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…

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 "Fair & Effective Education Policy." Contents include: (1) What Students…

With renewed calls for charter schools by Donald Trump's new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, a review of dominant policy theories and their usefulness in analysing policy decision making once again becomes relevant. This paper evaluates the policy case, of the adoption of Charter School Legislation in New York in the late 1990s, making use of…

The National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools (the Center) is deeply committed to ensuring that students with disabilities have equal access to charter schools and that charter schools are designed and operated to enable success for all students. To accomplish this goal, the Center conducts analyses and releases a comprehensive…

As the charter sector grows and evolves, information regarding these autonomous public schools of choice evolves as well. Prior to 2015, only a handful of reports included information about the status of students with disabilities in charter schools. In fall 2015, the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools (NCSECS) published a…

In compliance with the Indian Education Act (NMSA1976 Section 22), the purpose of this Tribal Education Status Report (TESR) is to inform stakeholders of the New Mexico Public Education Department's (NMPED) and Local Education Agency's (LEAs) current initiatives specific to American Indian (AI) students and their educational progress. This report…

Scant information exists regarding the status of students with disabilities in the charter sector. With the release of the most recent U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools (NCSECS) embraced the opportunity to examine these issues across the universe of…

Scant information exists regarding the status of students with disabilities in the charter sector. While there is some understanding of several high-profile issues (e.g., enrollment gaps, counseling out, the provision of special education services, and growth of specialized charter schools), to date, little has been published to verify or disprove…

Background: Purpose: This analysis considers the emergence, evidentiary basis, and potential of parent trigger policies. In particular, we focus on the policy, political and social circumstances in which parent trigger legislation emerged in California, the efficacy of the school improvement levers on which it draws, and the underlying assumptions…

For decades, for-profit educational provision has been merely tolerated, often grudgingly. In the world of charter schooling, for-profit providers are lambasted and sometimes prohibited. In higher education, for-profit institutions have grown rapidly, enrolling millions of nontraditional students and earning enmity, suspicion, and now…

In 2011, Indiana's legislature reshaped the state's education policy landscape with a package of laws that enabled local leaders to make swift and potentially sweeping changes to district and school operations. The Hoosier State's reforms, dubbed by supporters as the "Putting Students First" agenda, provide a valuable case study of the…

The contributors to this special issue of "The Journal of Inquiry and Action" provide insight into why the Obama administration's educational policies manifest the dominance of neoliberal ideology over most elements of social life. The articles presented in this issue build on the work originally presented in "The Phenomenon of…

The dichotomy between the growing enlightenment of the American people on matters of public policy and the deepening entrenchment of corporate power in civil, political and economic institutions renders any optimism about the uprooting of corporate rule problematic. One of the gateways to the nexus of power in Washington has been the Trilateral…

For nearly two decades, charter founders have opened schools across the land on the basis of a distinctive education bargain: operational autonomy--freedom from restrictions typically placed on public schools--in exchange for strong results-based accountability. During that time, many have studied the "results" and "accountability" side of this…

President Barack Obama campaigned on a message of change, but when it comes to K-12 education, he appears to be walking in the policy footsteps of his recent predecessors, including George W. Bush. Obama is sounding themes of accountability based on standards and assessments. He is delivering tough talk on teacher quality, including a call for…