One Size Does Not Fit All: Variation in Charter Management Scale-Up

• In Event: The Walmartization of Charter Schools: A Road to Failure or the Salvation of Public Education

Abstract

The prevalence of charter management organizations – networks of charter schools overseen by a home office – has exploded in recent years (Farrell, Wohlstetter, & Smith, In Press; Miron & Urschel, 2009). In urban centers including New Orleans, Newark, and Los Angeles, CMO-run schools make up over one third of the charter market (Lake, Dusseault, Bowen, Demeritt, & Hill, 2010). Much of the growth of CMOs has been attributed to the infusion of foundation funding which has been estimated at over a half billion dollars (EdSector, 2009; Farrell et al., 2011). There has also been dramatic federal and state support for the replication of high-quality charter schools, and the Obama Administration has frequently called on CMOs to replicate “what works” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). A recent report by Hassel et al. (2011) identified policy, practical, and sector barriers for replication and offered suggestions for how to support rapid scale-up.
CMOs are frequently grouped under a single umbrella that assumes all CMOs seek rapid replication. Findings from a recent national qualitative study of 25 CMOs suggest otherwise. There is not only extensive variation in the CMO landscape in their age, origin, scope, grades served, number of schools, and number of students served (Smith, et al., 2009) but also remarkable differences in each CMO’s growth strategies and goals.
The foundations of this paper are derived from descriptive research on business strategy and firm growth, within and across industries. Numerous typologies of strategies have emerged from this perspective, e.g., Defender, Prospector, & Analyzer (Miles & Snow, 1978) or Entrepreneurial, Adaptive, or Planning organizations (Segev, 1987). Findings from our work suggest that CMO growth strategies can be grouped into three categories: opportunistic, premeditated, and organic.
Opportunistic strategy is based on responses to continually evolving external circumstances. These CMOs respond to environmental factors and changes in these factors. For example, some CMO leaders reported that growth occurred when an opportunity for a facility arose, rather than according to a strict timeline. Other CMOs pursue a premeditated strategy. In these cases, the plan involves a chain of contingencies that need to be met for a new school to be open. For instances, some CMOs use a “green light” process; a new school is only opened after securing a facility, receiving the charter, and identifying the school leader. Finally, an organic strategy occurred in CMOs in which decisions were made based on the needs of the community served. One CMO, for example, decided to add a high school to its network because the middle school parents had requested it the year before.
Our findings suggest that, in terms of growth strategies, one size does not fit all. Accordingly, expectations from policymakers and philanthropic partners around CMO scale-up may need to be re-evaluated to be better aligned with the diversity of CMO growth plans. These findings suggest that the contention that the CMO is the charter sector’s Walmart may be too simplistic; like their stand-alone counterparts, CMOs exhibit a wide range of organizational characteristics, strategies, and goals.

Authors

• Caitlin Farrell, University of California - Berkeley

• Priscilla (Penny) Wohlstetter, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Joanna R. Smith, University of Southern California