Publicness and Competitive Incentives

• In Event: The Centrality of Access in Charter School Debates

Abstract

The first participant has a well-established track record of research on the organizational environments and behavior of charter schools. This work connects several issues that are relevant to questions of access in charter schools, including work on the “public” nature of charters (as well as competing district schools), (dis-)incentives to innovate in various ways, and impacts on access, especially for marginalized populations. This work advances from charter proponents’ initial and ongoing expectation that these schools would provide access to quality education for students in communities under-served by existing district schools. While the initial conception of charters from early advocates such as Budde and Shanker was that they would serve as “laboratories” or “R&D Centers” where professionals could try out innovative pedagogical models, the argument used by proponents to expand charter schooling was infused with a market logic. That logic held that charters, freed from bureaucratic governance, would have the opportunity and incentive to offer superior educational options; indeed, even students who did not choose charters would benefit, as schools are forced to compete for students (and the per-pupil funding they bring) — the “rising tide lifts all boats.”

However, there are substantial problems — and possibly perverse incentives — inherent to the competitive model for charter schools with implications detrimental to the idea of equitable access to quality educational options. While there is an appeal to the idea of placing schools (and especially charter schools) in a business-style logic of deregulation (autonomy) and competition for the choices of families, where schools must show results or risk “going out of business,” schools such as charters, when faced with competitive institutional environments, do not have the same menu of options as other organizations in the business sector. For instance, charter schools are unable to utilize price competition (although they can impose costs on less-desirable families through discipline, location, admission and other policies). And there is a general consensus in the research that charters have not adopted the approaches to pedagogical or curricular innovations that were an anticipated result of competition. Instead, in lieu of clear paths to improving educational outcomes through teaching and learning, charters and other schools in competitive environments often turn to filtering mechanisms to admit the more desirable (and less costly) students who are more likely to improve a school’s standing in the local school hierarchy. Such devices are often evident in efforts to “position” (literally and figuratively) a school in the local market through practices such as location (since many charter schools are new) and marketing.

Although such practices can be beneficial (for instance, by informing parents of school options), too often charters, as well as the “public” schools with which they compete, are incentivized to adopt these approaches in ways that limit access for the under-served students most in need of quality opportunities. This limitation of the market model for charter schools suggests the need to reconsider charter schools in light of their original grounding in professional — as opposed to competitive — impulses.

Author

• Chris Lubienski, Indiana University