In a new case study for the R Street Institute, “Chartering in Kansas City,” Michael McShane writes about how, with support from farsighted local philanthropists, charter school enrollment has grown to 47 percent of students within the boundaries of the Kansas City Public Schools.

The McShane case study begins with the advice: “If you only read one book about the history of education in Kansas City, it should be Joshua Dunn’s Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins, which focuses on the massive desegregation case that forever reshaped the district.”

Nathan Glazer reviewed Complex Justice in the Spring 2009 issue of Education Next. In an article that carried the headline “Finding the Right Remedy: When court-ordered magnet schools don’t work, try charters,” Glazer wrote then, “In 2005–06, some 26,000 children attended the public schools, 6,000 the charter schools.”

— Education Next