Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the many people who contributed directly and indirectly to this Report. We would first like to thank the charter schools who gave generously of their time to respond to our telephone survey. The information that they provided formed the basis of this Report. We would like to extend a special thanks to the staff, students, and parents of the charter schools who allowed us to visit their schools, answered our questions, and helped us learn from their experiences. They made (and continue to make) significant contributions to our work.

Many others read and provided invaluable feedback on successive drafts of the Report. We appreciate the thoughtful and insightful comments of the Study's Advisory Board. The members of the Advisory Board are: Jose Afonso, Massachusetts Department of Education; William Lowe Boyd, Department of Education Policy Studies at The Pennsylvania State University; Rexford Brown, P.S. 1 Charter School; Joan Buckley, American Federation of Teachers; Faith Crampton, National Education Association; Gary Hart, Institute for Education Reform at California State University, Sacramento; Ted Kolderie, Center for Policy Studies; and Joe Nathan, Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Education selected two peer reviewers--Robert Linn and Patricia Seppanen--who provided perceptive and helpful comments on key points of the Report.

A group of readers from the U.S. Department of Education reviewed drafts of the Report and provided invaluable suggestions for improvement. This group included: David Cleary, Thomas Corwin, John Fiegel, Luna Levinson, Alex Medler, Martin Orland, Ivor Pritchard, Marian Robinson, and Lisa Towne. Susan Wiley from the Education Statistical Services Institute also reviewed drafts of the Report.

The authors also would like to express our sincere appreciation to Judith Anderson, Joseph Conaty, and Patricia Lines of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement for their continuing support for the research as well as for the considerable contributions they have made toward shaping both the Study and this Report.

While appreciating the contributions of all of the reviewers, the authors accept responsibility for the content of the Report.
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[Preface]

[Executive Summary]