When the number of charter schools in a given area increases, are students who remain in traditional public schools worse off? This is a claim often made by opponents of school choice; gains made by students in charter schools, they say, come at the expense of students left behind. There is scant evidence to support this view in the existing…

In response to an education-market demand to provide equitable solutions for underserved populations, the State of Michigan passed legislation that created public school academies (i.e., charter public schools) to leverage marketplace competition that addresses supply and demand among high-quality schools. Detroit, Michigan, has a large number of…

Charter schools have continued to draw an increasingly larger share of the students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), such that as of October 2021, 23.6% (n=77,662) of the District's students attended a charter school (Urdegar, 2021). This growth can be accounted for by examining changes to the proportion of the students enrolled at…

There's considerable public debate about charter schools and students with specialized needs, focused mainly on the extent to which charters enroll students who are classified to receive special-education services. A new study by Elizabeth Setren of Tufts University shows that critics, who often charge that charters do not serve as many…

School principals often contend that having the ability to be the instructional leaders that they were trained to be hinges in part upon maximizing their decision making latitude. These leaders assert that policy flexibility allows schools to make necessary changes without the bureaucracy that they believe stifles reform, improvement strategies,…

Violence--including issues of bullying--in urban schools across the United States is a persistent phenomenon, and continues to be of utmost concern for school administrators, community leaders, students, and their families. Using propensity score matching, we examined the relationship between school type--a magnet career academy and a traditional,…

The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in engagement and achievement among 2,695 high students enrolled in (a) a STEM school, (b) a traditional school (no STEM program available), (c) a STEM program within a school, or (d) a traditional program within a school having the STEM program option. The High School Survey of Student…

This "ex post facto," causal-comparative quantitative study assessed the math and English language arts (ELA) 7th to 8th-grade academic growth among Black students enrolled in Philadelphia's black-operated public charter schools, non-black operated charter schools, and traditional public schools while controlling for 6th-grade exam…

Discussion about the need for professionalization has accompanied the development of informal education from its very early stages. Some people believe informal education is staffed by temporary players whose main value derived in part from the fact that their work embodies the principles of altruism, hence they need no professional training. In…

The idea of privatization of the traditional U.S. public school system is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. The growing trend towards allowing private enterprises to become active players in the development and delivery of classroom learning is assumed to be a "public good." The following commentary provides a cursory look at…

Examining the experiences of families of students with disabilities seeking to exercise school choice is crucial to informing cogent policies and practices that will ensure equitable access. This report explores the perceptions and experiences of families of students with disabilities enrolled in charter and traditional district schools in…

This study seeks to understand the relationship between observable characteristics of schools operated by education management organizations (EMOs) and their organizational attributes. Most of the prior research on the relationship between EMO-operated schools and neighborhood and school sociodemographic characteristics considers the effect of…

In this study, we examined the relationship between school type and students' victimization and observations of bullying in their schools. We compared student perceptions (N = 1,283) of bullying in three urban career academies with different school configurations (e.g., magnet and school-within-a-school) and a large, urban comprehensive high…

The purpose of this study was to compare the student engagement of career academy students to those at a traditional comprehensive high school. We operationalized student engagement using a multi-dimensional construct comprised of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional measures. Based on data from 669 career academy students and 614 comprehensive…

Education leaders often list professional development sessions in school improvement plans to support teacher learning and consequently student achievement. Teachers often attend professional development sessions and file or dispose of content learned, never transferring content knowledge into instruction. This study aimed to identify strategies…