About this Site

Who is it for?

If you've been thinking about starting a choice program in your own district, or improving the one you already have, the highlighted programs on this site can make your life easier. They have already encountered and addressed the kinds of on-the-ground challenges that are inevitable in getting a choice program up and running. Now you can learn from their experiences.

To those who have already researched the issue of choice and are approaching it with the backing of enthusiastic stakeholders, we hope you find numerous tools, promising practices, and sample materials to help you advance your programs. To those who know less about choice as a strategy for improving student learning, or whose constituents are skeptical, please feel free to explore the What is Public School Choice section or the Why is Choice Important section. The toolkit will be expanded over time as more is learned about how to develop and improve choice programs.

Why was it created?

In many places across the country, public school students no longer automatically attend their neighborhood school. Instead, parents may decide that their child's needs are better met at a small alternative school, an arts magnet school, a charter technology high school, or a media academy operating within a larger school. They may choose a school across town or one next door. They might even choose a virtual school, which has no building at all. A growing number of parents have such options thanks to public school choice programs run by diverse school districts across the country.

How is it organized?

The website has several categories of resources:

• Program practice vignettes describing how an existing choice district has handled some aspect of developing or operating its program.
• Sample materials such as forms, brochures, and meeting agendas that a program has created and used as part of a promising practice.
• Tools, including templates and processes, developed specifically for the toolkit for your use in creating or managing a choice program.
• Links that direct you to other helpful websites, articles, and organizations.

Here are some tips for how to use this site.

A general overview of the contents and organization of the site can be found in An Invitation to Buildingchoice.org: Raising Achievement through Public School Choice (PDF).

Who created it?

The development of BuildingChoice.org was initiated and directed by Nina S. Rees, Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) at the U.S. Department of Education. Sharon Horn was the project manager.

This website is based on OII's NCLB-related promising practice guides that WestEd and its partner Edvance developed in 2003 and 2004, specifically, Creating Strong District School Choice Programs, Creating Successful Magnet Schools Programs, Creating Strong Supplemental Educational Services Programs, and Successful Charter Schools. These guides featured a variety of districts - or in the case of charter schools, individual schools - that have been on the leading edge of expanding education options for local families. In addition to tapping the lessons learned by these districts, this website draws from the collective experience of districts participating in the U.S. Department of Education's Voluntary Public School Choice and Magnet Schools Assistance grant programs. The information in this website is not intended to be a step-by-step guide, rather a dynamic resource to help district leaders learn from others who have many valuable experiences to share.

This project was greatly helped by the work of a formal advisory group consisting of Michael Bell, Assistant Superintendent, School Choice and Parental Options, Miami-Dade, FL; Vanessa DeCarbo, former Director of Communications and Research, Hispanic CREO; Bryan Hassel, Co-Director, Public Impact; Linda Hodge, former President, National PTA; Melina Wright, Lobbyist, National PTA; Barbara Pulliam, Superintendent, Clayton County Public Schools, GA; Greg Richmond, President, National Association of Charter School Authorizers; and Sylvia Wright, former administrator, U. S. Department of Education.

Staff in the Department who reviewed drafts of this publication and provided guidance for the development of the online resource include: Marcie Brown, Cynthia Dorfman, Doug Herbert, Jackie Jackson, Stacey Kreppel, Michael Petrilli, Tiffany Taber, and Susan Wilhelm.

WestEd is a nonprofit research, development, and service agency committed to improving learning at all stages of life, both in school and out. WestEd has offices across the United States and also serves as one of the nation's 10 regional educational laboratories.

Partnering in the development of the innovation guides and this website is Edvance. Edvance is a resource for process and performance improvement with a focus on benchmarking, knowledge management, performance measurement, and quality improvement initiatives in education.

The programs cooperating in development of this site were generous with their time and contributed many resources to the project. We would like to thank the district superintendents and staff, and program directors for their willingness to be featured and share the lessons they have learned in implementing public school choice programs.