EPP Charter Schools Panel

Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PO Box 413
Milwaukee WI 53201
414-229-2716

November 02, 2000

CERAI-00-35

Resources On CharterSchools

Attention EducationWriters:

On Nov. 2, 2000, Center for Education Reform will release a report reviewing 52research studies on charter schools, and concluding that the “overwhelmingmajority” of those studies found charter schools had been innovative,accountable, and “more often than not, successful in their missions.”

Six distinguished educationresearchers are available to offer other perspectives on charter schools. All are fellows of the Education Policy Project, based in the Center forEducation Research, Analysis, and Innovation at the University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee.

They are:

1.   GaryOrfield

     Professor of Education & Social Policy

     Harvard University

    (617) 496-4824 or (617) 496-6367

Gary Orfield studies civil rights, urban policy,and minority opportunity. He is co-author of the books The Closing Door:Conservative Policy and Black Opportunity (with C. Ashkinaze, 1991) and DismantlingDesegregation (with S. Eaton, 1996) and coeditor, with Richard Elmore andBruce Fuller, of Who Chooses? Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and theUnequal Effects of School Choice (1996). He is co-author of the report"Deepening Segregation in American Public Schools" (1997). Otherworks include studies of changing patterns of job opportunity, financial aidand college access, and civil rights enforcement in higher education

2.   AmyStuart Wells

Professor of Educational Policy

     UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies

     (on leave)

     (212) 678-4042

Amy Stuart Wells is a sociologist of education whoseresearch and writing have focused on race and educational policies. She was theprincipal investigator of a two-and-a-half year study of charter school reformin ten school districts in California, funded by the Ford Foundation and theAnnie E. Casey Foundation. Currently, she is conducting a study of adults whoattended racially mixed high schools, funded by the Spencer Foundation. She isthe editor of Multiple Meanings of Charter School Reform: Lessons from TenCalifornia School Districts (forthcoming, Teachers College Press);co-author with Robert L. Crain of Stepping over the Color Line: AfricanAmerican Students in White Suburban Schools  (Yale University Press,1997);   author of Time to Choose: America at the Crossroads of SchoolChoice Policy (Hill & Wang 1993).

3.  Gerald W.Bracey

    independent education researcher

    (703) 317-1716

Gerald W. Bracey holds a Ph. D. in psychology fromStanford University.  He has held positions at Educational TestingService, Indiana University, the Virginia Department of Education and CherryCreek (Colo.) Schools.  Since 1991 he has been an independent educationalresearcher and writer who specializes in assessment and policy analysis. Recent books include Setting the Record Straight: Responses toMisconceptions About Public Education in the United States, and Put tothe Test: An Educator's and Consumer's Guide to Standardized Tests. He recently produced a briefing paper for the Education Policy Projectsummarizing the currently available evidence for and against charter schools.

4.    Bruce J.Biddle

     Professor Emeritus, Psychology and Sociology

     University of Missouri

     (573) 882-7888

Bruce J. Biddle is Professor Emeritus of Psychologyand of Sociology at the University of Missouri.  He is the founding editorof the international journal Social Psychology of Education.  Theauthor or editor of numerous books, he is best known for The Study ofTeaching (with M.J. Dunkin, Holt, 1974), Role Theory: Expectations,Identities, and Behaviors (Academic Press, 1979), and The ManufacturedCrisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools (with D.C.Berliner, 1995).  His next two books will be Social Class, Poverty, andEducation (RoutledgeFalmer, 2000) and Research Knowledge Use inEducation: Principal Effects (with L.J. Saha, Ablex, 2001).

5.  Katrina Bulkley

    Assistant Professor of Educational Policy

    Rutgers Graduate School of Education

    New Brunswick, NJ

    (732) 932-7496 x150

Katrina Bulkley has studied charter school laws andthe implementation of charter schools in several states.  She is currentlyreviewing research on charter schools and studying for-profit managementcompanies and charter schools, and also is taking part, with the Center forEducation Policy Analysis at Rutgers University, in studies of the impact ofstandards, testing and professional development on instructional practices inNew Jersey. 

6.   LuisHuerta

research associate

     Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE)

     University of California at Berkley Graduate School f Education

      (510) 642-7223

Luis A. Huerta studies decentralization related toschool reform and school choice, as well as the impact of school financeinequities on implementing school reform. He is a contributing author to therecently released PACE report, titled School Choice: Abundant Hopes, ScarceEvidence of Results (1999), and is also a contributing author to anupcoming book published by Harvard University Press, titled Inside CharterSchools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization (B. Fuller, Editor).

The Education PolicyProject offers to the national discussion of education policy high qualityanalyses of school reform issues, and provides an analytical resource foreducators, journalists, citizens and others involved in public school reform.It is directed by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee education professor AlexMolnar.

You can visit the EducationPolicy Project on the Web at:
www.educationanalysis.org

You can direct furtherinquiries to Professor Alex Molnar at  (414) 229-4592.