Access to public charter schools could theoretically reduce school safety problems by increasing competitive pressures, improving matches between schools and students, enhancing discipline policies, and allowing students to relocate to peer groups and cultures that discourage risky behaviors. Using publicly available data from the Pennsylvania…

Purpose: Health authorities recommend schools play a major role in providing and promoting physical activity (PA). School choice legislation has led to increases in both public charter schools and private schools, and these have greater flexibility in curriculum, staffing, and other practices than traditional public schools. Most schools have…

The charter sector has historically received significant federal support through the Charter School Program, which was allocated $440 million in fiscal year 2020. However, the sector has been criticized for not serving a proportionate share of students with disabilities and being less equipped to educate them. To gain a better understanding of how…

Effective schooling requires teachers to have professional discretion; yet in the twentieth century, bureaucratization enhanced administrative control of teaching. Teacher unionization offered one response to bureaucratization, intended in part to protect teacher professional discretion. More recently, the charter school movement offered a second…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the design and user testing of GeoForge, a multiple-player digital learning experience for middle school that leverages virtual reality (VR) and individualized websites for learning concepts in planetary science. This paper investigates how specific instructional design choices and features of the technology…

Charter high schools largely serving low-income, first-generation, Black and Hispanic students have long boasted of the comparatively high proportions of their students who graduate and go to college. But as these schools and their alumni grow older, charters also are looking at their rates of degree attainment, which remain lower than they'd…

This technical brief is part of an ongoing series the Center for Learner Equity (CLE) launched in 2015 that examines the enrollment and experiences of students with disabilities in different school settings. Using the 2017-2018 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) data released earlier this year, this brief focuses on the number and percentages of…

Charter schools have existed in the United States for thirty years, with mixed results. Research has largely focused on charter school failure and an analysis of what led to the demise. This study aimed to understand characteristics predicting charter school success, alongside those predicting failure. Specifically, it focused on a charter…

The push for personalized learning without clear guidance, training, or resources has forced educators to make their own interpretations of what it means to individualize. The purpose of this action research study was to investigate and improve the implementation of personalized learning environments in K-8 classrooms. Participants and data…

The purpose of this study was to examine the implications of the start-up experience for the evolution and sustainability of charter schools. I conducted interviews of founding members to identify the how design decisions were made, the successes and challenges that came about, and how these experiences informed school design. Interview data and…

This qualitative research study examines the experiences and identities of school leaders who currently lead or have led in high performing charter schools. Using educational criticism and connoisseurship, the author focuses on the impact of leaders' experiences and identities, which shape leader intention, school culture, and school development…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page sheets on a variety of subjects. The topics for this report on English learners in charter schools include: (1) Number of Charter Schools, by State, Including DC: SY 2015-16; (2) Percentage of Charter School Students Who Are ELs, by…

While K-12 online education and cyber charter schools have existed for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 compelled every professor and teacher globally to participate in this mode of instruction. Four years after the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar K-12 schools have retained cyber or online classes within the curriculum to offer students more…

Given recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, specifically "Carson v. Makin", which permit public funding for religious schools, we examine how Catholic diocese and school leaders interpret these legal shifts for Catholic education. We utilize the Catholic education sector in New York City as a case study to examine how Catholic school…

The landscape of how to best prepare minoritized young children for the uncertainties of an inequitable American society demands a change in the way we view the connection between early childhood educators' lived experiences and their pedagogy. Using the theoretical frameworks of critical race theory, Black feminist thought, and intersectionality,…