A Toolkit of Emerging Best Practices and Opportunities for Charter Support Organizations Approximately 6.4 million students--roughly 13 percent of the student population between ages 6-21--receive special education and related services in public schools every year. While students identified as eligible for special education require supports and…

Charter schools face high-stakes accountability. When charter schools fail to perform as expected, including as measured on state tests, authorizers are often expected to close them. While the details of charter school oversight are shaped by each state's charter school policy, federal law influences how states test children and evaluate all…

Public education is different than it was 40 years ago when U.S. schools educated only one in five children with disabilities. Many states had laws excluding certain students from attending public schools, including children who were deaf, blind, or had emotional or intellectual disabilities. In 1974, Arizona students with certain disabilities…

Despite the importance of teachers, the preparation programs intended to train them and provide them with the foundational skills they need to grow into high-quality educators vary in format, curriculum offered, quality, and more. Alternative teacher certification programs that are run outside of institutions of higher education (IHE) are an…

This article explores the discourse practices of an Indigenous, community-based charter school and its efforts to create space for Indigenous both/and identities across rural-urban divides. The ethnographic portrait of Urban Native Middle School (UNMS) analyzes the discourse of making "a space for you", which brings together rural and…

Many policy analysts favor holding deficient public schools accountable: Either they should improve or else close. Hypotheses are developed which explore how school type (district, charter) and enrollment size influence these two accountability outcomes for deficient Arizona elementary campuses operating under two educational oversight regimes: No…

A full year of progress in advancing education reform across America is documented in each of the Foundation for Excellence in Education's Annual Reports. This report presents the broad range of initiatives that the Foundation for Excellence in Education is working on--policies that personalize the learning experience for students, that challenge…

Schools need to address the needs of their students with high ability. Not only does this raise achievement levels schoolwide, it also attracts students from surrounding districts and recaptures advanced learners who left the school because their needs weren't being met. One practical intervention--cluster grouping--provides an inclusive…

Council for American Private Education (CAPE) is a coalition of national associations serving private schools K-12. "Outlook" is published monthly by CAPE. This issue contains the following articles: (1) House Panel Approves Two ESEA Reauthorization Bills; (2) President Obama Proposes Budget for 2013; (3) Charter Schools Causing Collapse…

The author reports on a new study which reveals that the lowest-performing public K-8 schools often linger in that state for years, neither improving enough to get off accountability life support nor being shuttered completely. The study adds that persistently failing charter schools fare no better than regular public schools. Of 2,025 chronically…

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high poverty students, and the Education Commission of the States (ECS), with a mission to foster both the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states and long range strategic…

The National Association of State Directors of Special Education has published documents on home schooling and various aspects of the charter school movement, but not on other types of school choice such as vouchers. This Project Forum document focuses on voucher programs that are specifically designed to provide public funds for parental…

This technical brief examines the 2008/09 reading and math proficiency levels among subgroups of Arizona public school students defined by students' race/ethnicity (American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White), English language learner status (English language learner students and non-English language learner students), disability status…

Seven years after the Civil Rights Project first documented extensive patterns of charter school segregation, the charter sector continues to stratify students by race, class and possibly language. This study is released at a time of mounting federal pressure to expand charter schools, despite on-going and accumulating evidence of charter school…

Outlook is the monthly newsletter for the Council for American Private Education (CAPE). Each issue contains information relating to private education such as: new legislation and regulations, the most recent research, court rulings, national trends, federal initiatives, private school news briefs, and more. This issue contains the following…