The United States Department of Education's (Department or ED) Public Charter Schools Program (PCSP) provides support for the planning, program design, and initial implementation of charter schools; the evaluation of the effects of charter schools; and the dissemination of information about charter schools and successful practices in charter…

Urban schools' success depends on their responsiveness to student, parent, and community needs. Responsive programs include alternative high-engagement, remedial, or "last-chance" schools; charter schools; full-service schools providing health and social services; immersion programs for single-gender African-American students;…

Case studies of nine Alberta charter schools examined the role of charter schools in educational reform. The real promise of charter schools resides less in fostering innovation and efficiency in public education, and more in providing parental school choice and addressing diverse values and goals of education. (Contains 28 references.) (Author/TD)

Charter schools, performance contracts, and school choice programs are among the initiatives for change that can be made into an integrated program for reforming urban education, one that shifts from a bureaucratic and archaic system into a deregulated system that focuses on student performance. (SLD)

Discusses the impact of school choice on educational outcomes, examining: whether there is any evidence that the various alternatives to traditional public schools are delivering education in a fundamentally different and more efficient form; what the equity consequences and demographic implications are for enhanced school choice; and how enhanced…

Hugh Price has dedicated his career to achieving racial equality. The president of the National Urban League stresses each child's right to a high-quality preschool education, highly qualified teachers with high expectations, access to challenging courses of study, and organization of communities for learning, not just maintaining order. (MLH)

Howard Gardner reflects on how students who learn in different ways might grapple with deep epistemological questions. Gardner advocates teaching disciplines that present our culture's image of what is true, beautiful, and ethical. His understanding pathway should appeal to children possessing a strong existential intelligence. (MLH)

The proliferation of high-quality independent charter schools is constrained by the shortage of founders committed to evidence-based school designs and possessing the broad-ranging skills to make good on their audacious plans. The time and energies of such exceptional leaders are deployed over years in building schools that rarely reach more than…

This paper traces the evolution of the choice idea over three generations, from a market model concerned with economic liberty, to a demand for social justice based on equality, to a political movement that translates the idea into policy. Focusing on the last generation, it explains why the market concept has lacked political appeal and how…

This report is the third retention report published by the Massachusetts Department of Education (MADOE) to provide districts and the public general information on student retention in Massachusetts. Retention is defined as repeating a grade--students are retained when they are required to repeat the grade in which they were enrolled in the…

This report presents findings from a national examination of the organizations that sponsor, oversee and hold accountable U.S. charter schools. Its primary aim is to describe and characterize these crucial but little known organizations: What do they look like? How big are they? How do they go about their work? The results of this inquiry is a new…

When one sees the new Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST), the first thing one will likely to notice is the building's impressive design. The school looks more like a Silicon Valley biotech firm than a typical new Colorado high school. Indeed, the innovative structure, modeled on a similar facility in San Diego, has already garnered…

This study focuses on the case of The Heritage Academy (THA), a predominantly white charter school in rural North Carolina. Through a critical race analysis, this article suggests that predominantly white charter schools like THA benefit from colorblind educational policies in a whitestream and white supremacist society. Specifically, this case…

Access to important educational resources in California's middle and high schools is not equal among schools that serve different student populations. Overall, the most disadvantaged populations of middle and high school students are likely to have the least access to the resources necessary for learning. California policymakers are focusing on…

This theme issue focuses on the drastic revision of the Texas education code undertaken during the 1995 state legislative session. "Education Policy Reform: Key Points for Districts" (Albert Cortez, Mikki Symonds) outlines critical issues in the legislation that have an impact on educational quality: charter schools exempt from state…