The publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 has prompted a series of attempts to revise the educational system's outcomes. Legislative and executive reform bills have resulted in Educational Vouchers being a prime source of reform. A case study of the perceptions of public high school principals in Florida that are at Voucher Eligible high schools to those perceptions of principals at schools graded 'A' as of the 2002-03 academic school year was the focus of this study. Four public high school principals from two Florida districts were used in this study. Two schools were identified as Voucher Eligible and graded "F" and two were examples of best practices or graded "A" or "B". Analyzed data identified recurring patterns between the four schools.Both advocates and detractors view of vouchers would be given a full historical review. Included in the research were the four major educational criteria of educational vouchers that were used in voucher development policy. The three major components of Florida's Voucher Programs, along with the No Child Left Behind Act were examined along with accountability measures and parent/student rights. The data revealed that there was a positive relationship between the minority rate of a school and the school's grade. Data also revealed that it would be beneficial for all schools and communities to work together to address the reading level issue as these programs have shown a positive relationship between the overall reading level and the school's grade.

This qualitative study examines the experiences of key stakeholders such as school administrators, the families of children with emotional and behavioral disabilities, special education advocates and the representatives of the advocacy organization that train them and their perceptions of the characteristics and core competencies that make special education advocates helpful in their support to families. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts yielded the following findings: 1) The low barrier to entry into special education advocacy leads to inconsistent approaches, 2) Differing perceptions of what motivates stakeholders create tension during IEP meetings, 3) Special education advocates serve as the voices of parents, 4) Advocates affect the emotional well-being of parents during IEP meetings positively, 5) Meetings are objectively and qualitatively different when advocates attend. The research findings also reveal that special education advocates who are helpful to families embody the following qualities and core competencies: 1) Knowledge of special education laws and procedures, 2) relationship building skills, 3) communication skills, 4) familiarity with available resources to support families. Specific recommendations targeted for each group of stakeholders were provided.

This study is an outgrowth of a long felt need to make a survey of the existing district organization of t h e Gait Area to determine the educational effectiveness of the organizational pattern now in use. If the quality of educational opportunity offered by a given area is dependent upon the number of children plus taxable resources, does the present organizational pattern provide an equal opportunity to all children of the area?

Over a period of several years the Alameda City Schools have been trying to develop a meaningful arithmetic program. Through special teacher workshops, supervision, and the adoption by the city schools of "Arithmetic We Use", before the series became adopted by the state, the functional program has progressed. The children in the low-sixth grade have used the above mentioned series since they were introduced to arithmetic books in the low-third grade.

Multistate networks are arguably the purest expression of the charter sector’s original promise as an engine of innovation within the public school system. On its face, this contention may appear somewhat counterintuitive; the proliferation of schools affiliated with charter management organizations (CMOs) that have siphoned market share away from standalone, community-based operators is often faulted for bringing homogeneity to a corner of the education landscape that once valorized pluralism. Replicating networks that expand their proven models into more than one state, however, are subject to divergent policy landscapes, operational conditions, and community expectations. Accordingly, in order to comport with the dictates of discrete sets of external demands, the leaders of multistate networks necessarily preside over a rolling set of limited experiments through which they are able to assess the relative efficacy of varying approaches to educating students. With the public policy and private philanthropic incentive structures continuing to tilt in favor of replication, and with multistate operators generally struggling to match the success of their more geographically compact peers, it is imperative that leaders of these unique organizations understand how to meet the needs of their communities while simultaneously cultivating the sense of collective mission that promotes effective operation. This collective case study explores how the leaders of five multistate networks attempt to create coherence within their organizations notwithstanding these materially different environmental conditions. Data from interviews, observations, and artifacts were triangulated, and the resulting analysis revealed commonalities, distinctions, and trends that illuminate how these leaders navigate the barriers that imperil the creation of coherence within the multistate construct. This study assesses the leadership moves that the chief executives of multistate networks make when attempting to create coherence and proposes a novel categorization scheme that classifies these strategies as either ideological, structural, or interpersonal in nature. This study also provides a composite picture of the successful multistate charter leader by synthesizing the key attributes possessed by the study participants, explaining how they exercise humility and finesse while using the serial experimentation compelled by the multistate framework to seek out opportunities to drive continuous improvement throughout their networks. Examined through a conceptual framework that ties together the literature on coherence in educational organizations and charter school replication, these findings demonstrate how multistate leaders engage stakeholders based in their satellite regions in a dynamic process of calibrating the appropriate fit between network model and local conditions. Implications from this study are relevant to the policymakers and funders who have continued to provide regulatory and financial support to operators undertaking interstate expansion efforts, to the current and prospective leaders of multistate CMOs who are being entrusted to create high-quality learning environments for students in far-flung communities, and to the superintendents of traditional public school districts who can draw lessons from the manner in which this study’s participants are consistently experimenting, evaluating, and adapting.

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