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My two children, ages 14 and 11, attend their local public schools, and have since kindergarten. Why do I send my children to public schools?

Do charter schools draw good teachers from traditional, mainstream public schools? Using an eleven‐year panel of North Carolina public school teachers, the author finds nuanced patterns of teacher quality flowing into charter schools. High rates of inexperienced and unlicensed teachers moved to charter schools, but among regularly licensed teachers changing schools, charter movers had higher licensure test scores than other moving teachers, and they were more likely to be highly experienced. I estimate measures of value added for a subset of elementary teachers and show that charter movers were less effective than other mobile teachers and colleagues within their sending schools, by 3 to 4 percent of a student‐level standard deviation in achievement.

This study uses national survey data to examine why charter school teachers are more likely to turnover than their traditional public school counterparts. We test whether the turnover gap is explained by different distributions of factors that are empirically and theoretically linked to turnover risk. We find that the turnover rate of charter school teachers was twice as high as traditional public school teachers in 2003-04. Differences in the distributions of our explanatory variables explained 61.0% of the total turnover gap. The higher proportions of uncertified and inexperienced teachers in the charter sector, along with the lower rate of union membership, were the strongest contributors to the turnover gap. Charter school teachers were more likely to self-report that working conditions motivated their decisions to leave the profession or move schools, although we found no measurable evidence that the actual working conditions of charter and traditional public schools were different.

There is a fierce battle over whether an Achievement First charter school will open in Providence. RI-Can and the other Astroturf groups funded by the Walton Foundation and the hedge fund crowd are pushing hard, promoting the spread of this chain of charter schools. As a public service, we are featuring the eloquent and stirring first-person accounts of two courageous and eloquent NYC parents, May Taliaferrow and Leslie-Ann Byfield, talking about what their children and other children endured at this charter school, known for its strict disciplinary policies and harsh treatment of students with disabilities. For more on Achievement First, see also this NY Post story, and this Facebook page. The following videos, taken by Norman Scott of GEM, are outtakes from the terrific movie, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.

American Teacher aims to improve the image of those who been seen in the media as the public enemy No. 1 of school reformers and budget cutters.

Full RAND study by Jennifer L. Steele, Georges Vernez, Michael A. Gottfried, Michael Schwam-Baird

The recent reorganization of New Orleans schools offers a unique opportunity to examine differences in the policies and practices of charter and traditional schools. RAND researchers surveyed principals, teachers, and parents in both types of schools. They found higher levels of satisfaction and a perception of more choices among charter school parents. This raises the question of whether citywide school choice is equally accessible and navigable by all.

The College Board, which oversees undergraduate and graduate school entrance exams, released results for the 2011 SATs, revealing mixed news: More students took the test than ever before, posting scores that are some of the lowest in history. On reading comprehension, the 1.65 million students who filled out answer sheets earned a mean score of 497 out of a possible 800 - a three-point drop off from 2010. Comparatively, the results in 2005 showed a mean score of 507.

In "It's Poverty, Not Stupid" I proved that we should seek to raise the achievement of all students, but that our national focus should be on our poorest, under-resourced schools and students, who are the reason for our "average" international ranking. The following post includes excerpts from an article by Marcus Pohlman in the Washington Post and by my personal experiences leading two high-poverty schools

A new documentary, though not without its flaws, is portraying the truth about teachers--including how hard they work and how badly paid they are for it.

May Taliaferrow, Former parent at Achievement First, Brooklyn, NY starts out as an avid charter school supporter but finds parents are shut out and children are subjected to severe discipline and ends up telling her son how sorry she was for putting him the school.