In the early 1990s, the educational system in the U.S. began to change with the advent of publicly-operated charter schools. In recent years, there has been a surge in parents opting for this type of alternative educational setting to meet the needs of their students. This increase in enrollment did not preclude students with disabilities. This…

In 1992, California became the second state in the nation to adopt a charter school law. California now leads the nation in both number of charter schools and charter school enrollment, with more than 1,200 charter schools serving 620,000 students in the 2017-18 school year. California is also home to more charter school authorizers than any other…

Background: Charter schools are one of the most recent attempts at improving the educational outcomes for low-income and minority students. These schools were created with the intent of being innovative, individualized, and allowing parents choice about the type of education their child received. This intention has not been fully realized, instead…

The 15th annual "Education Next" survey, conducted in June 2021, yields a host of specific results that reveal one large fact about the current state of public opinion on American education: The public is cautious--extremely cautious. In the presence of a still-circulating COVID-19 virus, a large percentage of parents and the broader…

Background/Context: Embedded in "common sense" and state-mandated reforms to close "the achievement gap," the urban school, especially those sites with a no-excuses orientation to learning, can produce and reproduce the carceral state in students' lives. The seemingly innocuous policies and processes limit access to educational…

I investigate longitudinal preferences for schools revealed by families' applications to middle and high schools within a large urban school district's universal enrollment system. I find that preferences for schools' racial/ethnic composition are more stable than preferences for quality and proximity to home, even after concurrently controlling…

This report explains how State Entity (SE) Program grantees are using or proposed to use the technical assistance (TA) set-aside portion of their Charter School Programs (CSP) funds for these activities. This report also describes SE activities to ensure subgrantees are equipped to meet the needs of all students, and specifically students with…

This report emphasizes the importance of state actions in improving educational opportunities for historically marginalized students, particularly those with disabilities. It highlights the existing achievement gaps and challenges faced by students with disabilities, especially those from minority groups. The report suggests that states have a…

We examine the efficiency of traditional school districts versus charter schools in providing students with teachers who meet their demographic and education needs. Using panel data from the state of Michigan, we estimate the relationship between enrollment of Black, Hispanic, special education, and English learner students and the presence of…

Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

Purpose: From book challenges to anti-critical race theory and anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning legislation, US English teachers have been on the receiving end of a considerable amount of far-right conservative pushback. This study aims to explore the effects of conservative pushback on individual English teachers…

Purpose: This study examines differences in the mechanisms that charter schools and traditional public schools use to facilitate parental school involvement and the degree to which these differences account for the high levels of involvement among charter school parents. Data and Research Methods: We merge data from principals and teachers from…

This article examines the impact of academisation on English Sixth Form Colleges through the lens of the Principals and Governors who lead such organisations -- those who have decided to opt for academisation, and those who have not. A comprehensive survey of the Principals or Chairs of 35 Sixth Form Colleges, representing all regions of England,…

School improvement in chronically under-performing schools remains a formidable challenge for school leaders. Recent policies in the U.S. have created incentives for school leaders to attempt new strategies to improve outcomes, and increasingly, school leaders of charter management organizations and other multi-school organizations (MSOs) are…

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…