Released on the 25th anniversary of the opening of the first charter schools, David Osborne's "Reinventing America's Schools" explores the new paradigm of public education that is emerging to fit the realities of the 21st century. Osborne's new book offers a bracing survey of the most dramatic improvements taking place in urban education…

In Turkey, two types of administrative structures existed in the fields of National Education: "the central" and "provincial" institutions. However, between 1926-1931, the Locality model was implemented. Locality can be considered as a local administration formed in the provincial organization of the Ministry of Education by…

In 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) with a clear mandate for democratic involvement in district goal setting and budgeting. School districts are expected to organize "meaningful engagement" of key stakeholders, including parents, students, educators, and the broader community, in…

California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) promised to give more resources to the students who need the most: English learners, foster youth, and low-income students. So, how well is California's new education funding system delivering on that promise? The Education Trust-West's report, "The Steep Road to Resource Equity in California…

Polish education reforms begun in 1999 have helped dramatically raise that nation's performance on international examinations. Broad goals set by Poland's education ministry included improving the overall education level of Polish citizens, equity, and implementing national standards with local autonomy. As part of the new reforms, Poland required…

Top-down mandates concerning the curriculum of the school leave no room for program creativity and program commitment. Yet principals and teachers are held accountable for student achievement results. Constitutionally, powers not granted to the United States are reserved to the States or to the people. This book's primary purposes center on the…

Facing a declining K-12 student population and rising education costs, Vermont lawmakers approved Act 46 in 2015. This legislation has the potential to consolidate school districts that have fewer than 900 students. The law aims to significantly reduce the number of districts in the state by using tax incentives as a carrot and forced…

Since 1958, the New York State Education Department has officially promoted the policy of consolidating small, rural schools. This policy is delineated in the Master Plan for School Reorganization, and while the centralization of most one-room rural schools has been successful, the state has been less successful in the consolidation of smaller,…

The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and the Lau v. Nichols Supreme court case (1974) have changed the way school districts prioritize education for English Learners. With the same intention to prioritize education for English Learners alongside foster youth and low income, former Governor Jerry Brown and the California legislature followed suit by…

Is the Common Core really "dead"? Though no longer called the Common Core in our three study states, the "new" college-and-career readiness standards still guide much of education policy in Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky. In our new feature article in "Educational Researcher," lead author Dr. Laura Desimone, along with…

Officials of state education agencies are not known for hyperbole. Maintaining data systems, drafting rules and regulations, and monitoring compliance are not the stuff of breathless raves--especially in Louisiana, whose education system ranks near the bottom nationwide on measures of student achievement and high-school graduation rates. Yet in…

Managing a public school district today has, most certainly, become a labyrinth of elaborate endeavors. Leaders at all levels find themselves pulling on a Gordian knot of processes that were intended to improve schools but have instead become asynchronous, disconnected, and redundant. A school district in Pinedale, Wyoming, has found that taking a…

In 2013, California moved to drive more resources for students with higher needs, create more spending flexibility and let districts decide how to spend substantial new dollars by adopting a new watershed state finance policy, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). As California's Weighted Student Funding (WSF) law enters Year 5 of…

The Innovation Schools Act of 2008 (§ 22-32.5-102, C.R.S. et.seq) was created in response to district and school leaders' interest in finding a way for districts to develop and implement innovative practices in a wide variety of areas for the purpose of improving student outcomes. The Act provides a formal process that allows schools or groups of…

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…