Building a Community-Based Charter School

• In Event: Another Way: Global Perspectives on Community-Based and Alternative Schooling Initiatives

Abstract

Ten years ago in Philadelphia, a Spanish medium global studies charter school was founded by a group of parents who felt the district schools could not serve their children’s needs. The school has since grown to a population of 800 students from across 40 zip codes within the city.

The school is one of more than 6500 charter schools that serve more than 2.5 million students in the U.S. (Center for Education Reform, 2014). The school is made possible by state policy enabling actors (e.g., community organizations, community members, parents) to create such schools and giving the school district authority to approve such schools as public schools. As a public charter school created by grassroots, non-governmental actors, it is by definition a community-based school.

There is a well-developed body of literature on charter schools. We know a lot about the types of schools and students served (see, e.g., Miron et al., 2010; The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 2010), and there is an ever-expanding body of empirical research on their effectiveness (see, e.g., Mathematica, 2010a; Mathematica, 2010b). While there is research on charter school policy, most studies focus on how policy has impacted the growth and consumer-driven demand for charter schools (Ericson & Silverman, 2001; Gill et al, 2006). Few studies consider the supply side of the equation in terms of who creates charter schools and why (but see Cowen, Fleming, Gofen, 2008; Rofes & Stulberg, 2004). And yet, better understanding school founders and their motivations is key to understanding the policy intervention of charter schools – especially as it relates to providing opportunities not being provided (or not being provided equitably) by the traditional public school system.

The purpose of the study is to better understand how and why one school’s founders used charter school policy to develop their community-based school. Our primary concern in this project is the intersection at the macro-level of public policy with the micro-level agency and practices of actors who are working to promote the development of community-based schools.

This project is a qualitative case study that ‘triangulates’ multiple methods of investigation, drawing from school and district policy documents and interviews with the school’s founding board members. Our primary research questions are:
1. What motivations drove the group to develop its community-based school?
2. How did policy enable the group to develop its community-based school?
3. What challenges did the group face in developing its community-based school?

These questions aim to elicit an understanding of the broader policy processes influencing the practices of those actors behind community-based schools, the motivations and agency of the actors, and how individuals are defining ‘educational opportunity’ on their own terms. The findings will contribute to a growing body of research on community-based charter schools and the decentralization of education policy (Astiz, Wiseman, & Baker, 2002) that has resulted in the emergence of school spaces where alternatives to mainstream public schooling are increasingly found.

Author

• Deanna Hill, Drexel University