case study of two racially balanced schools in New York City, this study identifies three strategies that the schools' leaders took to create more student diversity: (1) develop curriculum-centred missions, (2)…

In New York City, a partnership between Teach For America (TFA), the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), the Relay Graduate School of Education (Relay), and three charter school networks produced a "parallel education structure" within the public school system. Driving the partnership and the parallel education structure are…

In this paper we illustrate the relationships between Teach For America (TFA) and federal charter school reform to interrogate how policy decisions are shaped by networks of individuals, organizations, and private corporations. We use policy network analysis to create a visual representation of TFA's key role in developing and connecting…