R&L Education
Pages: 192
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Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-4758-0619-9 • Hardback • January 2014 • $97.00 • (£75.00)
978-1-4758-0620-5 • Paperback • January 2014 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
Robert Fox, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Hawaii, has — in the last fifteen years — developed an international reputation as a school choice scholar. In 2004, along with co-Editor Nina Buchanan, he coined the term “ethnocentric charter schools.” In 2012, he was invited to lead a team which produced The Line Between Cultural Education and Religious Education: Do Ethnocentric Niche Charter Schools Have a Prayer? for Reviews of Research in Education. Fox is Chair of the American Education Research Association’s School Choice Special Interest Group, a Consulting Editor of the Journal of School Choice and co-Chairs the International Research Conference on School Choice and Reform which takes place every January in Florida.
Nina Buchanan, an educational psychologist, is a Professor Emerita from the University of Hawaii. She has taught in grades kindergarten through graduate school students and is a founder of the West Hawaii Explorations Academy Public Charter School, a distinguished award-winning grades 6-12 school situated in the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii. She is a nationally recognized expert who has published articles on school choice, project-based learning and gifted and talented education.
Introduction
The Growth of Ethnocentric Charter Schools
Robert A. Fox and Nina K. Buchanan
Chapter One
Kua O Ka Lā: A Hawaiian Culturally-Focused Charter School
Nina K. Buchanan, Robert A. Fox,
Susan L. Osborne and C. Puanani Wilhelm
Chapter Two
Restoring Native American Culture and Language through Public Education
Mark Blitz
Chapter Three
A Model for Educating African-American Students
Tanikiaa Orange and Sharroky Hollie
Chapter Four
A Case Study of Helenic Classical Charter School
Charisse Gulosino
Chapter Five
Immigrant Advantage: What Makes Does Science Academy Fly?
Robert Maranto, Kaan Camuz and John Franklin
Chapter Six
A Somali School in Minneapolis
Letitia E. Basford and Heather Megarry Traeger
Chapter Seven
A New Approach to Educating Latino English Language Learners
Brenda Martinez and Mark Blitz
Chapter Eight
Ethnocentric Niche Charter Schools: A View Through Legal and Policy Lenses
Suzanne E. Eckes and Kari A. M. Carr
Bob Fox and Nina Buchanan have penned an intriguing and useful new book on a rarely-examined dimension of charter schooling, offering a thoughtful look at schools that celebrate a particular ethic, culture, or linguistic heritage. Building on a decade of their own inquiry, they explain how these schools fit within the larger framework of charter school policy and the tensions that can ensue. This is a volume that points to both the possibilities and some of the attendant challenges posed by the charter model and that promises to be invaluable reading for those engaged in charter school practice, policy, or authorizing.
— Frederick Hess, author of Letters to a Young Education Reformer; director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
Contemporary debate about charters and school choice is dominated by the market metaphor and attention to large-scale management organizations offering standard education models designed to attract substantial enrollments. Fox and Buchanan remind us in this book about a different side of the choice movement, one rooted in social values more than economic transactions and that aims to meet different cultures on their own terms. It’s a valuable counterpoint.
— Jeffrey R. Henig, professor of political science and education, Teachers College, Columbia University, author of “Spin Cycle: How Research is Used in Policy Debates, The Case of Charter Schools”
Ethnocentric-niche public charter schools are only a small percentage of the growing number of public charter schools in the United States, but they provide opportunities for instructional innovation to enhance student learning, parental engagement and involvement, and partnerships with community organizations. Through an intriguing set of case studies, the book describes schools trying new educational strategies to provide high-quality public school experiences to students. Additionally, this book explores the primary issues raised regarding ethnocentric-niche schools, such as whether these schools will assimilate students into the larger set of democratic beliefs and values that public schools have been expected to instill and whether these schools cross legal boundaries. The book serves as a great resource for the debate on the purpose and function of public schools.
— Nina Rees, President & CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools