Finding a Balance: How Application and Authorization Policies Impact School Supply
This paper describes how high-quality authorizers have changed their application procedures and standards and examines the effect these changes have had on the quality and quantity of new charter school applicants.
Quality Improvement and Performance Management in Schools: Lessons From Abroad
This paper considers systematic school reform efforts in Australia, New Zealand and England, where each government took steps to heighten accountability, decentralize governance and invest in schools’ capacity to improve performance.
Closing the Skill Gap: New Options for Charter School Leadership Development
This report analyzes specialized charter leadership programs and finds that they show promise in their responsiveness, course relevance, and methods of instruction.
Contrasting Approaches to Charter School Oversight
This paper outlines competing principles of charter school oversight and examines how those principles affect an authorizer’s approach to finding and selecting new schools, conducting day-to-day oversight of performance, and responding to the threat of school failure.
Tough Calls: Identifying and Addressing School-Level Problems
This working paper summarizes common problems faced by new and established charter schools and highlights strategies to diagnose and, when appropriate, intervene in struggling schools.
A Leap of Faith: Redesigning Teacher Compensation
This paper briefly summarizes three School Finance Redesign Project teacher compensation studies that begin to help build the evidence base for teacher pay reform.
What Is the Sum of the Parts? How Federal, State and District Funding Streams Confound Efforts to Address Different Student Types
This report demonstrates in greater detail than ever before how America’s methods of school finance work against a single-minded focus on student learning.
Closing Troubled Schools
This report analyzes the main reasons charter authorizers close schools, and how districts can use those closures as part of an overall improvement strategy that aligns with and reinforces their core values.
