Choices and Challenges

Charter School Performance in Perspective

Priscilla Wohlstetter, Joanna Smith, and Caitlin C. Farrell, foreword by Michael W. Kirst

As charter schools enter their third decade, research in this key sector remains overwhelmingly contradictory and confused. Many studies are narrowly focused; some do not meet the standards for high-quality academic research. In this definitive work, Wohlstetter and her colleagues isolate and distill the high-quality research on charter schools to identify the contextual and operational factors that influence these schools’ performances.

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools

Frameworks and Tools for Educational Entrepreneurs

Peter Frumkin, Bruno V. Manno, and Nell Edgington, foreword by Frederick M. Hess

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools addresses the challenges facing such schools by mapping out, in straightforward and highly pragmatic terms, a management framework for them.

School Choice and School Improvement

Edited by Mark Berends, Marisa Cannata, and Ellen B. Goldring

School Choice and School Improvement brings together a collection of exemplary, policy-relevant papers that examine how communities, districts, and states use choice as a strategy for improving schools and student learning.

The Charter School Experiment

Expectations, Evidence, and Implications

Edited by Christopher A. Lubienski and Peter C. Weitzel, foreword by Jeffrey R. Henig

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.

Inside Urban Charter Schools

Promising Practices and Strategies in Five High-Performing Schools

Katherine K. Merseth with Kristy Cooper, John Roberts, Mara Casey Tieken, Jon Valant, and Chris Wynne, foreword by S. Paul Reville

Inside Urban Charter Schools offers an unprecedentedly intimate glimpse into the world of charter schools by profiling five high-performing urban charter schools serving predominantly low-income, minority youth in Massachusetts