Reforming the way a state distributes its funding to local school districts is a challenging task. Too often, state leaders embrace major school funding reform only when they are directed by court decisions. In this seemingly contentious policy domain, the Rhode Island General Assembly defied the odds--working in a recessionary climate and in the…

This pilot study proposes a set of analytical steps for comparing schools that participate in the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership (MSP) Program and their nonparticipating peers in the same state. This pilot is part of a larger effort to evaluate the MSP Program's role in student achievement, with two companion analyses.…

"Mayoral takeover" has emerged as a major reform option for struggling urban districts since it was launched in Boston in 1992 and Chicago in 1995. This article examines the design, implementation, and the effects of mayoral-led school systems. Our research addresses issues that are critical to systemwide improvement: Are there variation in how…

This research study explores the policy expansion of school choice within the methodological approach of event history analysis. The first section provides a comparative overview of state adoption of public school choice laws. After creating a statistical portrait of the contemporary landscape for school choice, the authors introduce event history…

In light of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling, this article focuses on how the majority opinion in Brown set a precedent for the use of social science research in defining and examining inequity in education. This article argues that following Brown, social science research has gained prominence in its social…

As the "Peabody Journal of Education" celebrates its 80th anniversary, educational policymakers and practitioners are keenly aware of the many changes in the way public schools have been governed in large urban districts over the last 80 years. Among the most significant changes is the role of the mayor. Although the 1920s saw partisan politics in…

Uses the demand-supply continuum to look at emerging reforms in the Japanese educational system. Data from fieldwork in major urban districts and their prefectures in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo highlight demand-driven reform (higher education restructuring), integrated governance (mediating demand and supply at the K-12 levels), and ongoing…

Explores the complexity of balancing curricular standards and accountability with professional creativity and development, focusing on four Chicago high schools that range from a college prep magnet school to a reconstituted school. The paper looks at how teachers respond to curricular standards, frameworks, and assessments and how they shape…

Adopts Weber's (1978) conceptualizations of modern bureaucracy to examine the organization of public education in one big city school system, the Chicago Public Schools, asserting that school administration operates according to three principles: bureaucratic, patrimonial, and charismatic. The paper concludes that over-reliance on the bureaucratic…