The purpose of our multi-case study was to understand the experiences of non-novice New York City and Washington, DC public charter school principals who had participated in leadership coaching as a component of their leadership development. Eight New York City and Washington DC public charter school principal cases were selected through…

This is the first in a series of reports to be published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact highlighting the experiences of school leaders of color in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders'…

This report discusses Learn4Life, a network of charter schools that uses a personalized learning model, driven by one-on-one instruction, to help high school students who have dropped out or are struggling in the public school system to reach graduation and college or a career. A central and distinct element of Learn4Life's model is that each…

This is the second in a series of reports to be published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact highlighting the experiences of school leaders of color in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders'…

Much of the public discussion of Catholic schools has focused on their students' performance but ignores the values that have always supported them. Thirty-five years ago, the experiences and successes of Catholic schools in low-income American communities began to inform a significant part of what came to be called the school reform movement. The…

Providing high-quality and equitable learning opportunities should be a primary goal of all schools and school systems. Charter schools comprise the most steadily growing sector of Pennsylvania's public education system, now home to over 160 brick-and-mortar charter schools. As with all public schools--given the right conditions--the charter…

With support from the William Penn Foundation, RFA sought to further examine and understand Black teacher attrition and retention in Philadelphia, and promising strategies and initiatives that can promote the retention of Black teachers in the city and elsewhere. In totality, the project includes qualitative research that centers the perspectives…

This article analyses the narratives and counter-narratives which characterised the struggle between the Chicago Public School Board (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) preceding the 2019 Chicago teachers' strike. This was an extraordinary event which has received little scholarly attention. The paper explores the types and uses of the…

How are patterns of segregation related to families' engagement in public-school choice policies across U.S. metropolitan areas? This article examines how segregation in urban public schools and the spatial mismatch between school-age children and relatively high-performing schools relate to the shares of Black, Hispanic, and White students…

Charter schools are public schools governed by an independent board of directors that come into existence through a contract with an authorized public chartering agency. This report, known as the Illinois Charter School Biennial Report, provides legislators, policymakers, educators, and the general public with information regarding the state of…

Debates about charter schools center on their immediate effects on students who attend them and how charter schools affect nearby traditional public schools. However, as the charter sector has continued to grow, a broader range of possibly unintended effects become relevant. This study is one of the first to examine the possibility that charter…

Now that the most acute phase of the COVID-19 crisis is over, public conversation has turned to the millions of students who are still struggling academically and emotionally--and how the nation's schools ought to respond. Decisions that education leaders make right now will determine whether this generation of students recovers or continues to…

The COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about the possibility of increased staff attrition from the public school sector, as it did for other occupations during the Great Resignation that followed the pandemic's onset. Recruiting and retaining education staff were pressing challenges even before the pandemic began. Since March 2020, education staff…

While dual language immersion (DLI) programs have emerged as one approach to promote culturally and linguistically sustaining education, teachers are not prepared to instruct students who live in the intersection of ability and linguistic differences. Dual language learners (DLLs) with disabilities often do not have access to culturally and…

For children and adolescents, developing key social-emotional skills is beneficial to how they grow and learn in their environment. The objective of this study was to evaluate the overall social-emotional skills of African American students in a general education setting using a social-emotional learning program, Strong Kids. This study…