Research suggests that public schools serving advantaged students are more likely than other public schools to benefit from private fundraising. The reviewed report fails to conclusively demonstrate two key claims: that schools serving wealthy student bodies are more likely to have private fundraising groups, and that larger shares of white students are associated with increased private spending. Nonetheless, the report's approach of calculating per-pupil...

A core premise of state school report cards is that publicizing information about how well schools and districts meet specified goals will incentivize school improvement. However, for report card rating systems to be potentially beneficial as a school improvement policy instrument, they must provide fair and valid indicators of school performance.

Advocates for increased privatization of public schools have long contended that private schools could provide equal or better outcomes at lesser costs. To bolster that argument, this EdChoice report asserts that voucher and voucher-like (tax credit scholarship and education savings account) programs have saved state and local treasuries some $12.4 to $28.3 billion dollars as student "switchers" use those programs to leave public schools and enter...

K12 Inc. enrolls more public school students than any other private education management organization in the U.S. Much has been written about K12 Inc. (referred to in this report simply as "K12") by financial analysts and investigative journalists because it is a large, publicly traded company and is the dominant player in the operation and expansion of full-time virtual schools. This report provides a new perspective on the nation's largest virtual...

School districts around the country have launched new reform strategies that are designed to expand autonomy for public schools, often called "Innovation Schools." Pursuant to these state- and local-level plans to create more autonomous schools, school leaders are granted greater amounts of authority over school operations such as curriculum, budgeting, and hiring, while districts continue to manage services related to teacher payroll and benefits....

Summit Public Schools has aggressively marketed its Summit Learning Platform to schools across the United States since 2015. As a result, the Summit Learning Program is now one of the most prominent digital personalized learning programs in the United States. Summit Learning Program is available to potential "partner" schools as a free, off-the-shelf, personalized learning program. Summit's marketing message trades on the alleged success of its schools....

This brief investigates whether closing schools and transferring students for the purpose of remedying low performance is an option educational decision makers should pursue. The logic of closing schools in response to low student performance goes like this: By closing low-performing schools and sending students to better-performing ones, student achievement will improve. The threat of closure may motivate low-performing schools (and their districts)...

"This policy brief reviews what researchers have learned about racial disparities in school discipline, including trends over time and how these disparities further break down along lines of gender and disability status."--Executive summary.