With recent advances in generative artificial intelligence, it may come as no surprise that AI influences our society in profound ways. This dissertation project examines how educational and social media platforms and their algorithms shape educational practices and the identity, digital literacies and views of middle school youth participants.…

In South Carolina, much focus was applied to the End of Course Examinations Program, or EOCEP. The EOCEP was used to measure mastery of academic standards in gateway courses. School effectiveness and student proficiency were two areas measured by individual student outcomes. All public schools were subject to EOCEP testing in South Carolina.…

The COVID-19 pandemic changed schools' reality and posed a wide range of challenges for school leaders, such as a re-examination of principals' and teachers' authority and leadership in the schools' virtual spaces. Teaching methods and social-emotional aspects of learning were challenged as well. The school faculty had to redesign their…

Principal Wilson is a first-year leader of a virtual high school. Following four years as an assistant principal in the brick-and-mortar school, she encounters unanticipated leadership challenges and policy dilemmas. Although discipline issues are nearly nonexistent, remote testing presents an ethical challenge. Moreover, she discovers that…

The school-choice landscape in the United States is undergoing a rapid transformation, as states increasingly enact a new form of vouchers called Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). Unlike earlier voucher programs, which generally allowed subsidies only for private school tuition, ESAs represent a radically expansive--and potentially very…

In this follow-up to our 2021 report, we again focus on the world of charter schools run for profit, a world both hidden and misunderstood. We focus on how for-profit operators expanded their reach and enrollment during the Pandemic years so that one in every five charter school students attends a school controlled by a for-profit corporation. We…

Senate Bill 19-129, concerning the regulation of online schools, calls for the Colorado Department of Education's Office of Blended and Online Learning to produce an annual report on the number of students who withdraw from Colorado K-12 online schools after the pupil enrollment count date. This report is required to include the dates on which…

While K-12 online education and cyber charter schools have existed for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 compelled every professor and teacher globally to participate in this mode of instruction. Four years after the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar K-12 schools have retained cyber or online classes within the curriculum to offer students more…

Early evidence indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic sharply reduced public school enrollment in many states. However, little is known about the underlying patterns of these declines. Using new district-level data from Massachusetts, we find that these declines were concentrated in traditional districts while charter, virtual, and vocational…

"Voting with Their Feet: A State-level Analysis of Public Charter School and District Public School Enrollment Trends" shows hundreds of thousands of families switched to charter schools during the first full school year of the pandemic. During the 2020-21 school year, charter school enrollment grew 7%, the largest increase in half a…

Research has found that fall 2020 school district reopening decisions appear to be driven more by politics and teachers unions than by the local presence of COVID-19. But what are the implications of those decisions for enrollment trends? Using recently released enrollment data from the state of Wisconsin, this study goes further to show whether…

KaiPod Learning is a for-profit company offering students enrolled in online schools the opportunity to learn in a physical location with adult supervision, academic support, and extracurricular enrichment. Tuition is attendance based, with the option of students going two, three, or five days per week. This report discusses how KaiPod Learning…

Opponents of education choice often make two arguments about its effect on rural areas: (1) education choice will not help in rural areas because there are few or no alternatives to the district school system; and (2) education choice will destroy the district school system because so many students will leave for alternative options. These two…

After schools closed in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families and teachers had to shift learning from in-class to online. But the switch to remote learning was hasty and disorganized in many school districts. Families struggled with the technology and coordinating schedules at home, while teachers tried to shift the…

Over the past two and a half decades, digital technologies and virtual education have moved quickly to the top of the K-12 public education reform agenda. Proponents, including business leaders, school reform organizations, foundations, and for-profit and nonprofit service providers, argue that virtual technology will revolutionize teaching and…