Accountability in Charter School Organizational Contexts: Administrators Interpret External Pressures and Frame Teachers' Work

• In Event: Teachers' Choices and Experiences in the Charter Sector

Abstract

Teachers work within multiple organizational contexts—classrooms are nested inside school, district, and policy contexts. For charter teachers, the milieu of organizational contexts in which they work also includes charter networks, a board of directors, and charter advocacy and support organizations. Part of a comparative case study of teacher professionalism in charter schools, this paper addresses how accountability across organizational contexts frames teachers’ professional lives. Even when schools operate within identical state and district policy contexts, the way their teachers experience professionalism may differ based on school- or network-level differences in accountability implementation. However, charter schools also inherently participate in educational markets, which exert accountability pressures and encourage administrators to implement increased managerial accountability.

Author

• Beth Wright-Costello, University of Southern California