Will They Stay or Will They Go? Understanding the Career Decisions of Charter School Principals

• In Event: 69.056 - Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 69.056-8 - Turnover in Schools: New Measures, New Contexts

Abstract

Charter schools have been a source of hope, skepticism and controversy for decades now, and they continue to grow in number and reputation throughout the country. Although evidence of their impact on students and traditional public schools is mixed, supporters tend to focus on results from the highest achieving schools, including those associated with prominent charter networks or Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). Yet standalone charters and CMOs alike have experienced higher than average teacher and principal turnover compared to the traditional public sector, raising concerns about their sustainability and scalability. Few studies focus on principal mobility and turnover in charters despite strong evidence that principals are critical to developing trust, retaining teachers, and developing a positive school climate.

Researchers find that 71% of charter principals intend to leave within five years, and nationally, these principals are significantly more likely to leave their schools compared to their traditional public school counterparts. Moreover, most of the variance explaining this principal turnover gap is explained by the conditions and culture (e.g. working hours) of the charter schools themselves. This turnover has implications for the sustainability of these organizations, an important consideration given the push to scale urban charter schools.

Charter leaders are more likely to leave their school and school leadership than their traditional counterparts, but more research is needed to explain why and how this happens. Moreover, charters are not monolithic; there are differences in organization and governance (i.e. standalone charter schools vs. CMO schools) that shape working conditions and school culture.

This exploratory, interview-based study uses interviews with 15 charter school leaders in New York and New Jersey and focuses on how they explain their decisions to lead in a charter school and their intentions to stay or leave. A convenience sample of participants recruited through personal networks and social media resulted in a sample that varied along a wide range of characteristics including: school context (6 CMO leaders, 9 standalone leaders), leadership role, years teaching and leading, age, gender, and preparation.

In contrast with previous work highlighting the importance of extrinsic or economic conditions such as salary and benefits in principals’ career considerations, findings across principals suggested that such extrinsic conditions were not critical factors to participants’ decisions to lead in a charter or their intentions to leave. Intrinsic factors, especially perceived efficacy and sense of responsibility to the school and community, most strongly influenced participants’ commitment. Participants most often struggled with the tradeoff between feeling efficacious and a lack of work-life balance when considering leaving. Finally, participants often considered or took on new opportunities such as becoming a Managing or Executive Director that might allow them to have a greater impact within the organization, and most CMO participants were teachers or teacher leaders within the organization before becoming principals. This potential for upward mobility may help retain employees who have internalized organizational norms, but their movement could simultaneously contribute to the costs of turnover because of the need to replace that individual within the organization.

Author

• Chris Torres, Michigan State University