Washington, D.C.
Uncertainties Around Charters’ Special Ed Role
One family’s legal struggle to get a charter school to recognize their son’s special needs.
Special Education by the Numbers
Traditional public schools still serve a larger percent of special needs kids than charters. Why does it matter?
Interactive Timeline: Uncertain Future
Explore the history of how and why the Catholic parochial system developed in America.
Keeping the Faith
One urban parochial school struggles to keep Catholic
Character-based learning
Look inside an elementary charter school with a Chinese language immersion program.
Old Values in New Kind of Education
Star International’s mission is to maintain students’ Arab and American identities.
Losing their Religion
One financially troubled Catholic school sheds its religious curriculum in order to stay open.
Catholic Schools Go Charter to Survive
Conversions are an attractive exit plan for struggling parochial schools.
Irene Goes to Washington
Follow charter co-founder Irene Hall as she lobbies for her school in the nation’s capitol.
Understanding Your Child’s Special Education Rights
By Elaine Meyer
Parents who send their children to public schools are often unaware that federal law entitles those children to an education that addresses their learning disabilities or mental disorders in as nonrestrictive an environment as possible. Here is a glossary to help navigate special education in public and charter schools.
IDEA: Special education rights are [...]
An Exception to the School
Written by Elaine Meyer
Produced by Elaine Meyer and Paul Stephens
In the late 1990s, James Forman, Jr., then a public defender, saw many teenagers emerge from doing time in juvenile detention only to be turned away from the public schools they were trying to attend. The schools found myriad reasons to reject them as undesirable students. [...]
A How-To on Managing the Message
Before I came to Columbia J-School and to News21, I worked in public relations for international corporate and political clients. So I was interested to see how some schools in the charter school movement use corporate and political image management strategies to sell, promote, and protect their brands in the new public education [...]
Charter advocates lobby for more federal support
Hundreds of charter school advocates went to Capitol Hill to lobby for pro-charter legislation on Wednesday.
A how-to on electing pro-charter school politicians
Because charter schools receive public money, they are often regulated by their school districts so that only a certain number of them can open in a district per year. This is called a charter cap, and caps are largely opposed by the charter enthusiasts.
I am listening to Sean Bradley of the U.S. Department of Education [...]
Charter school goody bag
Here’s what’s in the National Charter School Conference swag bags: a book called Beating the Odds: Inside Five Urban Charter Schools, a bumper sticker that says, “My Child Learns at a Charter School!;” a flash drive from one of the vendors; a DVD called The Providence Effect; the Picky Parent Guide’s Choose your child’s school with confidence; [...]
