The 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as No Child Left Behind, significantly expands the role of the federal government in elementary and secondary education and has important implications for rural and small schools. This guide examines 15 areas of the legislation that will have the greatest impact on rural…

This brief discusses how school districts nationwide are dealing with the challenges of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). To understand how districts are reacting to NCLB, the researchers interviewed staff, visited websites, and examined other documentation from districts across the country and from national and regional education…

This document is the record of a hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives. The hearing examined the Supreme Court's school-choice decision and Congress's authority to enact school-choice programs. This document contains statements by the following: Steve Chabot, Representative…

In 1991, Massachusetts passed an interdistrict choice law that gave parents the option of enrolling their child in any district they selected. Six years later, David Armor and Brett Peiser conducted a study to examine the social, racial, and financial impact of the choice program on participating districts, and to determine if the thesis behind…

Selections in this book, which grew from a seminar at New York University between 1994 and 1996, discuss the recent educational innovations of charter schools, contracting arrangements, and choice that are designed to liberate educators and raise the levels of opportunity for all students. The essays, which focus on the urban experience, explore…

The debate about school choice continues in the absence of much data about its effects on student achievement, or on anything else. This volume assembles such data. The papers in this book present recent empirical results, showing that the specific features of the choice program make a great deal of difference in influencing student outcomes. The…

Question-and-answer format is used to provide guidance about the eligibility of public charter schools to receive funds, and the allocation of such funds, under Part A of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Part A provides federal financial assistance, through state education agencies (SEAs) to local education agencies (LEAs) to…

This monograph explores issues related to school choice by examining available evidence for the success of choice plans. It begins with an overview of the choice movement and then describes several specific plans that illustrate the various plan types. It concludes with an appraisal of how choice will change and shape urban school reform in the…

Throughout the English-speaking world, and now Western Europe and parts of East Asia, parental choice and educational markets are being seen by politicians and policy advisors as the panacea to problems of low educational standards and social exclusion. This book tests the key assumptions underlying the faith in markets by linking an analysis of…

Community schools were created in Ohio to provide additional educational options for children in low-performing schools and to develop innovative teaching and management techniques that may be transferable to traditional public schools. In 1997 the Ohio General Assembly required the Legislative Office of Education Oversight (LOEO) to evaluate the…

This review assesses the potential impact of large-scale voucher programs, drawing on empirical literature in economics, education, and sociology. First, it describes the intellectual history and practice of vouchers. Second, it delineates an economic framework for understanding the effects that a voucher plan could have on schools and students.…

This brief paper is a response to a reanalysis (Krueger & Zhu, 2003) of a report (Mayer, Peterson, Myers, Tuttle, & Howell, 2002). The response is offered by two of the authors (Myers & Mayer) of the original report. The original report presented an evaluation of the impact of vouchers on students' reading and mathematics achievement…

This research brief recaps a study of California charter schools. After a discussion of the key distinctions among charter schools, the brief focuses on the following questions: (1) Who attends charter schools? (2) How does student achievement in charter schools compare with that in conventional public schools? (3) What oversight do chartering…

This study examined the effects on special education enrollment of state funding systems and high stakes testing. The study evaluated special and general education enrollment for each of the school years 1991-92 through 2000-01. Data were also collected on high stakes testing in each state and on funding systems, including the common bounty system…

Among the major concerns surrounding school-choice programs is their potential to stratify students along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class. The latest among four U.S. Department of Education national evaluations of charter schools reports no evidence that charter schools are predominantly white or that they segregate…