The California school that parents want to turn into a charter now has two organizations seeking to make the change. At the end of a process that drew just four applicants, two relatively small California organizations are each making a case that they be allowed to help lead one of the most publicized school turnaround efforts in the nation's…

Thousands of educators, parent activists, and others are expected to convene in the heat and humidity of Washington next month for a march protesting the current thrust of education policy in the United States, especially the strong emphasis on test-based accountability. Organizers of the Washington say U.S. policymakers are moving in the wrong…

A tight race for governor, the heavy burden of rebuilding a school funding system recently declared unconstitutional, and a fourth ballot measure in two decades on charter schools has placed Washington state on an intense--and unpredictable--road for education this year. Washington is one of nine states that do not allow charter schools, and the…

An Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization has crafted a sweeping plan for reworking the 33,000-student Indianapolis school system that would place the district under the control of the city's mayor, pare down the money spent in central administration, and give principals broad authority to hire and fire teachers. The reform plan created by the…

The rhetoric of education today tends to divide the world in two: between those who favor "reform" and those who don't. Many who consider themselves reformers say they stand in opposition to the "status quo." Some of them speak of the need to challenge the "education establishment," or the education bureaucracy. Many also describe their policies…

The author reports on the "restart" option in the federal school turnaround program which offer new opportunities for charter school operators. Some of the nation's largest and best-known charter-management organizations have not jumped at the opportunity to "restart" schools with federal economic-stimulus money, but a wide range of smaller…

With the death last week of Theodore R. Sizer, precollegiate education lost one of its most influential thinkers and a founder of the contemporary movement to improve schools. Mr. Sizer died Oct. 21 at his home in Harvard, Mass., of colon cancer. He was 77. Over his long career, Mr. Sizer was dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education,…

Collaborations popping up across the country between charter and traditional public schools show promise that charter schools could fulfill their original purpose of becoming research-and-development hothouses for public education, champions of charters say. But both supporters and skeptics of charter schools agree that so far the cooperative…

After a period of top-down control under the mayor, the New York City system is freeing schools to run their own affairs--and holding them accountable for results. This fall, for the first time, each of the district's 1,456 public schools gained unprecedented control over budgetary and instructional decisions that previously resided with the…

In this article, the author features the America's Choice School Design, a school improvement program that has enlisted 547 schools in 16 states in its brand of comprehensive reform, and describes the program's move to loosen its nonprofit moorings and change to a for-profit company. The purpose of the move to for-profit status is to raise capital…