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A charter school is a public school but without some of the constraints that bind public school leaders. On the other hand, charter schools are businesses, needing to find space, market their “product,” and attract teachers who share their mission. This business aspect of education combined with a specifically articulated mission and somewhat greater freedom and flexibility in educating children can, and often does, raise the ethical stakes for administrators and teachers as they endeavor to provide leadership in charter schools. These issues are best addressed through examining standards and dispositions set forth by professional bodies as well as a consideration of the ethical frames of justice, care, critique, and the profession.

Public schools can be environments in which students exhibit either tremendous achievement and growth or complete stagnation and decay. Public school districts, schools, administrators, and teachers continue to struggle to address the needs of children in dire conditions, within a climate of high-stakes accountability. Many of these children experience risk factors, such as single-family households, low incomes, and crime-ridden environments. However, these risk factors do not mean that they cannot experience school success. There are enough data to show that at-risk learners can be reached.

This research determines and updates industry’s use of plant charters and their characteristics in terms of plant structure differences, competitive priorities, manufacturing improvement initiatives, and performance. Industry differences are identified and compared to a 1982 study. The most predominant plant charter strategy remains a product plant charter assignment. Responses to a survey indicated that plants are created differently, i.e. there are structural differences between the plant charter strategy types. However, in general, the competitive priorities, efforts to improve manufacturing effectiveness, and resulting performance are essentially the same. This suggests seemingly similar manufacturing strategies regardless of the plant structure being used.

This paper aims to describe the experiences of Australian general insurer AAMI, the first private company to offer a customer charter and draw a comparison between service guarantees and customer charters. The paper also proposes a decision-support framework for the design, implementation and management of an effective customer charter.

The methodology involved in-depth personal interviews and secondary data.

Many service guarantees are not well conceived, implemented, or monitored. The AAMI case, demonstrates how customer charters, originally developed in the public sector can be effectively adopted in private organizations. The customer charter appears to deliver significantly more benefits to customers and an organization than traditional service guarantees. Charters do this by publishing specific service standards based on extensive research, conducting independent audits, stating outcomes of below standard performance, providing a visible and accountable appeal system, and publicly and regularly reporting on performance against promises. An on-going feedback loop ensures continuous quality improvement.

Customer charter findings are based on one case study.

Using a decision-support framework for a customer charter, services may be clearly defined and customer expectations managed building towards an organization-wide commitment to meet service promises.

Customer charters are rare, with little known about how they operate in a private organization. The findings indicate that charters may be more effective as a quality assurance and marketing tool than a service guarantee.

Reports on research carried out in 1997/98 which used four different methods in a staged process: literature review, in‐depth interviews, a postal questionnaire and focus groups in acute and primary care. There was a surprising level of agreement between patients, carers and NHS staff about what was wrong with the existing charter and about what a new charter should contain. Patients knew very little about the contents of the Charter. NHS staff were much more knowledgeable and much more critical of its impact on them and NHS services. The overall view was that it had been of limited usefulness. Although there were differences in emphasis, there was almost unanimous agreement about what a new charter should contain: it should be based on the principles of openness, accountability and equity; there should be a much stronger focus on primary and community health care; there should be clearer statements about patients’ rights of access to services; standards which focus on clinical need, effectiveness and health outcomes; and standards for better communication and information in a usable form. A new charter should emphasis the rights and responsibilities of patients and staff. Most important of all, patients and staff should be involved in the development of a new charter so that it will reflect their views.

Deregulation and other factors permit and encourage financial institutions to become more integrated, both within their own (financial) industries, such as banking and insurance, and across these industries. Financial regulators have responded with like integration. As financial institutions increasingly compete with firms from other industries and areas, financial regulators similarly compete more across borders. The resulting competition in financial regulation enhances innovation, choice, and efficiency. The advent of home-run regulation, which in general allows financial institutions to adhere only to the financial regulations of their home area and is spreading across the US and Europe, may allow numerous regulatory regimes within a given market.

Charter schools have the potential to enhance competition in the public education sector. As such, they could have a particularly significant impact in the labor market for teachers. This study uses data on more than 312,000 teachers from 483 urban Texas school districts to explore the impact of charter school competition on the compensation of teachers at traditional public schools. The analysis suggests that once charter enrollments reach critical mass, increasing competition from charter schools increases salaries for all but the most experienced teachers.

Given the fundamental role of public education in the foundational framework of equity and social justice leadership, as well as the demonstrated shortcomings of the current system of education, the primary goal of this chapter is to explore issues of social justice, leadership, and equity, in the context of charter schools. A corollary purpose is to build on the work of Wells, Slayton, and Scott (2002) who called on progressive supporters of charter schools and public schools to couch their arguments for democratic schooling in a call for social justice and equity as opposed to greater “liberty” for educational consumers.

Literature reveals that charter schools were established to improve learning, support low-achieving students, offer innovation and school choice, and create greater competition within the public school system to stimulate continued educational improvement. However, charter schools have political, organizational, and financial challenges that are unique to their settings. Unlike traditional schools that depend on district central offices, charter schools must identify their own sources to sustain organizational needs (Smith, Wohlstetter, & Hentschke, 2008a, 2008b). Conzemius and O’Neill (2001) argue building a community of collaboration among faculty is a key component of charter school success. Studies reveal that the development of school–family–community partnerships is a key component of education reform and school improvement (Bryan, 2005; Sanders, 2003) and building partnerships is necessary for charter schools to acquire much-needed resources. The intent of this chapter is to provide urban charter school and autonomous leaders with the knowledge, skills, and tools to build collaboration among school faculty, engage a variety of community stakeholders, and build and sustain strong community partnerships in ways that lead to school improvement.

We examine the emergence of an organizational form, charter schools, in Oakland, California. We link field-level logics to organizational founding identities using topic modeling. We find corporate and community founding actors create distinct and consistent identities, whereas more peripheral founders indulge in more unique identity construction. We see the settlement of the form into a stable ecosystem with multiple identity codes rather than driving toward a single organizational identity. The variety of identities that emerge do not always map onto field-level logics. This has implications for the conditions under which organizational innovation and experimentation within a new form may develop.