The Strategic Management of Charter Schools: Frameworks and Tools for Educational Entrepreneurs (Educational Innovations Series)

The first charter school law in the United States was enacted in Minnesota in 1991. In the twenty years since that modest beginning, the movement has burgeoned and spread across the country: there are now more than five thousand charter schools attended by nearly two million students. Yet due to this rapid growth in the number of charter schools and to their generally independent character, the nature and quality of these institutions vary greatly. The promise of charter schools is great, but so are the organizational and educational challenges they face.

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools addresses the challenges facing such schools by mapping out, in straightforward and highly pragmatic terms, a management framework for them. Organized around three crucial challenges to charter school leaders—managing mission, managing internal operations, and managing the large stakeholder environment—the book provides charter school leaders with indispensable tools and insights for achieving educational and organization success. In its elucidation of these managerial challenges, and in its equally helpful and detailed examinations of particular schools, the book offers a clear, credible approach to the efficient and sustainable management of what are still young and experimental educational institutions.

“The importance of this volume lies not in the prescription of best practices but in the strategic ‘toolbox’ of skills and frameworks that the authors share. For providers seeking better ways to promote both growth and quality, this book will prove invaluable. For policy makers, parents, philanthropists, and educators seeking to understand how to help charter schooling deliver on its promise, this volume will prove an invaluable resource. Finally, the authors’ savvy suggestions for aligning mission, institutional operations, and stakeholders offer a strategic vision that holds promise not only in the charter sector but also for those in traditional district schools.” — from the foreword by Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies, American Enterprise Institute

“This book is a brilliant combination of theory and real-world cases. Free of the pointscoring common in charter school books, it focuses on the breakthroughs and mistakes made by people dedicated to the success of poor and minority children. Potential charter starters will learn from this book and so should those who know little about charter schools but support or oppose them on partisan or ideological grounds.” — Paul T. Hill, John and Marguerite Corbally Professor and director, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington, Bothell

“The Strategic Management of Charter Schools should be required reading for anyone thinking about opening a charter school, anyone currently leading a charter school, and anyone sitting on the board of a charter school.” — Richard Barth, CEO, KIPP Foundation

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools is a volume in the Educational Innovations series.

Edited by Peter Frumkin, Bruno V. Manno, and Nell Edgington, with a foreword by Frederick M. Hess

Edited by Peter Frumkin, Bruno V. Manno, and Nell Edgington, with a foreword by Frederick M. Hess