Have Cyber Charters Reinvented Personal Management?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Charter School Management: Cyber Schools and Performance

Abstract

Teacher quality is a key and typically underemphasized determinant of student learning. Cyber charter schools have the potential to reinvent teacher personnel management, in part by removing teaching from the constraints of time and place and in part by systematically substituting technology for labor. But have cyber charter schools done this? We interviewed Pennsylvania cyber charter CEOs (response rate = 50%) and conducted a national survey of 189 cyber charter leaders (18% response rate, n = 34). Results indicate that, just as most brick and mortar charter schools have proven to be incremental rather than “disruptive” innovators, so too have cyber charters, save arguably in the matter of teacher mentoring. Possible barriers to innovation are discussed.

Authors

• Robert A. Maranto, University of Arkansas

• Dennis Beck, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville