Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform

Between Public and Private examines an innovative approach to school district managment that has been adopted by a number of uban disctricts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which “a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organizational and curricular themes, including traditional public schools, private organizations, and charter schools.” This volume examines crucial issues related to portfolio management, gauges both the promise and potential pitfalls of the model, considers important contexts for assessing these ambitious efforts to reform district management, and offers in-depth cases of four urban districts—Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans—that have pioneered this new model.Between Public and Private is a volume in the Educational Innovations series.