Download or read book Beyond the Charter School Reform written by Amy Stuart Wells and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advocates and opponents of charter schools have made and refuted claims in the absence of data. This report introduces data from real schools into this discussion. It provides an overview of findings form one of the first intensive studies of charter school reform in California, the second state to pass charter school legislation and the state with the second largest number of charter schools. This 2-l/2 year study examined many of the most prominent claims of charter school advocates against the day-to-day experiences of educators, parents, and students in 17 charter schools as well as in nearby public schools in 10 school districts across the state.
Download or read book Charter School City written by Douglas N. Harris and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of the tragedy and destruction that came with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, public schools in New Orleans became part of an almost unthinkable experiment—eliminating the traditional public education system and completely replacing it with charter schools and school choice. Fifteen years later, the results have been remarkable, and the complex lessons learned should alter the way we think about American education. New Orleans became the first US city ever to adopt a school system based on the principles of markets and economics. When the state took over all of the city’s public schools, it turned them over to non-profit charter school managers accountable under performance-based contracts. Students were no longer obligated to attend a specific school based upon their address, allowing families to act like consumers and choose schools in any neighborhood. The teacher union contract, tenure, and certification rules were eliminated, giving schools autonomy and control to hire and fire as they pleased. In Charter School City, Douglas N. Harris provides an inside look at how and why these reform decisions were made and offers many surprising findings from one of the most extensive and rigorous evaluations of a district school reform ever conducted. Through close examination of the results, Harris finds that this unprecedented experiment was a noteworthy success on almost every measurable student outcome. But, as Harris shows, New Orleans was uniquely situated for these reforms to work well and that this market-based reform still required some specific and active roles for government. Letting free markets rule on their own without government involvement will not generate the kinds of changes their advocates suggest. Combining the evidence from New Orleans with that from other cities, Harris draws out the broader lessons of this unprecedented reform effort. At a time when charter school debates are more based on ideology than data, this book is a powerful, evidence-based, and in-depth look at how we can rethink the roles for governments, markets, and nonprofit organizations in education to ensure that America’s schools fulfill their potential for all students.
Download or read book Beyond the Rhetoric of Charter School Reform written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Customized Schooling written by Frederick M. Hess and published by Educational Innovations. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious book aims to reorient discussions about school reform by moving away from "whole-school" solutions to customized services and products. The book surveys the current landscape of customized entrepreneurial activity in education, looks closely at particular customized innovations by schools and education entrepreneurs, and addresses persistent concerns that arise in connection with customized reforms. A volume that is both far ranging and insistently pragmatic, Customized Schooling aims to spur fresh thoughts about the scope and nature of promising education reforms and to open up strikingly new possibilities for entrepreneurial activity in today's schools. Customized Schooling is a volume in the Educational Innovations series. "Customized Schooling dares the reader to look at what schooling could be like if we end our reliance on the one-stop-shop schoolhouse. Alongside a score of policy leaders, esteemed researchers, and on-the-ground practitioners, Hess and Manno lay out the case for individualizing education so that student, teacher, and district demands are heard and followed. What are the contours of such a system? How will it handle financial, data, and accountability concerns? And how will we listen more effectively to the wants of education customers? This volume provides fuel for the crucial discussion of these and other questions." -- Clayton M. Christensen, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School "Rick Hess and Bruno Manno argue that contemporary education is 'an anachronism in today's world of specialized services.' The book persuasively puts forth a strong rationale for abandoning past practices and provides a compendium of cutting-edge innovations and innovators. Do not put this book aside; read it again and again. Customized Schooling is an essential book for those of us committed to the transformation of learning in the United States." -- Gene Wilhoit, executive director, Council of Chief State School Officers Frederick M. Hess is director of educational policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and executive editor of Education Next. He has edited and authored numerous books, including What Next? Educational Innovation and Philadelphia's School of the Future and Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best, both published by Harvard Education Press. Bruno V. Manno is senior advisor for education with the Walton Family Foundation. He is coauthor of Charter Schools in Action and numerous other works on education policy and reform.
Download or read book Charter Schools written by Liane Brouillette and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-01 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes the reader inside the charter school movement, answering such questions as: *What is a charter school? *How are charter schools different from other public schools? *What does it take to create a charter school? *What motivates the people who initiate such schools? *What lessons can be learned from the experiences of those who have founded charter schools? *What does the growth of the charter school movement mean for society at large? Using detailed case studies of seven schools in three states, this book explores the challenges faced by the founders of these schools and develops guidelines for creating a successful school. Seymour Sarason's work on the creation of settings is used as a basis for examining the complex human interactions that contributed to formation of a unique culture at each school, as well as to establish guidelines for setting up a successful school. Introductory and concluding chapters place the charter school movement within a broader social and historical context. Tensions between the American tradition of local control of schools and the centralized tradition of schooling imported from Europe in the late 19th century are discussed. The gradual bureaucratization of U.S. public schools during the 20th century is described, along with problems that have been associated with the increasingly hierarchical and impersonal nature of educational institutions.
Download or read book Charter School Reform written by Jamie Story and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Critical Small Schools written by Maria Hantzopoulos and published by IAP. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement——which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice——have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on ‘‘size only’’ has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them ““critical small schools.”” By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowed the achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, it is certainly not the only one and this volume illuminates the other elements that contribute to these schools’’ successes and shortcomings. Critical Small Schools also challenges the recent emphasis on charter schools as a panacea for urban educational reform. By featuring research about the inner workings of public schools, this volume challenges this new direction that steers successful school development away from public education. Moreover, as every site is fraught with some tension, Critical Small Schools not only offers glimpses into intellectually vibrant and democratic learning communities, but also acknowledges that these concepts are not static and necessitate continual reflection and renewal. At this pivotal moment in educational reform, this volume provides keen insight into the challenges and possibilities of the small schools movement and is indispensable for anyone interested in comprehensive public school reform.
Download or read book The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Charter School Legislation and Practices written by Joice Eaddy Conyers and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Left Behind written by Edward P. St. John and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban schools are falling short of preparing students for college. In Left Behind, a team of education scholars led by Edward P. St. John argues that American cities have been engaged for the past three decades in a radical—but failing—effort to transform general and vocational high schools into college preparatory institutions. By examining the educational reforms in four urban charter schools across the United States and four public high schools in New York City, Left Behind reveals how educators contend with the challenge of developing new courses while providing social support for students to build college-going cultures. The research shows that district schools struggle to comply with standards that leave little room to develop advanced thematic curricula and that charter schools have not succeeded in substantially raising student test scores. Many students who start in rigorous charter schools transfer back to public schools while both public and charter schools struggle to prepare their students for college-level work. Left Behind provides crucial insights into the troubling trajectory of public policy while offering teachers and administrators effective strategies for overcoming barriers.
Download or read book Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education written by Michael Fabricant and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2015-04-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will reset the discourse on charter schooling by systematically exploring the gap between the promise and the performance of charter schools. The authors do not defend the public school system, which for decades has failed primarily poor children of color. Instead, they use empirical evidence to determine whether charter schooling offers an authentic alternative for these children. In concise chapters, they address a series of important questions related to the recent ascent of charter schools and the radical restructuring of public education. This essential introduction includes a detailed history of the charter movement, an analysis of the politics and economics driving the movement, documentation of actual student outcomes, and alternative images of transforming public education to serve all children.
Download or read book Scripting the Moves written by Joanne W. Golann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inside look at a "no-excuses" charter school that reveals this educational model’s strengths and weaknesses, and how its approach shapes students Silent, single-file lines. Detention for putting a head on a desk. Rules for how to dress, how to applaud, how to complete homework. Walk into some of the most acclaimed urban schools today and you will find similar recipes of behavior, designed to support student achievement. But what do these “scripts” accomplish? Immersing readers inside a “no-excuses” charter school, Scripting the Moves offers a telling window into an expanding model of urban education reform. Through interviews with students, teachers, administrators, and parents, and analysis of documents and data, Joanne Golann reveals that such schools actually dictate too rigid a level of social control for both teachers and their predominantly low-income Black and Latino students. Despite good intentions, scripts constrain the development of important interactional skills and reproduce some of the very inequities they mean to disrupt. Golann presents a fascinating, sometimes painful, account of how no-excuses schools use scripts to regulate students and teachers. She shows why scripts were adopted, what purposes they serve, and where they fall short. What emerges is a complicated story of the benefits of scripts, but also their limitations, in cultivating the tools students need to navigate college and other complex social institutions—tools such as flexibility, initiative, and ease with adults. Contrasting scripts with tools, Golann raises essential questions about what constitutes cultural capital—and how this capital might be effectively taught. Illuminating and accessible, Scripting the Moves delves into the troubling realities behind current education reform and reenvisions what it takes to prepare students for long-term success.
Download or read book Hope Against Hope written by Sarah Carr and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving portrait of school reform in New Orleans through the eyes of the students and educators living it.
Download or read book Expect Miracles written by Peter Cookson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cookson and Berger provide a thoughtful summary and insightful critique of the charter school movement. Expect Miracles explodes the myth that the charter schools operating in an educational 'marketplace' will recast public education to better serve America's children and promote democratic civic values. Anyone interested in the future of U.S. school reform should read this book." —Alex Molnar, professor and director, Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University, and author of Giving Kids the Business "By far the best book yet to appear on the charter school movement Written with scholarship, insight, clarity, compassion, and fire." —Bruce J. Biddle, professor emeritus of the University of Missouri, and co-author of The Manufactured Crisis "Beautifully written analysis of the charter school movement in terms of its past and present political and educational dynamics as well as where it might go." —Henry M. Levin, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University Charter schools are the most significant educational experiment in the last two decades. In Expect Miracles, Peter W. Cookson, Jr. and Kristina Berger focus on the current trend toward deregulation in public education. The issue of deregulation is of critical importance because the spirit of entrepreneurship that is behind deregulation is seldom examined from a sociological perspective. Using the latest research as the basis for discussion, this book provides a fresh look at the growing and politically volatile charter school movement. The authors present the most balanced analysis to date of the movement that is changing the landscape of American education.
Download or read book The Great School Debate written by Thomas L. Good and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines reform in American education over the past fifty years and against this backdrop presents a compelling analysis of why contemporary voucher plans and charter schools have yet to fulfill the expectations of their advocates. It is the only book to date to attempt a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the emerging research base on vouchers and charter schools. Suitable for courses in school policy, school reform, school leadership, or educational issues, it will also be of interest to anyone (parents, teachers, policymakers) directly involved with the charter school movement. Key features of this timely new book include the following: * A Historical Perspective--The early chapters look at American educational reform over the past fifty years and analyze why these efforts have fallen short of their goals. * Student Achievement--Chapter 3 provides an insightful assessment of American students' school achievement from 1970 to the present and, in the process, counters the widely held myth that, overall, student achievement has deteriorated. * Voucher Plans and Charter Schools--Chapter 4 looks specifically at choice and vouchers in American education while chapters 5-7 provide a comprehensive and balanced examination of the charter school movement. * Policy Recommendations--The book concludes with explicit policy suggestions that attempt to balance the educational needs of children and youth against the rights of schools to experiment. Suggestions for developing broader coalitions to support public education, particularly in the inner cities, are also offered.
Download or read book The Charter School Experiment written by Christopher A. Lubienski and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When charter schools first arrived on the American educational scene, few observers suspected that within two decades thousands of these schools would be established, serving almost a million and a half children across forty states. The widespread popularity of these schools, and of the charter movement itself, speaks to the unique and chronic desire for substantive change in American education. As an innovation in governance, the ultimate goal of the charter movement is to improve learning opportunities for all students—not only those who attend charter schools but also students in public schools that are affected by competition from charters. In The Charter School Experiment, a select group of leading scholars traces the development of one of the most dynamic and powerful areas of education reform. Contributors with varying perspectives on the charter movement carefully evaluate how well charter schools are fulfilling the goals originally set out for them: introducing competition to the school sector, promoting more equitable access to quality schools, and encouraging innovation to improve educational outcomes. They explore the unintended effects of the charter school experiment over the past two decades, and conclude that charter schools are entering a new phase of their development, beginning to serve purposes significantly different from those originally set out for them.
Download or read book Teaching Outside the Box written by Mai Abdul Rahman and published by IAP. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its totality, this book explores subjects that are rarely available in primary literature publications and brings diverging fields together that are generally addressed separately in specialty journals. The book argues that past school failures are instructive. The author identifies the structural and emotional triggers that make it difficult for educators’ to overcome the social constructs that control the progress of Black students, reproduce inequities, subvert the socio-economic progress of the nation, and threaten the legitimacy of the U.S. public school system. One failure is informative; successive school failures are chock-full of must avoid school policies and instructional practices. The book analyzes the lessons learned from a list of school-imposed policies that have molded and determined the academic progress of Black students. The author argues that much can be discerned from that which undermined the performance of schoolteachers’ and public school systems. The quantifiable outcomes of past school practices can better inform educators and future teachers and school leaders. The book carefully analyzes the organic evolution of educators’ social constructs that regenerated inequities to reveal the road map for rebuilding genuinely inclusive and equitable public school systems that serve the interests of students and society. The book also provides in-depth analysis of various disciplines that identify the best methodologies to improve the teaching and learning of Black students, homeless students, and all other students. The book aims to offer a unique perspective by carefully unfolding the built in school structures that obstruct the abilities of school administrators and teachers to bridge the student achievement gaps and meet the objectives of consecutive school reform initiatives. The author’s distinctive approach stimulates the thinking of the entire field of education, and challenges accepted propositions commonly assumed about African American students. In short, this book offers a perspective that is rarely shared or understood by educators and practitioners in the field of education.
Download or read book Law and Discretion in California Charter School Oversight written by Kelsey Mayo and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 25 years, charter schools have grown rapidly both in number and in popularity through market reforms to education at federal, state, and local district levels. With this rise has come a practical and scholarly focus on charter school quality, approached primarily through the proxy of comparative student performance on standardized tests. While results from these inquiries are mixed, substandard or mediocre charter performance poses a legitimacy problem for the charter school as a reform that merits additional investment. If charters do no better than traditional public schools, how do politicians and advocates justify their continued operation or expansion? One strategy to ensure charter quality has been to attend to oversight responsibilities carried out by local and state authorizers. Existing literature on these authorizers has taken a predominantly comparative approach, mapping the oversight structures that emerge in a decentralized regulatory environment with significant legal diversity regarding charter schools. Yet gaps remain in our understanding of how diverse authorizers (particularly within the same state), understand and act on school quality, and in how piecemeal regulatory decisions shape larger educational landscapes and opportunities. To address such gaps, this project trains a sociolegal lens on oversight fora and its participants. How do formal legal requirements shape the local practice of charter oversight? How does embedded discretion affect regulatory processes surrounding compliance and quality judgments? How do alternative ideas of school quality intersect with legal understandings? These questions are grounded by two theoretical concepts: (1) institutional logics- motivating ‘idea bundles’ present in the organizational field and the strategic actions of participants, and (2) the ‘law in action’ paradigm that sees law as a dynamic tool at work both within and beyond its traditional structures. This project stands as a counterpoint to existing research on charter quality that focuses on student performance and measurement outcomes. This study examines the role of law as a primary institutional logic of charter oversight in California, the state with the largest and arguably most diverse population of charter schools in the nation. I focus on charter establishment and renewal petitions to understand how authorizers approach and enact determination of school quality and operational fitness, and how these moments reflect interaction and competition of institutional logics. I examine the participation of different actors and their arguments, finding evidence for three motivating logics of oversight: the legal, the educational, and the market logic. I track how a sample of diverse charter authorizers- from the local district level to the State Board of Education, respond to these arguments and decide to open or to close schools. The project relies on multiple sources, including demographic data on California’s 327 charter authorizers and more than 1,200 charter schools (as of 2017); minutes from local, county, and state oversight fora; 31 interviews and three case studies of specific oversight actions. I also draw on materials relevant to charter operation and oversight, including legal opinions, materials from advocacy organizations, and charter petitions and renewal documents. The first chapter provides background on the demographics of charter schools and the oversight structure in California. Chapter 2 reviews the previous research on charter quality and oversight and delves into the conceptual approaches mentioned briefly above. Chapter 3 presents the research design and methodological strategies. Chapter 4 situates oversight within the organizational and strategic action field of charter schools. It explores the participants, logics, and boundaries revealed in the practice oversight: a contrast to the orderly portrait of regulation suggested by existing legal provision, or “law on the books.” Chapter 5 examines local discretion in chartering decisions and the role of competing logics therein. Chapter 6 focuses on the legalization of the oversight process and the consequences for participants; it also examines law as material resources distributed unequally among charters and the resistance potential contained within the legal logic. Chapter 7 discusses the implications of the research: both theoretically- in thinking about how institutional logics interact to structure the regulatory environment, and practically- for authorizers, charter operators and school communities. The study’s findings challenge the prevalent notion that charter quality is an objective organizational fact. It presents evidence that authorizers’ decisions reflect conflicting institutional currents now present in larger charter environment as well as material disparities among schools. I conclude that the current legal framework of charter oversight in California creates an open stage for actors to debate the nuances and sources of school quality, the suitability of market logics in public structures, and the legitimacy of the charter form itself. On such a stage, law is a dynamic tool in the hands of diverse participants, permitting mobilization toward different ends: arguing for increased market reforms to education, shoring up historic arrangements of local control, or even resisting the erosion of traditional public provision. Following from research in the law and society movement, law also emerges as an unequally distributed material resource, with advantages accruing to the “repeat players” while disadvantaging the position of less-resourced schools and communities. This work has implications for theories of how law unfolds in the unique organizational context of public education, as well as for the construction of equitable and democratic charter oversight structures.
