Law and Institutional Competition in Charter School Authorization

• In Event: 63.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of law in shaping the context and conditions of charter school authorization in California, the state with the largest and most diverse population of charter schools in the nation. Although there exists a well-developed literature on the performance and place of charter schools in market-based education reforms, there have been few empirical explorations of how parties relevant to charter school governance encounter, invoke, and use the law in the vital moments of authorization. Such spaces and their associated actions (including initial petition for charter establishment, renewal, revocation, and appeal) offer unique opportunities to examine these dynamics, primarily because charter authorization: 1) unfolds in strikingly diverse social, political, and organizational contexts; and 2) leaves explicit room for district, county, and professional co-creation of legal standards through local interpretation of ambiguous statutory language.
This dissertation draws on the literatures in the sociology of law and organizations, school governance within education research, and sociolegal perspectives on the participation of legal professionals. The underlying argument guiding the project is that relevant educational law both shapes how actors view charter authorization and is shaped through mobilization during the process of charter authorization. I examine two specific research questions. First, how does law surface in the understandings and actions of charter authorizers and relevant participants? This question concentrates on the social processes through which school and charter board members, specialized charter lawyers, and members of advocacy organizations encounter, reference, and use the law in the actions of charter school authorization. Second, how does law interact or compete with other guiding logics of action (ideas from the market or education, for example) in the institutionalized environment of charter authorization? Here I investigate how charter school authorization emerges as a site where variable social and political climates of education reform, as well as beliefs regarding effective school organization, pedagogy and educational equity shape the meaning of law.
To answer these research questions, the dissertation employs a multi-method approach with two distinct phases: 1) an initial quantitative analysis of the current and historical population of California charter schools to reveal patterns and types of school establishment, challenged or denied renewal, closure, and legal appeal, with a specific focus on legal action and the participation of legal professionals in authorization spaces, and 2) qualitative inquiry that includes content analysis of authorization documents, semi-structured interviews of the parties to authorization (including school boards and charter boards members, charter lawyers, and advocacy organizations), and two in-depth, paired case studies of specific authorization actions, selected in light of previous quantitative and qualitative findings. Preliminary findings trace multiple legal aspects (compliance, legitimating, aspirational, and democratic) throughout the fora of charter oversight, and consider their interactions with political decision-making and public and professional participation.

Author

• Kelsey Mayo, University of California - Berkeley