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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.

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.

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.

This chapter focuses on the importance of having a working knowledge of school law. Such knowledge is critical for all schools officials, but is especially important for leaders of charter schools. If school leaders always strive for legal compliance, it can help insure the survival of the school, as well as their own tenure. Legal compliance, however, is often a moving target. Not only must charter school leaders be aware of state and federal law pertaining to charter schools, they must also be aware of the laws regulating public schools as well as policies in school districts with which they may be affiliated. A charter school site administrator must know the law or have access to legal counsel to address specific areas of the law including special education, school code, public bidding, student discipline, labor and employment practices, public meeting requirements, and their respective state's charter school law. Understanding the law is a monumental task which carries with it important safeguards not only for the future of charter schools but also for the future of our educational system which is served so well by these leaders.

The Purpose of this chapter is to survey innovations and best practices in charter schools from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The goal is to identify essential elements needed to close the acheivement gap, and identify effective practices that enable all students to reach their fullest academic potential. The scope of this chapter focuses on the practices of charter schools form a national and local level, and incorporates anecdotal evidence collected from charter school personnel, authorizing districts, charter management organizations as well as an extant review of the literature. Furthermore, this study seeks to understand and identify those practices that are effective in improving student performance and why within any given set of variables these variables will not yield the same results. Ultimately, there are countless factors that determine school success, which are integral to what constitutes best practice. Findings revealed that although there is much evidence to support best practices in charter schools, in the end it is not about what is best; it is about what works effectively at each individual school.

Federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation, which enables students of low-performing schools to exercise public school choice, exemplifies a widespread belief that competing for students will spur public schools to higher achievement. We investigate how the introduction of school choice in North Carolina, via a dramatic increase in the number of charter schools, affects student performance on statewide end-of-year testing at traditional public schools. We find test score gains from competition that are robust to a variety of specifications. Charter school competition causes an approximately one percent increase in the score, which constitutes about one quarter of the average yearly growth.

This paper examines the effect of charter schools on student achievement in Michigan using a matched student dataset. Proponents of charter schools argue that by applying market pressure to traditional public schools, having the freedom and incentives to apply innovative curricular and instructional ideas, and offering students a choice in the schools they attend, charter schools can raise student achievement. Studies of the effect of charter schools on student achievement have been mixed, however. Methodologies vary widely depending upon the availability of data. Some studies track the same students as they transfer between charter schools and traditional schools; others rely on cross-sectional student or building-level data. We construct a dataset that matches the scores of the same student taking tests in two consecutive years. Estimating a value-added education production function, we find that charter schools are at a disadvantage to traditional public schools by an average of 0.2 standard deviations. These findings depend upon proper matching of students across school types, which in this case is accomplished by using prior test scores as a control variable and as a way to segment the sample. We also find that charter schools run by for-profit companies have an advantage over those run by not-for-profits and that charter schools improve the longer they are in operation.