Marytza A. Gawlik

Breaking Loose Principal Autonomy in Charter and Public Schools

Because various aspects of the school organization matter, this study was designed to determine to what degree principals in both charter and traditional public schools experience autonomy. This quantitative study draws on the 1999-2000 School and Staffing Survey, and the analyses suggest that there are variations in the degree and amount of principal autonomy experienced across charter and traditional public schools. Principals, although clearly autonomous, are constrained by state influence but supported by district influence. Charter school principals enjoy greater degrees of autonomy across various internal school activities, and this contributes to the conceptual understanding of organizational autonomy.

Beyond the Charter Schoolhouse Door: Teacher-Perceived Autonomy

This article presents a study that explores the relationship between charter schools and teacher autonomy. The theoretical framework is based on the charter school concept, whereby three policy levers—choice, deregulation, and accountability—lead to various goals for the charter school. One of the first and foremost of these is the enhancement of professional autonomy and opportunities for teachers. The assumption is that teachers who select the schools they want to work at will be more willing to invest their time and energy and be more dedicated to the school. Although charter school legislation has provided significant autonomy for professionals in exchange for accountability, the school-based initiatives that have been under way suggest that the autonomy is not always present.

Shared sense-making: how charter school leaders ascribe meaning to accountability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which charter school leaders influence the understanding and conception of accountability policy and how that understanding translates into practice. In particular, this paper draws from sense-making theory and research on charter school leaders to identify their pre-existing understandings, their shared interactions, and their interpretations of accountability policy as they relate to professional development and instructional practices. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the qualitative case study approach to document the organizational processes of charter schools. Data for the study were collected in two elementary charter schools over the course of 18 months. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data because this method is compatible with the inductive, concept-building orientation of all qualitative research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two charter school leaders and twelve charter scho...

Moving Beyond the Rhetoric: Charter School Reform and Accountability

ABSTRACT The author examined how local charter school educators respond to the accountability measures being imposed on them. Encouraged by early indications of increased test scores, state and federal policymakers continue to support accountability as an effective means to improve schools. Surprisingly, there has been little research on local educators’ experiences with and responses to such reforms. This lack of research is striking because teachers, principals, and superintendents are directly responsible for the implementation of accountability mandates, including administering tests, teaching to the state standards, and implementing state-approved curriculum packages. In an effort to understand teachers’ and administrators’ experiences with public school accountability, the author explores how educators in 4 charter schools in Michigan understand recent accountability mandates with respect to school reform.

Teacher Quality in Michigan: A School-Level Analysis of the Detroit Metropolitan Region.

Most of the low-performing schools and students are in urban districts where poverty is high, where large proportions of students have limited English proficiency, and where students perform poorly on achievement tests. Moreover, urban districts face numerous challenges, including attracting teachers to their schools and optimizing their hiring, transfer, and retention policies so that they bring the best available teachers to the classroom setting. What’s now needed is an understanding of how schools differ on the qualifications of their teachers and the mechanisms driving these differences. In this article, the authors use the Detroit metropolitan region as a case study in order to (a) determine whether there is teacher sorting across schools and districts, and (2) identify which schools and districts have the least qualified teachers.

Are You Leaving? A Case of Succession in the Willow Tree Charter School

This case study asks readers to contemplate what leadership practices may facilitate leadership succession at charter schools. The case narrative is followed by an activity designed for students in principal preparation programs. In this activity, students develop an exit strategy for the departing leader, a hiring plan for the charter school leadership, and an entry plan for the charter school’s successor, each of which outlines the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate change and maintain the charter school’s ongoing success.

Leadership Knowledge and Practices in the Context of Charter Schools

ABSTRACT Principal leadership influences both the school environment and classroom teaching practices, and a principal’s ability to establish strong, collaborative instructional practices is essential to academic success. To date, very little research on leadership has focused on charter schools. Even though charter schools continue to grow in number and importance within the U.S. public education system, leadership in charter schools remains somewhat of a “black box.” This study seeks to use the extant research on leadership practices, charter schools, and the importance of principals, and original data from charter school principals, to expand the empirical findings on leadership in charter schools.

Instructional leadership and the charter school principal

ABSTRACT Few studies have investigated what occurs inside charter schools with respect to instructional leadership, teaching, and learning. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examines two major issues: how the principals at four charter schools enact instructional leadership in their respective schools, and what barriers the principals encounter when enacting instructional leadership at their school sites. The results highlight three main categories of instructional leadership practices: developing a school mission, managing curriculum and instruction, and promoting school climate and culture. In addition, the data reveal that while the principals attempted to engage in instructional leadership, they encountered barriers related to budgeting and staffing. The paper broadens the scholarly understanding of instructional leadership in schools with high levels of autonomy.

Teacher Quality and Sorting across Traditional Public and Charter Schools in the Detroit Metropolitan Region.

Introduction In the quest to raise student achievement in low-performing urban schools, researchers often point to the central importance of recruitment and retention of a high quality teacher workforce (Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff 2002; Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain 2005; Jacob 2007).1 At the same time, advocates have proposed charter schools not only as a means to reform traditional public schools, but also as a strategy to close the achievement gap between urban students and their suburban counterparts in no small part because charter schools are often freed from many of the constraints faced by traditional public schools, allowing them greater flexibility to recruit and retain a qualitatively different teacher workforce (Center for Education Reform n.d.). Using data for the Detroit metropolitan region of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties for the 2005-2006 school year, this study sought to answer four research questions: (1) Did charter school teachers differ in measures of teacher quality from traditional public school teachers; (2) Was there variability in teacher quality within traditional public and charter schools; (3) To what extent were teacher quality indicators associated with teacher effectiveness; and (4) Did teacher sorting take place across charter and traditional public schools? This article is divided into eight sections. It begins with a background section on charter schools in Michigan, followed by a section on research on teacher quality and sorting. The third section presents research methods used in the study while findings are discussed in the next four sections, one for each of the research questions. The article closes with a summary, conclusions, and recommendations for future research.