The State of American Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Survey of American Public, Private, and Charter School Teachers

The purpose of the present study was to examine how teachers and students are adjusting to the new online platform, the frequency and significance of connectivity problems and how teachers believe their students’ education quality is. An electronic link to a Qualtrics survey was sent to participants and a snowball sampling procedure (Handcock & Gile, 2011) was used. The online survey was open for 4 weeks and a total of 165 teachers representing 22 states across the U.S. In general, a large percent of students across the country do not have stable or any internet services in their home. Furthermore, even for those that have internet access, connectivity issues caused problems for the entire class. New teachers in their first five years are less likely to offer alternatives when internet was not available and more likely changed their curriculum due to internet access issues.

The Effectiveness of Training and Supervising Urban Elementary School Teachers in Child–Teacher Relationship Training: A Trauma-Informed Approach

This case study explored three urban elementary teachers’ experiences with Child–Teacher Relationship Training (CTRT) and the impact of CTRT on the teachers’ emotional intelligence, perception of students’ behaviors, and teacher–student stress. The three charter school teachers from the Southeastern United States received 22 weeks of CTRT curriculum and completed assessments to track changes in teacher stress, child behaviors, and teacher emotional intelligence. The teachers also engaged in debrief sessions every week. They reported a decrease in teacher–student stress; greater understanding and categorization of child behaviors; and reflection on their own level of ability to perceive, understand, and generate emotions.

Teacher Power and the Politics of Union Organizing in the Charter Sector

Despite the growing media attention paid to charter-school unions, comparatively little empirical research exists. Drawing on interview data from two cities (Detroit, MI, and New Orleans, LA), our exploratory study examined charter-school teachers’ motivations for organizing, the political and power dimensions, and the framing of unions by both teachers and administrations. We found that improving teacher retention, and thus school stability, was a central motivation for teacher organizers, whereas, simultaneously, high teacher turnover stymied union drives. We also found that charter administrators reacted with severity to nascent unionization drives, harnessing school-as-family metaphors and at-will contracts to prevent union formation. As the charter sector continues to grow, understanding why teachers want unions and how those unions differ from traditional public school unions is crucial to analyzing the long-term viability of these schools and the career trajectories of the teachers who work in them.

Neglected Issues: How Charter Schools Manage Teachers and Acquire Resources

Background/Context Charter schools are commonly discussed as being more effective at matching student and family interests with school mission, ensuring family choice of educational products and improving education quality and the efficiency of resource use as a result of the competitive dynamics they are assumed to generate between themselves and public schools. The rhetoric around charter schools in general puts little attention on teacher management and resource acquisition, and the literature on charter schools has tended to focus on outcomes such as student achievement. The prevalence of charter schools within and outside the United States underscores the need to understand what role such issues as teacher management and resourcing play in this increasingly popular education reform. Focus of Study The purpose of this article is to uncover and present the strategies that charter schools employ for managing teachers and acquiring resources, and with what implications. Research Design Through a qualitative case study of a charter school program in Bogotá, Colombia, that began in 1999, we investigated (a) the regulations that governed the hiring, firing, and compensation of charter school teachers, in addition to (b) how charters respond to those regulations in contracting teachers, and (c) the overall approach of charter principals and the charter management organizations (CMOs) that oversee them when it comes to teacher engagement, collaboration, supervision, and professional development. In terms of resource acquisition, the focus was on understanding (d) the extent of government-provided resources to charter schools, (e) the perceptions of charter principals and CMO directors of the resources provided by the government, (f) the ways in which these actors have sought to complement these resources, and (g) the kinds of additional resources that have been obtained. Data in the form of documents, archives, literature and evaluations, and qualitative interviews were collected over eight months. Conclusions Findings indicate that charter school teachers in Bogotá feel that many aspects of their work environment are positive, though they also report tradeoffs in terms of job security and financial compensation. Charter schools use the flexibility afforded to them around employment to spend half as much on teachers by hiring nonunionized teachers, contracting them for periods of a year or less, assigning teachers to lower compensation categories, and offering significantly lower salaries, despite teachers working over 12 hours more each week than their public school counterparts. Findings with regard to resource acquisition address differences between public and charter schools, perceptions of school leaders, and the routes to resource acquisition used by charter schools, namely budget prioritization, donations, volunteers, partnerships, and alumni networks. Implications for future research are discussed, including the need for studies to distinguish among types of charter schools. The article concludes that, when addressing the costs and benefits of charter schools, we need to ask: Costs in what sense? Benefits for whom? And at whose expense?

Use of the Monarch Room as an Alternative to Suspension in Addressing School Discipline Issues Among Court-Involved Youth

Suspension is commonly used in schools, yet these practices can adversely affect students’ education well-being and do not improve student behavior. This study assesses the use of the Monarch Room (MR) intervention, a trauma-informed alternative to school discipline suspension policies, among 620 court-involved girls placed in residential care and enrolled in an urban-located public charter school. Teachers readily utilized the intervention as a first response to dealing with problematic behavior, and as a result, MR use significantly decreased reliance on suspension practices. Multiple stays in residential treatment and race were significant predictors of MR use.