Despite receiving little academic attention, open enrollment has the greatest potential among school choice policies to transform the governance of local school districts because all student transfers occur within the public school system, meaning that families and governance structures in two (or more) school districts are impacted by…

Should school boards be in charge of schools? School boards serve as sites for local democracy, but their power has been under siege for over half a century. This study provides results from an original survey in order to assess who Americans want in charge of their schools. Given that the strength of school boards is supposed to be their ability…

Despite a long history of local control of schools, educational issues have become increasingly contested at higher levels of government as battles are fought in state and federal venues and along partisan lines. In light of this change as well as recent battles over school responses to COVID-19 and schools' roles in combating systemic racism, we…

A critical content analysis is employed to scrutinize the second-grade materials within EL education's English language arts curriculum. Applying critical race theory, this study confronts the pervasive anti-Black narrative embedded in standardized curriculum used in the United States. The study unveils the presence of this narrative in the…

Understanding why and how stakeholders become involved in education governance, and with what consequence, is critical to the success of any equity-minded participatory policy. This area of inquiry is especially salient to California's education law called the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). LCAP requires local district officials to…

Belief in the fundamental importance of civic education for democracy has been long-standing. But if educators can agree that schools have an essential role to play in preparing students for informed engagement in civic and political life, they cannot seem to agree on what that means. The very same efforts that are applauded by some are viewed as…

A wide body of evidence indicates that there is a large inequality in the distribution of teachers across schools. Relatedly, recent research has revealed a number of important dimensions of teacher labor markets in the United States. We review the literature in two of these areas: the geography of teacher labor markets and the decision-making…

Levels of governance (the nation, states, and districts), student subgroups (racially and ethnically minoritized and economically disadvantaged students), and types of resources (expenditures, class sizes, and teacher quality) intersect to represent a complex and comprehensive picture of K-12 educational resource inequality. Drawing on multiple…

This study provides an in-depth look at six unique models of partnership between independent schools and a nearby college/university. The six cases include the University School of Nashville and Vanderbilt University; the Lab School and University of Chicago; the School at Columbia and Columbia University; the Boston University Academy and Boston…

Recent advances in conceptualizing structures of influence in education policymaking have emphasized the role of nongovernmental actors working in networks to promote their agendas. These useful insights have allowed researchers to consider the evolution from "government" to "governance" in education policymaking, broadening…

In 2003, William Boyd spoke of the nation's "double crisis" of educational performance and legitimacy. Indeed, he said, these twin components "interact and reinforce one another" (Boyd, 2003, p. 11). The more attention that is paid to the underperformance of the schools, the more the nation seems to suffer a loss of faith…

South Carolina's persistent resistance to a federal, centralized national government is noteworthy throughout U.S. history. Accordingly, South Carolina's assumption of its powers governing education reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment focuses on commerce and free-market notions of competitive advantages rather than education's value to…

State takeovers were an infrequently applied strategy to address financially and academically troubled schools for many decades. The opportunity for a more extensive state role in taking over troubled schools grew further with the announcement of the federal "Race to the Top" (RTTT) program in 2009. RTTT required states to develop plans…

Educational researchers, along with universities in general, form part of the social field of knowledge production. Schools of education, as with all professional schools, are boundary organizations in the sense that they not only produce knowledge, but also train teachers, counselors, and administrators and have an impact on curriculum and…

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local…