Unpacking Institutional Effects on Charter School Adaptations to Turnaround: The Case of Poplar Academy

• In Event: Strategies for Turning Around Underperforming Schools: Have We Learned Anything New?

Abstract

While federal policymakers have urged charter management networks to take on the task of turning around chronically low-achieving schools, there is little in-depth research that examines how charter organizations grow and develop in these more turbulent conditions. This paper delves into the adaptations of a novice operator situated in a state takeover district. Looking at the formation and evolution of Poplar in this institutional environment provides special insight into the issues and challenges that such start-up organizations confront, as well as how founding ideologies and expectations, hub structures and internal capacities filter this response. This charter also has a more unique position in the ASD, and as such allowed us unpack different institutional effects in the same governing context.

Author

• Diane Massell, Consortium for Policy Research in Education