Student mobility and school discipline are two prominent challenges in urban school districts. The interaction of gender with school discipline in shaping patterns of student mobility has received little attention. This article examines student mobility patterns across gender and the timing of school changes in Clark County, Nevada. The findings…

The provision of "alternative" education is increasingly common in the countries of the world, but highly varied in its forms and coverage. In its commitment to provide education for all to age 18, Chile recently expanded its system of schools for teenage dropouts and has funded research on how best to educate these youth. This article,…

In this study we investigated determinants of the graduation rate of public alternative schools by analyzing the most recent, nationally representative data from Schools and Staffing Survey 2007-2008. Based on the literature, we built a series of three regression models via successive block entry, predicting the graduate rate first by (a) student…

This study examined the link between developmental risk and protective factors and risky sexual activity among 222 urban African American youth attending an alternative education program (AEP) because of problematic behavior. Self-report information provided by these AEP participants revealed that, for the risk and protective factors examined, the…

Urban school districts are comprised of many diverse high school environments including comprehensive neighborhood schools as well as a variety of smaller alternative models that focus on innovative practices, behavior remediation, or academic recovery. In terms of enrollment distribution, urban school districts are increasingly offering…

This article reports on a program of research that examined the background, planning, implementation, and evaluation of an after-school preventive intervention program within an ongoing urban alternative education program targeting African American students referred to the school because of their problematic behavior in regular schools. The…

This investigation uncovered the conditions of learning, both positive and negative, that students in an alternative school experienced both in and out of the classroom setting. Eleven students at an alternative high school in a large suburban school district in the Pacific Northwest were interviewed using methods of narrative inquiry and…

This study investigated how school leaders recognize and validate cultural and social capital of hyperghettoized at-risk students. Two primary research questions drove this research: (1) Did traditional school leaders recognize the social and cultural capital of at-risk, African American students? (2) How did an effective school leader validate…

Students need a strong, positive relationship with caring adults in school. Although the vast majority of adults in authority interact respectfully with students, some adults physically and psychologically bully students. This article examines the extent to which 50 alternative education students reported being victimized by teachers or other…

Explores various dimensions of charter school accountability, using three models of educational accountability (bureaucratic, performance, and market) as a basis for assessing state policies on charter school accountability in Arizona, Kansas, and Minnesota, and noting that states place varying degrees of emphasis on these three forms of…

Explores Georgia's charter school policy, arguing that pairing charter schools with accountability in policy discourse attempts to make more palatable a system that is increasingly controlled by the center. State accountability systems limit innovation by forcing everyone to work within system constraints. The centralizing effects of…

Discusses the advantages of recurrent or lifelong education but recognizes that the logic of recurrent education is not matched by appropriate incentives to individuals to forgo traditional educational patterns. Briefly reviews articles that follow in the same journal number on the subject of lifelong learning. (GC)

Suggests that more attention should be given to those charged with granting school charters, discussing different types of charter school authorizers (school districts, state boards or departments of education, other existing public entities, and new public boards created to serve as authorizers). Describes the roles and responsibilities of…

Examines difficulties in developing clear charter school standards, capacity, and expertise, recognizing the charter school movement as the conflation of several sometimes contradictory ideas; discussing tensions between competing versions of charter schooling; considering four modifications that could render charter regulation more effective; and…

Charter schools can foster greed or graft more easily than they can become models for what schools should be, and it is not likely that they can change the educational system. However, charter schools can promote creativity and they have the potential for making small impacts that can change the world one child at a time. (SLD)