This study uses administrative data to measure the effect of attending a charter school in Denver, Colorado on the achievement of reclassified English as New Language (ENL) students during their monitor period in the mainstream classroom environment. We utilize school choice data from Denver's Common Enrollment System (CES) to control for each…

Students' personal epistemologies, or their beliefs about knowledge and knowing, have a substantial impact on learning, affecting their responses to curriculum, strategy selection, and psychosocial variables. Changes in epistemological reasoning occur similarly to other stage-based developmental schemes, with qualitative shifts in worldviews at…

The Framework for Teaching (FFT) is one of the most widely used observational systems for evaluating teacher effectiveness and driving professional development conversations in schools. This study contrasts reliability and validity evidence relevant to the FFT as traditionally scored with evidence relevant to a composite scoring approach that…

Background/Context: A primary argument that supports charter school policy assumes students favor schools with high academic performance ratings, leading to systemic school improvement. Previous research challenges this assumption but has limited generalizability because geographic and enrollment constraints limit student choice sets.…

As an informal teacher-leader at my elementary school, I set out to investigate the prevailing attitudes and beliefs about family involvement and engagement among stakeholders at Phoenix Charter School (PCS). I came away with three major findings: 1) There is no collective definition of family involvement, but almost all agreed that families must…

The charter school sector plays an important role in efforts to reform the education system and better serve the nation's public school students. To help understand this role, more than a decade ago the National Evaluation of Charter Middle Schools examined how admission to about 30 charter middle schools affected students' achievement. On…

Charter schools play an important role in efforts to reform education and better serve the nation's public school students. However, little is known about whether charter schools improve students' outcomes in the long term, including the likelihood of enrolling in and completing college. This study obtained data on attainment of college milestones…

Charter schools have become a significant part of the education sector in New York City since enabling legislation was passed in 1999. They now educate 123,000 students, or 10% of all public school students in the city, in 236 schools. The state law that allows the creation and funding of charter schools limits the number of charters that can be…

This tenth edition of "Measuring up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws" presents the latest activity in charter public school legislation across the country. This report evaluates each state's public charter school law against the 21 essential components of a strong charter school law. These 21 components are drawn from…

If free market advocates had total control over education policy, would the shared public system of education collapse? Would school choice revitalize schooling with its innovative force? With proliferating charters and voucher schemes, would the United States finally make a dramatic break with its past and expand parental choice? Those are not…

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed significant demands on teachers. The current study uses needs assessment data gathered from 454 New Orleans charter school teachers (81% women; 55% Black; 73% regular education) during the first months of the pandemic. On average, teachers experienced seven stressors (out of 18 surveyed) and four protective factors…

Objective: Sport is an important source of physical, social and emotional health and well-being among children. Sports participation at school may provide young people with the opportunity to build interpersonal skills and develop supportive social relationships with peers and adults, which may translate to positive experiences during the school…

Microschools, small schools that educate five to 15 students, have been among the most interesting recent developments in the K-12 reform world. Neither homeschooling nor traditional schooling, they exist in a hard-to-classify space between formal and informal learning environments. One of the most prominent microschooling networks, Prenda, was…

In this brief, we set out to understand how unionization may or may not shape practices central to charter schools' ability to serve students. The study, an exploratory one, includes 29 interviews across eight schools that unionized four to six years ago. Our results point to areas of concern, optimism, and future research. We found: (1)…

Adolescent mental health is a significant concern for school social workers. School social workers bridge mental health needs and available resources with school professionals. The purpose of this mixed-methods participatory action research was to examine how a charter school with limited resources and a part-time social worker addressed students'…