Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local…

In this article, the author, founder of Yorktown University, an online institution whose focus is training for citizenship, describes the often circuitous path to higher education accreditation. The author's story of what happened on his way to reform higher education is a tale of the political ability of traditional institutions to block startup…