Author: Gary Miron
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 0761945385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This book contains evidence about charter schools that can provide important data on evaluating this new public-private hybrid and its success at serving the core purpose of public education. The book focuses on charter schools in Michigan, which is regarded as having one of the most permissive charter laws in the country. The first three chapters provide a theoretical framework for, and the descriptive context of, the charter-school reform in Michigan. Chapter 4 analyzes charter-school finance in Michigan. The remainder of the book seeks to evaluate the "public-ness" of Michigan charter schools according to the definitions introduced in the first chapter. The last chapter summarizes evidence and provides an answer to the question, "What's public about charter schools?" These schools appear to be doing a reasonably good job of creating communities of teachers with commonly held educational viewpoints, but may be doing so at the expense of equitable access to the schools and student-achievement gains. Three appendices contain key historical developments in Michigan that affected public and private schooling, background and documentation for analysis of student achievement, and a list of education-management organizations and schools they operated in 2000-01. (Contains 157 references.) (RT)
What's Public About Charter Schools?
Author: Gary Miron
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 0761945385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This book contains evidence about charter schools that can provide important data on evaluating this new public-private hybrid and its success at serving the core purpose of public education. The book focuses on charter schools in Michigan, which is regarded as having one of the most permissive charter laws in the country. The first three chapters provide a theoretical framework for, and the descriptive context of, the charter-school reform in Michigan. Chapter 4 analyzes charter-school finance in Michigan. The remainder of the book seeks to evaluate the "public-ness" of Michigan charter schools according to the definitions introduced in the first chapter. The last chapter summarizes evidence and provides an answer to the question, "What's public about charter schools?" These schools appear to be doing a reasonably good job of creating communities of teachers with commonly held educational viewpoints, but may be doing so at the expense of equitable access to the schools and student-achievement gains. Three appendices contain key historical developments in Michigan that affected public and private schooling, background and documentation for analysis of student achievement, and a list of education-management organizations and schools they operated in 2000-01. (Contains 157 references.) (RT)
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 0761945385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
This book contains evidence about charter schools that can provide important data on evaluating this new public-private hybrid and its success at serving the core purpose of public education. The book focuses on charter schools in Michigan, which is regarded as having one of the most permissive charter laws in the country. The first three chapters provide a theoretical framework for, and the descriptive context of, the charter-school reform in Michigan. Chapter 4 analyzes charter-school finance in Michigan. The remainder of the book seeks to evaluate the "public-ness" of Michigan charter schools according to the definitions introduced in the first chapter. The last chapter summarizes evidence and provides an answer to the question, "What's public about charter schools?" These schools appear to be doing a reasonably good job of creating communities of teachers with commonly held educational viewpoints, but may be doing so at the expense of equitable access to the schools and student-achievement gains. Three appendices contain key historical developments in Michigan that affected public and private schooling, background and documentation for analysis of student achievement, and a list of education-management organizations and schools they operated in 2000-01. (Contains 157 references.) (RT)
Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education
Author: Michael Fabricant
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807771260
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807771260
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
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.
Charter School City
Author: Douglas N. Harris
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669478X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
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.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669478X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
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.
A Smarter Charter
Author: Richard D. Kahlenberg
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807755796
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Moving beyond the debate over whether or not charter schools should exist, A Smarter Charter wrestles with the question of what kind of charter schools we should encourage. The authors begin by tracing the evolution of charter schools from Albert Shanker's original vision of giving teachers room to innovate while educating a diverse population of students, to today's charter schools where student segregation levels are even higher than in traditional public schools. In the second half of the book, the authors examine two key reforms currently seen in a small but growing number of charter schools, socioeconomic integration and teacher voice, that have the potential to improve performance and reshape the stereotypical image of what it means to be a charter school.
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807755796
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Moving beyond the debate over whether or not charter schools should exist, A Smarter Charter wrestles with the question of what kind of charter schools we should encourage. The authors begin by tracing the evolution of charter schools from Albert Shanker's original vision of giving teachers room to innovate while educating a diverse population of students, to today's charter schools where student segregation levels are even higher than in traditional public schools. In the second half of the book, the authors examine two key reforms currently seen in a small but growing number of charter schools, socioeconomic integration and teacher voice, that have the potential to improve performance and reshape the stereotypical image of what it means to be a charter school.
School’s Choice
Author: Wagma Mommandi
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807779806
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school’s enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School’s Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve. Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807779806
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school’s enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School’s Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve. Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.
Charter Schools and Their Enemies
Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9781541675131
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
In dozens of places in New York City where a charter school and a traditional public school hold classes in the same building, charter school students in those buildings have achieved "proficiency" on statewide tests several times more often than traditional public school students taking the same tests. In 2013, a fifth-grade class in a Harlem charter school scored higher on a mathematics test than any other fifth-grade class in the entire state of New York. That included, as the New York Times put it, "even their counterparts in the whitest and richest suburbs, Scarsdale and Briarcliff Manor." Nationwide, charter schools have only a fraction of the number of students who attend traditional public schools. But charter schools enrollment is growing faster, especially in low-income minority communities. From 2001 to 2016, enrollment in traditional public schools rose 1 percent, while charter school enrollment rose 571 percent. In cities across the country, with many students on waiting lists to transfer into charter schools, public school officials are blocking charter schools from using school buildings that have been vacant for years, in order to prevent those transfers from taking place. Even in states where blocking charter schools from using vacant school buildings is illegal, the laws have been evaded. In some places, vacant school buildings have been demolished, making sure no charter schools can use them. Book jacket.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9781541675131
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
In dozens of places in New York City where a charter school and a traditional public school hold classes in the same building, charter school students in those buildings have achieved "proficiency" on statewide tests several times more often than traditional public school students taking the same tests. In 2013, a fifth-grade class in a Harlem charter school scored higher on a mathematics test than any other fifth-grade class in the entire state of New York. That included, as the New York Times put it, "even their counterparts in the whitest and richest suburbs, Scarsdale and Briarcliff Manor." Nationwide, charter schools have only a fraction of the number of students who attend traditional public schools. But charter schools enrollment is growing faster, especially in low-income minority communities. From 2001 to 2016, enrollment in traditional public schools rose 1 percent, while charter school enrollment rose 571 percent. In cities across the country, with many students on waiting lists to transfer into charter schools, public school officials are blocking charter schools from using school buildings that have been vacant for years, in order to prevent those transfers from taking place. Even in states where blocking charter schools from using vacant school buildings is illegal, the laws have been evaded. In some places, vacant school buildings have been demolished, making sure no charter schools can use them. Book jacket.
The Public School Advantage
Author: Christopher A. Lubienski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608907X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608907X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.
Reinventing America's Schools
Author: David Osborne
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632869918
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632869918
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.
How The Other Half Learns
Author: Robert Pondiscio
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525533753
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525533753
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
Charter School Funding Considerations
Author: Christine Rienstra Kiracofe
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1648028357
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Much has been written about how public schools in the United States are funded. However, missing in the current literature landscape is a nuanced discussion of funding as it relates to public charter schools. This text, authored by researchers and professionals working in the charter school world, provides readers with a comprehensive overview of issues related to the funding and operation of charter schools. The book opens with an introduction to charter schools and how they are funded. The financial management and oversight of charter schools and issues related to funding equity, including how charter schools impact district school finances, are addressed. Special considerations for charter schools related to serving special education students and transportation issues are also addressed. After reading this book, readers will have a thorough understanding of how charter schools are funded and managed financially.
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1648028357
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Much has been written about how public schools in the United States are funded. However, missing in the current literature landscape is a nuanced discussion of funding as it relates to public charter schools. This text, authored by researchers and professionals working in the charter school world, provides readers with a comprehensive overview of issues related to the funding and operation of charter schools. The book opens with an introduction to charter schools and how they are funded. The financial management and oversight of charter schools and issues related to funding equity, including how charter schools impact district school finances, are addressed. Special considerations for charter schools related to serving special education students and transportation issues are also addressed. After reading this book, readers will have a thorough understanding of how charter schools are funded and managed financially.