"Getting poor kids out of failing schools" sounds like an altruistic cause most Americans support. However, one policy mechanism utilized to achieve that result, parental choice vouchers, has a checkered past. This descriptive analysis explores the policy-bubble created when state legislators eschewed their constitutional responsibility…

Against the backdrop of urban school politics, in which mayors play increasingly powerful and pivotal roles, the current study examines the origins and implications of mayoral control of charter school authorization and accountability in Indianapolis (see Henig & Rich, 2004; Wong & Shen, 2007). In contrast to analyses of mayoral takeovers…

The economic meltdown has hit U.S. college campuses, and higher education is on the chopping block in state budgets, with cuts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars already approved and hundreds of millions in more cuts on the way. As veteran legislators, the authors have seen this story play out before in previous recessions. The mindset on…

The new class of governors, state legislators, and chief state school officers elected last week will face formidable challenges in dealing with the squeeze the nation's sagging economy--and ballooning state budget deficits--is putting on K-12 education. In the November 4 elections, Democrats added one more governor's office--in Missouri--to their…

The 2006 Public Opinion Survey on Education in Indiana gauged the attitudes and perceptions of a representative sample of Hoosiers on such key educational issues as kindergarten and pre-kindergarten programs, No Child Left Behind and P.L. 221, school funding and taxes, teacher quality, school choice and charter schools, and the achievement gap in…