Charter schools offer something that public school systems, parents, and teachers need: a way to experiment with alternative ways of teaching, motivating students, organizing schools, using technology, and employing teachers. While people came down on both sides of support for or against charter schools, everyone was surprised by how difficult it was to assess charter school performance. The first part of this book focuses on how to improve estimates of charter schools' performance, especially their benefits to students who attend them; the second part suggests how policymakers can learn more about charter schools and make better use of evidence. The editors and authors suggest ways states and localities can improve the quality of data on which charter school studies are based and trace some of the ways charter school research influences policy.

Why is it so difficult to design and implement fundamental educational reform in large city schools in spite of broad popular support for change? How does the politics of race complicate the challenge of building and sustaining coalitions for improving urban schools? These questions have provoked a great deal of theorizing, but this is the first book to explore the issues on the basis of extensive, solid evidence. Here a group of political scientists examines education reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., where local governmental authority has passed from white to black leaders. The authors show that black administrative control of big-city school systems has not translated into broad improvements in the quality of public education within black-led cities. Race can be crucial, however, in fostering the broad civic involvement perhaps most needed for school reform.

In each city examined, reform efforts often arise but collapse, partly because leaders are unable to craft effective political coalitions that would commit community resources to a concrete policy agenda. What undermines the leadership, according to the authors, is the complex role of race in each city. First, public authority does not guarantee access to private resources, usually still controlled by white economic elites. Second, local authorities must interact with external actors, at the state and national levels, who remain predominantly white. Finally, issues of race divide the African American community itself and often place limits on what leaders can and cannot do. Filled with insightful explanations together with recommendations for policy change, this book is an important component of the debate now being waged among researchers, education activists, and the community as a whole.

Advocates of school vouchers and other choice proposals couch their arguments in the fashionable language of economic theory. Choice initiatives at all levels of government have succeeded, it is claimed, because they shift responsibility for education reform from government to market forces. This timely book disputes the appropriateness of the market metaphor as a guide to education policy.

"'Mayors in the Middle' asks and answers the crucial questions education leaders and policymakers need to know about the role and impact of mayors in big cities. Using recent historical cases presented in detail, it demonstrates the very different political and educational trends in each city. Mayors can do some important things to improve education in big cities, but their impact will probably be limited and ephemeral."--Michael W. Kirst, Stanford University

"In an era when political leaders are looking for structural panaceas to solve complex urban school problems, this important and timely analysis judiciously examines the trade-offs inherent in the recent movement toward 'mayor-centric' governance structures. The authors warn that mayoral takeovers are a tool and not a cure-all for long-standing school problems that are inextricably interwoven with issues like race and poverty. Their caveat that the policy outcomes of structural change are invariably less dramatic than reformers expect is particularly significant, as is their judgment that the success of mayor-centric strategies is contingent upon local contexts."--Michael D. Usdan, Senior Fellow, Institute for Educational Leadership

"This superb book refocuses urban politics research on the role of mayors in dealing with two of the most important urban issues: race and education. Students of urban politics, race, and inner-city education will benefit from reading it."--John F. Witte, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"This is a timely work, given the growing interest in reforming the governance of urban education. Addressing a topic of pressing interest to policymakers and community members, "Mayors in the Middl"e can teachus a great deal about urban education and municipal governance. The editors are respected scholars in the areas of education and urban affairs with well-deserved reputations for balance and thoughtfulness. In this volume, Henig and Rich have assembled a solid set of case studies and have coupled those with broader pieces that frame the issue and put the empirical work in useful perspective."--Frederick Hess, American Enterprise Institute

"This book provides a very useful addition to the literature on educational reform, focusing on large cities with mayor-centric educational systems. Its thesis is worthy of consideration by educational scholars and policymakers."--Robert M. Stein, Rice University

In his new book, Zachary W. Oberfield investigates the question of whether charter schools cultivate different teaching climates from those found in traditional public schools. To answer this question, Oberfield examined hundreds of thousands of teacher surveys from across the nation. The result is a trenchant analysis that deepens our understanding of what the charter experiment means for the future of US public education. Are Charters Different? shows that the teaching climates of charter and public schools do differ in important ways and explores the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. In addition, the book inquires into critical differences within the charter sector, between for-profit and nonprofit charters, and between independently operated schools and those that are part of educational management organizations. Ultimately, the book argues, the choice between charter and public schools should be more about what we value in public education and consider acceptable trade-offs.

Philanthropic foundations play an increasingly influential role in education research, policy, and practice-yet this sector has been subject to little research-informed analysis. In The New Education Philanthropy, Frederick M. Hess and Jeffrey R. Henigconvene a diverse group of scholars and analysts to examine the shifting role of education philanthropy over the last decade, giving particular attention to the large national foundations-Gates, Broad, Walton, and Lumina, among others-that are increasingly aggressive and strategic in their use of funds. Drawing on original research, they investigate and assess the impact of new patterns in foundation giving for advocacy and research; the divergence in funding strategies between old and new foundations; the extension of "venture philanthropy" to higher education; and the backlash against "reform" philanthropy as well as the unlikely partnerships it forges. The New Education Philanthropy offers an unprecedented look behind the scenes at major foundations, exploring the goals, values, and strategies that drive the new grantmakers' work and outlining the lessons they have learned over the past decade. This empirical inquiry into the ideas and activities of this secretive sector promises to provide a valuable resource forresearchers and reformers alike.

Examines an innovative approach to school district management that has been adopted by a number of urban districts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which ""a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organisational and curricular themes, including traditional public schools, private organisations, and charter schools.

The widespread popularity of charter 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.

The Infrastructure of Accountability brings together leading and emerging scholars who set forth an ambitious conceptual framework for understanding the full impact of large-scale, performance-based accountability systems on education. Over the past 20 years, schools and school systems have been utterly reshaped by the demands of test-based accountability. Interest in large-scale performance data has reached an unprecedented high point. Yet most education researchers focus primarily on questions of data quality and the effectiveness of data use. In this bold and thought-provoking volume, the contributors look beneath the surface of all this activity to uncover the hidden infrastructure that supports the production, flow, and use of data in education, and explore the impact of these large-scale information systems on American schooling. These systems, the editors note, “sit at the juncture of technical networks, work practices, knowledge production, and moral order.”

Charter schools offer something that public school systems, parents, and teachers need: a way to experiment with alternative ways of teaching, motivating students, organizing schools, using technology, and employing teachers. While people came down on both sides of support for or against charter schools, everyone was surprised by how difficult it was to assess charter school performance. The first part of this book focuses on how to improve estimates of charter schools' performance, especially their benefits to students who attend them; the second part suggests how policymakers can learn more about charter schools and make better use of evidence. The editors and authors suggest ways states and localities can improve the quality of data on which charter school studies are based and trace some of the ways charter school research influences policy.

Here is a short edited volume that brings together in one place, the best scholarly articles in charter schooling by national experts and leaders, written in a user-friendly fashion. It is the ideal introduction for those interested in the charter school movement with numerous insights for and by charter operators, administrators, and teachers as well as the academic community. The volume starts with essays explaining the history of education reforms past, in particular why their failures make charters a necessity. Additional essays examine such research questions as whether class size matters, how to end the teacher shortage, routes to alternative certification, why urban school reform fails, and how to make merit pay work. The second section includes essays outlining the key research on charter schools. Chapters examine such questions as how charter schools compare to district schools, how non-profit charters compare to for-profit charters, what determines teacher quality, and how the small size of charters makes for complex questions of accountability. The final section includes personal reflections, tips and horror stories from charter operators. In particular, essays examine why most charters have a tough first year, the difficulties of converting a private school to a charter, how to manage facilities, how to obtain grant money, and how to do good charter marketing.

The authors of this volume argue that urban education is in urgent need of reform and that, although there have been plenty of innovative and even promising attempts to improve conditions, most have been doomed. The reason for this, they agree, lies in the failure of our major cities to develop their "civic capacity"--the ability to build and maintain a broad social and political coalition across all sectors of the urban community in pursuit of a common goal.

Drawing upon an ambitious eleven-city study funded by the National Science Foundation, the authors synthesize and make sense of the enormous amount of data from Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Not only is this a vivid report from the front lines of big city schooling, but this work challenges us to rethink our approach to the crisis in our schools.

The authors vigorously contend that it is essential for all (or most) important actors in an urban community to join together in a shared vision of what is wrong in the schools and how to fix it, and to pursue that vision strongly and systematically over a long time. That can only happen, however, if those same actors develop the ability and willingness to set aside narrow aims and opportunistic behavior in favor of pursuing the collective good.

Written for a wide spectrum of potential readers--including educators, social scientists, policymakers, and every citizen who cares about his or her child's education--this book restores coalition politics to the center of educational reform and reminds us to look well beyond pedagogy and management theory for solutions to problems that are immune to the usual remedies. Drawing on select cases, the authors show that effective civic coalitions can be built. The struggle for reform can be won.

Outside Money in School Board Elections documents and analyzes the injection of external funding into local elections. Local school board contests have recently become flashpoints of national donor interest. Some observers see this engagement as a needed boost for complacent school districts while others view it as a threat to local democracy. Drawing on a detailed study of elections in five districts (Bridgeport, Connecticut, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and New Orleans), the authors explore what happens when national issues percolate downward into local politics. They suggest that the involvement of wealthy individuals and national organizations in local school board elections are signs of the nationalization of local education politics that potentially have significant implications for equity and democracy. Outside Money in School Board Elections brings attention back to local participation and the diversity of players at that level, and highlights the national trend of increasing wealth inequality and its impact on the politics of education. This cross-case investigation demonstrates that local and national education politics are not separate fields but closely intertwined areas of political advocacy with complex interactions.

In his new book, Zachary W. Oberfield investigates the question of whether charter schools cultivate different teaching climates from those found in traditional public schools. To answer this question, Oberfield examined hundreds of thousands of teacher surveys from across the nation. The result is a trenchant analysis that deepens our understanding of what the charter experiment means for the future of US public education. Are Charters Different? shows that the teaching climates of charter and public schools do differ in important ways and explores the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. In addition, the book inquires into critical differences within the charter sector, between for-profit and nonprofit charters, and between independently operated schools and those that are part of educational management organizations. Ultimately, the book argues, the choice between charter and public schools should be more about what we value in public education and consider acceptable trade-offs.

Philanthropic foundations play an increasingly influential role in education research, policy, and practice-yet this sector has been subject to little research-informed analysis. In The New Education Philanthropy, Frederick M. Hess and Jeffrey R. Henigconvene a diverse group of scholars and analysts to examine the shifting role of education philanthropy over the last decade, giving particular attention to the large national foundations-Gates, Broad, Walton, and Lumina, among others-that are increasingly aggressive and strategic in their use of funds. Drawing on original research, they investigate and assess the impact of new patterns in foundation giving for advocacy and research; the divergence in funding strategies between old and new foundations; the extension of "venture philanthropy" to higher education; and the backlash against "reform" philanthropy as well as the unlikely partnerships it forges. The New Education Philanthropy offers an unprecedented look behind the scenes at major foundations, exploring the goals, values, and strategies that drive the new grantmakers' work and outlining the lessons they have learned over the past decade. This empirical inquiry into the ideas and activities of this secretive sector promises to provide a valuable resource forresearchers and reformers alike.

Over the past fifty years, the ""special"" status of education decision-making has been eroded. Once the province of local and state school boards, decisions about schools and schooling have begun to emerge in every level and branch of government. In The End of Exceptionalism in American Education, Jeffrey R. Henig traces the roots of this tectonic shift in school governance. Carefully reasoned, astutely observed, and thoughtfully presented, this volume promises to become a classic work in our understanding of education policy and an invaluable resource for those seeking to influence its future trajectory.

Examines an innovative approach to school district management that has been adopted by a number of urban districts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which ""a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organisational and curricular themes, including traditional public schools, private organisations, and charter schools.

The widespread popularity of charter 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.

"To Educate a Nation" brings together the work of some of the most notable young scholars in the field of national education policy studies, focusing on the growing federal role in reform efforts; programs to provide equal educational opportunity; the changing relationships among federal, state, and local agencies; and the shifting boundaries between public and private sectors.

Collectively, these essays provide a new and penetrating look at how education policymaking has changed over the past fifty years. Individually, they address such issues as desegregation, education choice, Title I, the National Defense Education Act, the politics of pre-K education, and Supreme Court decisions on equal opportunity--as well as how No Child Left Behind fits into the larger framework of debates over the standards-based reform movement.

Developed over three years of seminars at Brown University, "To Educate a Nation" brings thematic and analytical coherence to the subject. Bridging historical and social science analyses, the contributors examine the interactions of federal initiatives with state and local practices as they highlight the complications inherent in American education today and provide a framework for grappling with its problems. Their insights expand our understanding of federal policy, national reform movements, and the changing nature of the polity in education-the institutions, traditions, and power relationships that define who has a voice in education policymaking and how they participate in it.

For citizens and scholars alike, To Educate a Nation provides new ways to think about educational decision making in a federal system of governance, about unintended consequences of top-down policies, and about the continued resilience of state and local variation, clarifying how education policy is made in our unusual American system of shared governance and supplying an effective framework for understanding today's complex policymaking context.

One important aim of social science research is to provide unbiased information that can help guide public policies. However, social science is often construed as politics by other means. Nowhere is the polarized nature of social science research more visible than in the heated debate over charter schools. In Spin Cycle, noted political scientist and education expert Jeffrey Henig explores how controversies over the charter school movement illustrate the use and misuse of research in policy debates. Henig s compelling narrative reveals that, despite all of the political maneuvering on the public stage, research on school choice has gradually converged on a number of widely accepted findings. This quiet consensus shows how solid research can supersede partisan cleavages and sensationalized media headlines. In Spin Cycle, Henig draws on extensive interviews with researchers, journalists, and funding agencies on both sides of the debate, as well as data on federal and foundation grants and a close analysis of media coverage, to explore how social science research is spun in the public sphere. Henig looks at the consequences of a highly controversial New York Times article that cited evidence of poor test performance among charter school students. The front-page story, based on research findings released by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), sparked an explosive debate over the effectiveness of charter schools. In the ensuing drama, reputable scholars from both ends of the political spectrum launched charges and counter-charges over the research methodology and the implications of the data. Henig uses this political tug-of-war to illustrate broader problems relating to social science: of what relevance is supposedly non-partisan research when findings are wielded as political weapons on both sides of the debate? In the case of charter schools, Henig shows that despite the political posturing in public forums, many researchers have since revised their stances according to accumulating new evidence and have begun to find common ground. Over time, those who favored charter schools were willing to admit that in many instances charter schools are no better than traditional schools. And many who were initially alarmed by the potentially destructive consequences of school choice admitted that their fears were overblown. The core problem, Henig concludes, has less to do with research itself than with the way it is often sensationalized or misrepresented in public discourse. Despite considerable frustration over the politicization of research, until now there has been no systematic analysis of the problem. Spin Cycle provides an engaging narrative and instructive guide with far-reaching implications for the way research is presented to the public. Ultimately, Henig argues, we can do a better job of bringing research to bear on the task of social betterment."