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Do charter schools strengthen students’ educational experience? What are their social costs? This volume brings together a group of premier researchers to address questions about the purposes of charter schools and the role of public policy in shaping the educational agenda. Chapter authors explore topics seldom encountered in the current charter school debate, such as the challenges faced by charter schools in guaranteeing students civil rights and other legal protections; the educational and social implications of current instructional programs designed specifically for low-income and minority students; the use of charters as school turnaround agents; and other issues that lie at the intersection of education, politics, and social policy. Readers across the political spectrum, both supporters and critics of charter schools, can use this book to inform public policy about the ways in which charters affect diversity and inequality and the potential to devise policies that mitigate the most troublesome social costs of charter schools.

Contributors include Adam Gamoran, Jeffrey R. Henig, Henry M. Levin, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, Janelle Scott, and Kevin Welner.

“This is an excruciatingly important work. At this point in time, it is essential to understand whether and in what ways charter schools contribute to segregation—and how they might avoid doing so.”
—Mindy L. Kornhaber, Pennsylvania State University