Charter Schools: From Reform Imagery to Reform Reality (Palgrave Studies in Urban Education)

This book begins with the claims of policymakers and explores charter schools at each stage of the policymaking process, from legislation to implementation. Powers carefully and thoroughly examines how features of schools' policy contexts shape the ways that charter school reform unfolds at schools, providing a nuanced portrait of the schools participating in this much discussed and little understood reform movement. While policymakers are often prone to making sweeping claims about the efficacy of charter schools, in practice charter school reform is much more complex. By drawing on an extensive and compelling range of data, Powers assesses the validity of policymakers' claims. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Tables and Figure......Page 10 Series Editor’s Preface......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 14 Introduction: Charter Schools in the Reform Imagination......Page 16 1 Mapping the Terrain of Charter School Reform......Page 32 2 State Level Policy Action......Page 54 3 School Level Implementation: Charter School Reform "On the Ground"......Page 76 4 How Policy Contexts Shape Implementation......Page 126 5 Policy Dynamics—Schools and Accountability Policies......Page 174 6 The Relationship between Policy Talk and Implementation......Page 200 Conclusion: Charter School Reform—Sweeping Claims and Modest Progress......Page 220 Notes......Page 228 References......Page 240 C......Page 252 E......Page 254 I......Page 255 N......Page 256 R......Page 257 W......Page 258