If civic education concerns you, you will be challenged, provoked, and inspired by the laboratories of democracy presented in the vivid pages of Trendsetting Charter Schools. Drawing on models from Saul Alinsky to Milton Friedman (and from the US Constitution to modern South Korea), these charter schools provide strikingly diverse examples that will stimulate debate and imitation.

Peter Levine, Lincoln Filene professor of citizenship and public affairs, Tisch College, Tufts University & director, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)

Citizenship education is too often like that old saw about the weather: everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it. This book, however, showcases an array of innovative schools that are doing something about it. And doing it well. These case studies demonstrate that schools do not have to choose between high academic standards and preparing their students for the responsibilities of citizenship. May these schools inspire educators everywhere to follow their lead!

David E. Campbell, University of Notre Dame; author (with Robert Putnam) of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

Trendsetting Charter Schools provides a fascinating collection of well-written and highly engaging case studies about schools that take seriously the mission of preparing young people to participate politically and civically. The six ideologically and pedagogically distinct approaches showcased in the book cover the waterfront of civic education. They provide different answers to core questions: what it means to be an engaged member of the polity, alternative views on what is the knowledge of most worth, and stark differences about which pedagogies promote civic outcomes. Readers will undoubtedly be attracted to some schools’ approaches more than others—thinking deeply about why is an ancillary benefit of reading this book.

Diana E. Hess, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison