Reports, Scholarly Articles and Presentations

2008

  • Organized Communities, Stronger Schools: A Preview of Research Findings
    Kavitha Mediratta, Seema Shah & Sara McAlister
    [PDF:41 pages, 792 KB] Using multiple research traditions, theory of change methodology, and quantitative and qualitative methods, this six year study found that community organizing helps expand the capacity of urban public schools to support student success by building support for reform alternatives, increasing equity in the distribution of resources, and generating meaningful parent, youth, and community engagement focused on improved student learning.
  • Our Children Can't Wait
    Community Involvement Program
    [PDF: 32 pages, 851 KB] This report was written for the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) by the Community Involvement Program of the Annenberg Institute. It calls on Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to take bold action by implementing recommendations of the New York City Council Middle School Task Force.

2007

  • Beating the Odds
    Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire
    [PDF: 37 pages, 1.7 MB] This report describes a follow-up qualitative study, conducted in 2006 by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, of a small group of New York City high schools that, according to 2001 data, were "beating the odds" in preparing low-performing ninth grade students for timely high school graduation and college going.
  • City Schools: How Districts and Communities can create Smart Education Systems
    Chapter: The Role of Community Engagement in Smart Education Systems
    Richard Gray & Lamson Lam, editor Robert Rothman

    In this chapter, the authors define and position the role of community engagement and organizing as an essential component in transforming public schools in ways that improve student achievement.

     Chapter: Leveraging Reform: Youth Power in a Smart Education System
    Kavitha Mediratta, Amy Cohen, & Seema Shah, editor Robert Rothman

    This chapter examines the emergence of youth organizing as a strategy for education reform, and argues that creating genuine partnerships between school, school district, and youth-run organizations is an essential component of smart education systems.

  • The Life Cycle in Charter School Facilities Development
    Carol Ascher
    [Charter School Review, Fall 2007, Vol. 1, Issue 02: pages 31-35]
    This paper, based on interviews with charter school operators and the finance community involved with charter schools in 15 states, investigates the stages of facility needs that charter schools move through during their first five years
  • Urban Schools, Public Will
    Norm Fruchter
    In this book, the author argues that our lack of commitment to carry out the Brown mandate has produced segregated urban school systems that fail to educate poor students of color.
  • School-Police Partnership Effectiveness in Urban Schools: An Analysis of New York City's Impact Schools Initiative
    Kevin P. Brady, Sharon Balmer, & Deinya Phenix
    [PDF: 25 pages, 176 KB]This article examines the initial effect of New York City's Impact Schools Initiative, a punitive-based school-police program aimed at increasing police presence at some of the city's most dangerous public schools.
  • Outside In: Communities in Action for Education Reform
    Kavitha Mediratta, editors Beverly E. Cross, Anita Woolfolk Hoy, Peter V. Paul, & Sandra A. Stroot
    [Theory Into Practice, Vol. 46, No. 03: pages 194-204]
    This article looks at the emerging field of community organizing for school reform in the context of national trends in public education, and explores the linkages between research, the teaching profession, and organizing.
  • New York City's Middle-Grade Schools: Platforms for Success or Pathways to Failure?
    Community Involvement Program
    [PDF: 28 pages, 586 KB] This report illustrates how New York City's middle-grade schools are failing to prepare students for the rigorous high school work that will enable them to succeed in college.

2006

  • Democratic School Accountability: A Model for School Improvement
    Chapter: Bottom-Up Accountability: An Urban Perspective
    Norm Fruchter & Kavitha Mediratta, editor Ken Jones

    In this chapter, the authors review the structures of disconnection and disempowerment that urban school systems use to sever low-income constituents and communities of color from participation in schooling governance and accountability. The chapter then suggests various ways to structure meaningful parent and community participation in holding schools and districts accountable.

  • Delivering Educational Services to Students Experiencing Homelessness: The Challenges and Successes of New York State Homeless Liaisons
    Carol Ascher & Deinya Phenix
    [PDF: 8 pages, 75 KB] This report outlines findings and recommendations in delivery (?) to homeless students and families based on the 2006 NYS-TEACHS LEA Liaison Survey.
  • A Rising Movement
    Kavitha Mediratta
    [PDF: 8 pages, 75 KB] Fueled by the recent surge of philanthropic investments in high school reform, this paper identified several key trends in public education during the last two decades have created a context ripe for youth activism.
  • NCLB's Supplemental Educational Services: Is This What Our Students Need?
    Carol Ascher
    [Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 88, No. 02: pages 136-141] This commentary reviews the political background of the out-of-school tutoring program and the for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that are offering SES tutoring.

2005

  • The Force of Ideas
    Carol Ascher
    [PDF: 45 pages, 322 KB] This article describes a little-known aspect of both Viennese educational history and the movement for psychoanalytic pedagogy during the interwar years.
  • Precarious Space: Majority Black Suburbs and their Public Schools
    Carol Ascher & Edwina Branch-Smith
    [Teachers College Record, Vol. 107, No. 09: pages 1956-1973] This article draws on the experiences of Plainfield, New Jersey, and Prince George's County, Maryland, to describe how strained resources, a history of racialized conflicts in governance and a perception of students as " inner city" contribute to low student achievement in public schools in predominantly Black suburbs.
  • Youth Take the Lead on High School Reform Issues: Sistas and Brothas United
    Fernando Carlo, Antoine Powell, Laura Vazquez, Shoshana Daniels, & Clay Smith, with Kavitha Mediratta & Amy Zimmer
    [Rethinking Schools, Vol. 19, No. 04: pages 61-65] This article discusses the struggle students face in the schools of the northwest Bronx and how students are working together to build power to reform their schools.
  • School Choice and Diversity: What the Evidence Says
    Chapter: An Examination of Charter School Equity
    Carol Ascher & Nathalis Wamba, editor Janelle Scott
    This book argues that the political and social contexts under which school choice plans are adopted are the primary factors in shaping student diversity within schools.
  • Building Partnerships: Community Voices in Planning and Developing New York City School Facilities
    Carol Asher, Jodie Harris, Joan Byron, & Kavitha Mediratta
    [PDF: 86 pages, 416 KB] This report documents how parents, students, local residents and community organizations are currently involved in the planning and development of school facilities in New York City, and are identifying ways their participation might be expanded.

2004

2003

  • An Examination of Charter School Equity
    Carol Ascher & Nathalis Wamba
    [Education and Urban Society, vol. 35, number 4 (August 2003): pages 462-476]
    In this article, the authors investigate the implications of charter school choice on the racial balance, resources, and outcome of charter schools.
  • Charter School Accountability in New York: Findings from a Three-Year Study of Charter School Authorizers
    Carol Ascher, Juan Echazarreta, Robin Jacobowitz, Yolanda McBride, Tammi Troy, & Nathalis Wamba
    [PDF: 48 pages, 520 KB] This study gives an account of the experiences of three charter school authorizing agencies in New York State. These agencies have focused their oversight on three types of accountability: performance-based accountability, contractual accountability, and regulatory accountability.
  • District Effectiveness: A Study of Investment Strategies in New York City Public Schools and Districts
    Patrice Iatarola & Norm Fruchter
    [Educational Policy, Vol. 18, No. 03: pages 491-512]
  • Civil Society and School Accountability, A Human Rights Approach to Parent and Community Participation in New York City Schools
    Elizabeth Sullivan, edited by Catherine Albisa, Norm Fruchter, & Kavitha Mediratta
    [PDF: 48 pages, 1 MB] While a quality education is universally recognized as a fundamental human right, this report details how New York City persistently failed to ensure that its public schools provide a quality education for all students.
  • From Governance to Accountability: Building Relationships that Make Schools Work
    Kavitha Mediratta & Norm Fruchter
    [PDF: 25 pages, 542 KB] For the third time in the last 50 years the New York State legislature has passed a law that significantly alters the structure of the public school system. This report provides evidence that the current reform is unlikely to lead to large-scale school improvement unless it combines top-down structure with bottom-up relationships with the people most important to student achievement: parents and communities.
  • Governance and Administrative Structure in New York City Charter Schools
    Carol Ascher, Juan Echazarreta, Robin Jacobowitz, Yolanda McBride, & Tammi Troy
    [PDF: 44 pages, 324 KB] This final report of a three-year study explores the developing infrastructure in New York City charter schools and identified areas in which school stakeholders-private partners, boards of trustees, school leaders, parents and teachers-often needed support to help charter schools succeed.
  • Parent Power and Urban School Reform: The Story of Mothers on the Move
    Kavitha Mediratta & Jessica Karp
    [PDF: 52 pages, 1 MB] This case study traces Mothers On the Move's struggle to improve Hunts Point schools, from its beginnings at BES, through its ouster of long time community school district superintendent Max Messer, to its struggles with the new district superintendent.
  • Review of Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education
    Carol Ascher
    [Teachers College Record, Vol. 105, No. 01: pages 128-133] This review examines the book "Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education", based on essays first presented at a Program on Education Policy and Governance held at Harvard University in March 2000.
  • Review of The Charter School Landscape
    Carol Ascher
    [Teachers College Record, Vol. 105, No. 07: pages 1302-1306] This review examines the book "The Charter School Landscape", based on interesting information, insights, and analyses on charter schools in eleven different states and one Canadian province.

2002

2001

2000

  • Going Charter, Lessons from Two First-Year Studies
    Carol Ascher, Robin Jacobowitz, Yolanda McBride, & Nathalis Wamba
    [PDF: 50 pages, 131 KB] Based on the findings of two (?) studies, Going Charter and Going Charter: Systemic Effects, this report examines the impact of charter legislation and implementation on the charter school authorizers and other agencies in New York City and State.
  • NYNSR Outcomes Study
    Dana Lockwood, Yolanda McBride, Dae Yeop Kim, Alcine Mumby, & Norm Fruchter
    [PDF: 72 pages, 220 KB] Utilizing both student-level and school-level data, this report provides an in-depth examination of the New York Networks for School Renewal high schools, comparisons between NYNSR high schools and a sample of similar schools from 1995-98, and present comparison analyses as well as comparisons between NYNSR high schools and large, zoned high schools.
  • High School Size: Effects on Budgets and Performance in New York City
    Leanna Stiefel, Robert Berne, Patrice Iatarola, & Norm Fruchter This paper contributes to the school size policy debate by using methods and data that combine budget and performance information, with the school as the unit of analysis.

1999

1998

1997

1996