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.

Notes

^1. Although some charter school principals (typically those at schools in charter school networks such as educational management organizations [EMOs] or nonprofit charter management organizations [CMOs]) receive strong leadership support from a central office and are relieved of tasks that do not relate directly to student learning, the principals of typical start-up charter schools cannot rely on a central office for support.

^2. Nationally, 10.6% (639) of all charter schools are conversion charter schools, while the majority (89.4% [5,364]) are start-up charter schools (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2013).

^3. Pseudonyms are used for the county and for each focal school.

^4. Though the term “charter school” is often used generically to refer to all schools that have established a contractual relationship with a school district, state, college, or university, all charter schools are not the same. There are basically two types of charter schools: conversion and start-up charter schools. A conversion charter is one that was a regular public or private school but opted to convert (or change) to a charter school. A start-up charter is a school that was established as a new charter school.

^5. Public schools in Florida are graded annually based on student performance on state assessments and the percentage of students making learning gains. Schools are assigned a letter grade (A through F) corresponding with their rated performance, with “A” representing the highest performance rating and “F” representing a failing grade.

^6. All principal names are pseudonyms.

^7. For example, while the smallest charter school, Neptune, had the highest level of academic performance in this initial exploration, the data cannot be used to determine the extent to which enrollment size affects school performance.