‘Radical Decentralization’ Revisited: A Comparative Case Study of Educator and Family Influence in Freestanding Charters

• In Event: The Gap Between Promise and Practice: Three Logics of School Choice Under Scrutiny

Abstract

Charter schools emerged in the 1990s as an effort, at least in part, to “radically decentralize” public education. Early charters were characterized by coalitions of educators and families seeking autonomy from district bureaucracies to lead more locally-responsive schools. As the sector has matured, however, alternative theories of action have emerged. Since the mid-2000s, standardized charter management organizations (CMOs) have proliferated, challenging the bottom-up vision of reform embodied by “mom-and-pop,” or freestanding, charters. Even so, freestanding charters remain central to the sector. Today, roughly 4,600 such schools serve 1.9 million students—about half of those in charters nationwide.

As the sector has evolved, research increasingly focuses on the impacts of CMO expansion, with less attention to the “other half” of charter schooling, including whether earlier commitments to teacher and family-led schools persist in freestanding charters. We have especially little evidence documenting the voices of those who are purportedly most central to this theory of reform: educators and families themselves. This study begins to address this gap by capturing educator and family perspectives on their influence in contemporary freestanding charters.

To do this, I conduct case studies of three freestanding charters, in Texas, Indiana, and Connecticut. States were purposively selected for variation in regulatory context and sector composition. Regulatory differences may influence school priorities and practices, while sector composition, as measured by freestanding versus charter network student enrollment share, could suggest differential perceptions of each model’s legitimacy. This maximum variation sampling helps construct a diverse set of cases embedded in distinctive contexts for comparative analysis. Primary data is drawn from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 56 participants across these schools (13 school leaders, 29 teachers, and 14 caregivers). Using NVivo, I engage in two stages of qualitative content analysis, first using directed coding to identify core constructs and then relational analysis to identify shared themes and between-case variation.

Preliminary Findings: First, teachers across all sites report substantial agency over classroom instruction and school-wide decision making, especially in contrast to prior experiences in district or CMO settings. Second, caregivers consistently describe appreciation for access to their child’s teachers and leaders and heightened school transparency, yet also express limited participation in school governance. Indeed, such perceptions of access appear to cultivate a sense of trust that may reduce parental demand for deeper involvement. Third, some variation in intensity across cases suggests a potential tradeoff: the school with the strongest emphasis on teacher voice is also characterized by the least parental participation, relative to the school where teacher voice is present but less dominant. Fourth, participants generally perceive minimal influence for state policies on these internal school dynamics.

Taken together, these findings suggest that freestanding charters may sustain one dimension of “radical decentralization”—enhanced teacher influence over schools—but not robust family partnership. This complicates narratives of bottom-up charter reform and raises questions about whether and how educator voice and family participation might co-exist. Thus, future work could explore conditions under which such collaborative governance does exist and how this shapes schools.

Author

• Trevor William Baisden, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author