The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program has the potential to be the largest school voucher program in the country. Though the authorizing legislation capped enrollment in the program at 7,500 for its first year (the 2011-12 school year), that cap was increased to 15,000 for this year, and will be removed for all subsequent years. With careful…

From tuition vouchers for private schools to charter schools to voluntary transfer programs within and between public school systems, school choice has been at the center of the school reform debate for two decades. But with the voucher movement unable to sustain much momentum, charter schools still serving a small percentage of the nation's…

A British headteacher ponders a tumultuous decade in school management. The national curriculum was one major problem. There have also been radical, deleterious changes in the ways schools are funded, governed, managed, planned, and inspected; how teachers are educated; and the terms and conditions of teacher employment. Competition for pupils has…

This paper describes the United States' first public voucher program, which was launched in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1990. It discusses the three phases that school competition has undergone in the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) district. These phases are a period of minimal competition from 1990-95, the passage of new charter-school legislation…

Arizona's "exemplary" charter-school legislation illustrates how three underlying ideologies (antibureaucracy, market-based education, and teacher professionalism) play out in practical terms. Although Arizona charter schools are achieving stability via independent financial status and real-time funding, many have monitoring…

Prior school-choice studies have focused on parents and students who opt to choose, neglecting nonchoosers, or those remaining behind. A study of 37 Minnesota school districts (20 gaining student population and 17 losing student population due to choice options in fiscal year 1995) explores the relationship between school-choice implementation and…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has launched a new initiative entitled "Doing School Choice Right." Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates, Annie E. Casey, and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundations, the initiative's goal is to help state and local leaders handle practical issues whose resolution can determine whether school…

This study examined how eight rural, high-impact Minnesota school districts (defined as those losing or gaining a high percentage of student population due to school-choice implementation in fiscal year 1995) responded to school choice policy. Data from semistructured interviews with each district's superintendent were sorted and analyzed. In each…