The American Educator Panels (AEP) are nationally representative samples of teachers, school leaders, and district leaders across the country. The American School District Panel (ASDP) is a partnership among the RAND Corporation, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, Chiefs for Change, the Council of the Great City Schools, and Kitamba. The…

Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School is considered to be the elder statesman among dual-language public charter elementary schools in Washington, D.C. It is old by charter school standards: Stokes was founded in 1998, well before the charter school boom of the 2000s, with just thirty-five students. It now serves 485…

Talented leaders are essential to building and sustaining successful organizations. This is especially true for schools, where principal leadership plays a major role in fostering student success. Research shows that principals are a significant school-level factor affecting student achievement, second only to classroom teachers. Like other types…

Increasing student achievement by improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders is one of the key goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title II, Part A of ESEA (Title II-A) provides over $2 billion per year in funding to states and districts to support effective instruction through…

The core of almost any local education leader's strategy is the rapid growth of high-quality school options for their city's students. Quarterback organizations, however, must decide on the most efficient and sustainable pathways to realize their school creation and growth goals. The basic pathways pursued by most cities include: (1) Replication -…

These are the appendices for the report, "State and District Use of Title II, Part A Funds in 2018-19." Title II, Part A of ESEA (Title II-A) provides over $2 billion per year in funding to states and districts to support effective instruction through the preparation, recruitment, and training of educators. The Every Student Succeeds Act…

An emerging body of research has explored "supply side" questions of school choice, or how schools and systems shape enrollment through locational decisions, recruitment, and marketing. This study focuses on how school websites market and communicate the distinct missions of charter schools to prospective families. Through a critical…

Across the United States, a movement to create a new kind of public school--"autonomous district schools"--is giving districts the freedoms charter schools receive. Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and…

In November 2010, Baltimore's Fund for Education Excellence and the Annie E. Casey Foundation approached the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and requested a case study of the implementation of Baltimore City Public Schools' (City Schools) portfolio strategy. These local foundations were interested in understanding how the district…

Emerging as one of the fastest growing demographic groups among school children in the country, English Learners (ELs) constituted 10 percent of public school students in the United States in 2010-11. Research and practice suggest that greater family engagement with schools can be a critical lever for ensuring the academic success of these…

Part I summarizes key topics of federal education policy articulating accountability requirements for state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs, or school districts). In that section we describe major goals of the legislation and which components are the same or changed in the federal law. The findings are grouped into…

The importance of strong educational leadership for American K-12 schools cannot be overstated. As such, school districts need to actively recruit and develop leaders. One way to do so is for school officials to become more strategic in leadership identification and development. If contemporary leaders are strategic about whom they identify and…

Charter schools have been a mechanism of school reform for three decades (Finn, Manno, & Vanourek, 2000; Greene et al, 2010) and have received increased attention during the current Obama administration (Loveless, 2010). Studies on the effectiveness of charter schools demonstrate mixed results and that school quality varies dramatically, but…

The federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program aims to improve student achievement by promoting the implementation of four school intervention models: transformation, turnaround, restart, and closure. Previous research provides evidence that low-performing schools adopt some practices promoted by the four models, but little is known about how…

The National Study of Charter Management Organization (CMO) Effectiveness is a four-year study designed to assess the impact of CMOs on student achievement and to identify effective structures and practices. An earlier report from this study documented the substantial variation in CMO student achievement impacts as well as variation in CMOs' use…