"Brown v. Board of Education" held that the educational systems of seventeen states that mandated segregated schools violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The decision helped set off the civil rights revolution. However, after so many years of backlash, schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than what…

Chicago's magnet schools were one of the nation's earliest experiments in choice-driven school desegregation, originating among civil rights advocates and academic education experts in the 1960s and appearing at specific sites in Chicago's urban landscape during the 1970s. The specific concerns that motivated the creation of magnet schools during…

In January 2013, the superintendent of a rural Louisiana school system initiated a plan to increase school choice in his district through the implementation of a new virtual magnet school and the conversion of an existing elementary school into a magnet school. Both plans were set into action in April 2013. This study uses performative writing to…

The marketization of K-12 education has led to an increase in school-based marketing efforts. Relatively little research, however, has examined how public schools market themselves, who is involved in marketing, and how these marketing efforts impact key stakeholders, including school administrators, teachers, students, and parents.We explore…

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…

School choice reform rests on the notion that competition amongst schools will produce more efficient schools and improve the educational system as a whole. This study focused on the impact of school choice competition on school principals in both magnet schools and traditional public schools in a midsized district in Florida. This study examined…

The 2016 Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) is the fifth release of an annual compilation of data on the condition of K-12 school choice in the geographical areas served by the nation's 100 largest school districts. The ECCI captures information on: (1) the extent of choice; (2) the characteristics of the process by which parents and…

The deregulation movement has impacted the social, political, and economic landscape in the United States and continues to do so. In this article, we briefly summarize the general history of deregulation in this country and the meaning of deregulation within the specific context of education policy and reform. We focus on deregulation efforts…

Once considered a way to help integrate racially divided districts, magnet schools today have been forced to evolve, given increasing pressure to provide more public school choices and legal barriers against using race to determine school enrollment. In a post-desegregation era, many large districts like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore County…

The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings releases an annual Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) that chronicles how school choice is manifested in the nation's 100+ largest school districts. The ECCI scores and ranks districts on the degree to which families within the district's borders have access to: (1) maximum choice; (2) a…

The Brookings Institution releases an annual Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) that chronicles how school choice is manifested in the nation's 100+ largest school districts. The ECCI scores and ranks districts on the degree to which families within the district's borders have access to: (1) maximum choice; (2) a choice process that…

For over a century after the 1896 "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision, researchers have been grappling with how to effectively implement educational reform policies to provide students with an equal education in American schools. This literature review examines previous school desegregation cases and school desegregation plans to investigate…

Integrating our schools is a goal that many of us share. But some seem to have given up on the idea, as plans to boost racial diversity have come under attack, and as the fixation on test scores has narrowed some people's concept of a good education. There is, however, new hope: integration by socioeconomic status. It's a cost-effective, legally…

Exploring the critical role of school choice in the future of education reform, the Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) is an interactive web application that scores large school districts based on thirteen categories of policy and practice relevant to choice. The intent of the ECCI is to: create public awareness of the differences among…

When the Connecticut State Department of Education published its first district report cards in 2003, it was obvious that the Hartford Public Schools district was struggling. Fewer than half of its students were proficient on the state reading exam. Math performance was better, but 63 percent of 10th-graders and 43 percent of younger students…