Educators, school administrators, policymakers, and community members are responsible for providing a quality education for all students in the nation's public schools. Traditional and charter schools bear the duty to ensure that special populations of students have access to the best education possible. This responsibility makes it essential for…

A contract is about commitment and responsibility. It is about the commitment that two or more parties make and the responsibility to deliver on those commitments. When school developers and authorizers turn a charter application into a contract, the relationship transforms: it shifts from aspiration to expectation and from theory to practice. The…

State and district school leaders across the U.S. have long sought ways to create success for children attending schools where too many have failed for far too long. A new approach to solving this old problem is called "starting fresh." By beginning anew with the freedom to do things vastly different, a real opportunity is created to…

What ought authorizers do to ensure that the charter schools they approve provide a quality education to students with disabilities who enroll in their school? That is the question many authorizers wrestle with as they strive to strike a balance between fulfilling their responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)…

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 ("NCLB" or "the Act") defines an aggressive, ambitious and multi-faceted approach for increasing student achievement and closing the achievement gap. Premised on the correlation between student academic achievement and teacher quality, NCLB demands that all students, regardless of…