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The , one of the largest public school districts in the United States, has very specific goals for its students. Those goals are outlined at the district website, as well as the strategies the district plans to use for achieving those goals. The goals all point towards preparing students for career or college readiness once they graduate from Los Angeles high schools. However, the strategies begin implementation long before students ever set foot in a high school in the county.

Goal 1: Prepare Students for Career and College by Transforming the Teaching and Learning Process

At the foundation of this goal is the implementation of Common Core Standards. According to the , Common Core Standards provide a consistent expectation for all students and faculty within the Los Angeles Unified School District. These standards encompass English Language Arts and mathematics. English Language Development standards are also in place for the district to ensure English learners are able to master the core requirements for English Language Arts.

Common Core Standards were chosen by the Los Angeles Unified School District for a number of reasons, including:

• These standards provide for career and college readiness after high school
• Common Core Standards include rigorous content and develop high-order skills
• The standards are consistent, understandable, and measurable
• Common Core Standards are evidence-based
• These standards are used by other countries, so students in L.A. remain competitive on a global level
• Common Core Standards build on the strengths of

The Renaissance School Initiative was created to help transform some of the lowest-performing schools in Philadelphia by giving them over to charter organizations. At the time this article was originally written, six additional struggling schools were slated for charter school takeovers and the district was evaluating applicants for the role. While this process was hailed by some as an effective way to raise the quality of education in one of the largest school districts in the country, others worried that there was not enough evidence to support allowing more public schools to be absorbed by charters.

About the Renaissance School Initiative

The Renaissance School Initiative was established by the School District of Philadelphia on January 27, 2010, according to the district’s website. The goal of the initiative is to bring dramatic student improvement through the transformation of some of the city’s lowest-performing schools. To accomplish this goal, the district solicits help from individuals and organizations with a positive track record of turning around struggling schools in Philadelphia. These efforts reflect broader national conversations about education reform, including the issues explored in the article “Is School Reform Doing More Harm Than Good?” Schools are given over to public charters so the necessary changes can take place internally to bring about the much-needed improvements in student achievement. The district has cited three important components required to meet their goals for all Philadelphia schools, which include:

• Identifying the lowest-performing schools that will require a transformative change to improve
• Identifying the entities

Public education in the United States has evolved into a complex maze of options designed to address a wide range of student needs and learning styles. However, the many choices can also make it challenging for parents to weed through and understand the various options available to them and their children. To help break it down, check out this list of some of the more common options in public schooling today.

Neighborhood Schools

The traditional community school continues to be the most common type of institution of public education today. Public schools in a district are typically zones, so those living in the community know which school they are assigned. Neighborhood schools allow students the opportunity to make friends with classmates right in their area. In some districts, parents can enroll their children in a school outside their immediate neighborhood if the chosen school is closer to the parent’s workplace or if the parent wants his child to attend a different school.

Charter Schools

Charter schools began to appear in the 1990s, and their presence has consistently grown in all but ten states nationwide. lists the states without current charter laws as Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, South Dakota, Washington, Vermont, West Virginia, Nebraska, Montana, and North Dakota. Charter schools are public schools, but parents choose to send their children to a charter school rather than attend based on district zoning.

Like other schools, charters receive money from taxes and raise private funding. Charter

The numbers are in that indicate how well the education system in the United States is serving its students. Education Week has released its 17^th annual ratings for the quality of education in each of the 50 states, awarding letter grades to schools similar to those found on student report cards. Unfortunately, the report card indicated there is still plenty of work to do for most states across the country, with an average national grade of a C+ overall. However, there were a number of bright spots across the survey as well, particularly in the top rated states where education appears to be thriving in many ways.

“Quality Counts”

The survey, titled, “Quality Counts,” uses six key metrics to grade the quality of education in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The metrics are as follows:

• K-12 Achievement
• Assessment and Accountability
• Transitions and Alignment
• Standards
• Students’ Chances for Long-Term Success
• The Teaching Profession

Within these six metrics are more than 100 indicators that include such factors as graduation rates, education funding and achievement gaps, according to a report on the survey at the Washington Post. Data was collected from sources like the U.S. Department of Education and the Census Bureau to compile these recent rankings.

Interesting Note on Findings

When discussions on education quality arise, many of them tend to center on school funding. The general school of thought is that the more money that is pumped into public schools, the higher the