For all the national and even international debate about the state of American education, public schooling in the U.S. is still a local matter--and the school district remains its hub. As administrators know, there's nothing abstract about the process of getting millions of students into their seats, assuring they receive the instruction they're…

What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus from Washington, DC, to the states and from philanthropies and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This article examines…

Purpose: In this essay, we examine the racial politics of education in the six decades after "Brown". We consider the state of educational policy in an era in which market reform advocates often invoke the spirit of the "Brown" decision even as the Supreme Court has largely vacated the legal framework provided by…

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) Luminaries Energize Attendees at School Choice Policy Summit; (2) High Court to Hear Arizona School Choice Case; (3) A Favorite…

School choice improves parents' satisfaction with their children's schools, and public schools that face competition have shown improved performance, yet opponents continue to oppose reforms that give parents the opportunity to choose their children's schools. State and federal policymakers should reform existing education policies to give all…

"Between Public and Private" examines an innovative approach to school district management that has been adopted by a number of urban districts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which "a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organizational and curricular themes, including traditional public…

All political scientists who study education policy start their analysis with a similar premise: "educational reform does not take place in political vacuum." Studies of the politics of school choice have focused primarily on state-level political dynamics. This line of research makes sense since the charter school market is initially…

This article examines an effort to use urban schools to promote the revitalization of a large northeastern city in the United States. In order to attract and retain professional families to a regenerated central city, downtown schools are re-branded and promoted to such families as suitable for their children. The article draws on interviews and…

This report provides a summary of the process parents must go through to participate in each of the nation's school choice programs, identifying problem areas in some programs. For the first time in one place, this report collects data on participation in each of the programs in current and previous years. Data are given for the number of students…