The discussion of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools focuses on fundamental questions related to equal access and has not typically explored the quality of special education programming available. However, absent quality support and services, access to charter schools is essentially a hollow promise. This report examines…

The "Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing," first established in 2004, reflect the lessons learned by experienced authorizers. This foundational resource for National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has been used to guide authorizing practices across the country and is referenced in state…

State laws and charter authorizing standards have not kept up with the explosive growth of charter schools in the last two decades. Annenberg Institute for School Reform's (AISR's) 2014 report "Public Accountability for Charter Schools: Standards and Policy Recommendations for Effective Oversight," offers seven standards, each with a set…

Recent advances in conceptualizing structures of influence in education policymaking have emphasized the role of nongovernmental actors working in networks to promote their agendas. These useful insights have allowed researchers to consider the evolution from "government" to "governance" in education policymaking, broadening…

This report documents how education "quarterbacks" (formerly known as harbormasters) have supported governance reform in three cities, and why and how they were effective. This exploration of why districts need governance reform and how to catalyze and implement it focuses on the following questions: (1) Why did the education…

As the charter sector has matured, its critics have multiplied. While charter schools enjoyed bipartisan and substantial public support for their first 20 years, the tide of public opinion now flows in more varied directions. Policymakers and leaders across the country are facing pressure to limit charter expansion, with public support for charter…

The challenges associated with educating students with disabilities in charter schools in Connecticut are symptoms of two broader issues--the state's inequitable public education funding system and problematic ambiguity in the state charter law. Fundamental changes to the state education funding system are required to better position urban…

The record of charter schools has been a mixed bag. They have become racialized, radicalized into business-generation schemes, scorned by teachers unions, and in some cases rammed down the throats of poorer communities. But charter schools sometimes have spotlighted best practice in urban education. In this article, Samuel D. Henry, a former…

The challenge of serving students with disabilities is familiar to both practitioners and policymakers, especially when it comes to education reform. Charter schools are often viewed as institutions that fail to serve students with disabilities well, or in the same proportions as district-run schools. Sometimes this is true, but it oversimplifies…

New York State's system of public elementary and secondary schools is in steep decline, but it is salvageable. The roots of its problems pre-date the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, but the system's response to that challenge accelerated discontent with the schools and harmed students. The damage of those years will not be undone if…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "School District Health." Contents include: (1) Habits of a Healthy School…

Academisation of the English secondary school system has been extremely rapid and represents significant changes to the governance of the English school system. However, there has been a relative scarcity of attention to the rationales, rhetorics and discourses underpinning the academies programme. Seeking to address this gap, a poststructuralist…

This study investigates whether and how principals implementing Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) were able to share decision-making authority with team members and how team members perceived this authority. Having interviewed and observed ILT members in four, in-district charter schools in a large northeastern city I find that principals had…

This annual report, The State of Public Education in New Orleans, has been the Institute's flagship publication, capturing as much information as possible about our schools in a single document. This year's report will continue that tradition, but with more of an eye towards the future and what comes next for our schools. The unification of…

The overall aim of this paper is to give a comprehensive picture of the marketization of early childhood education in Iceland. Our theoretical framework is based on Hursh's (2007) analysis of how the governance of schools is reshaped to serve a neoliberal agenda with the help of internal and external privatization (Ball and Youdell, 2007). In this…