.3.” z
‘ 9.9 I...» 9521
. ‘ . . . .1 .
(a:
2.454 ‘

. .... ..

 

 

 

 

4
i: V

zwfiwawu

46m...

 

n... ..
want

II:
t 31...! . .1.
1,71:
.3! I.

 

.3. .4.)

. ‘ J. , 133:, : .01." Tim.
gamma .3 . ._.,.g.§_i.,1.

w 1 . . .

r335 ‘ .

 

.1...

 

 

“HESB
3 LIBRARY
flan/7 Michigan State
L *“ University

 

 

This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

SCHOOLING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE: UNDERSTANDING
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL

 

presented by

ANN MARIE ALLEN

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for the

Ph.D. degree in Educational Policy

 

 

     

.0? £9

Major Professor's Signature

41113me
Dt

6

 

 

MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2/05 c:/CI_RC/DateDuo.Indd-n15

SCHOOLING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE:
UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL
By

Ann Marie Allen

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment Of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Educational Policy

2005

ABSTRACT
SCHOOLING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE:
UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL
By

Ann Marie Allen

The purpose Of this study is to determine if public charter schools are responsive
to a larger community than the parents and students they directly serve, and if so, to
describe the nature of that responsiveness. Qualitative, case-study methodology was used
to examine the responsiveness of four public charter schools in one urban community. A
comparative set of two district schools in the same city was also examined. Respondents
in the study included charter and district school administrators, board members, and
neighborhood association directors. Data from observations of public board meetings and

documents were also analyzed.

Copyright by
Ann Marie Allen
2005

Dedicated to Mark, Elizabeth and James Allen for their support and encouragement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Dr. David N. Plank for his unyielding support,
guidance and wisdom throughout the doctoral process, as well as Dr. David Arsen, Dr.
Stephen Esquith, Dr. Kimberly Maier, and Dr. Gary Sykes for their support, critique, and

assistance in the development of the dissertation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................. vii
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................ viii
KEY TO SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ................................................ ix
CHAPTER 1: .......................................................................................... 1

THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP OF SCHOOLS TO COMMUNITY

CHAPTERZ: .......................................................................................... 10
THE MARKET AND THE COMMON SCHOOL: A DIFFERENCE IN

REPRESENTATION

CHAPTER 3: ........................................................................................ 30
THE METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER 4: ........................................................................................ 49

CLOSE-UP: A LOOK AT COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION IN
FOUR CHARTER SCHOOLS

CHAPTER 5: ....................................................................................... 127
THE DISTRICT SCHOOLS
CHAPTER 6: ....................................................................................... 157
COMMUNITY RESPONSE
CHAPTER 7: ....................................................................................... 177

REPRESENTATION IN THE AGE OF CHOICE:
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND RESEARCH

APPENDIX ......................................................................................... l 88

REFERENCES .................................................................................... 1 89

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Demographics Of charter schools compared to neighborhood schools .......... 125

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Research Questions ..................................................................... 33
Figure 2: Overview of Data Collection ........................................................... 45
Figure 3: Matrix Of Schools on Dimensions of Representation .............................. 175

viii

KEY TO SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

School Abbreviations

CA — Conversion Academy ICA — Inner City Academy
ICE — Inner City Elementary REA — Reggio Emilia Academy
SCA — Secondary Charter Academy SEE — South East Elementary

Neighborhood Association Abbreviations
DNA — Downtown Neighborhood Association
SNA — South East Neighborhood Association

SWNA — South West Neighborhood Association

Demographics Abbreviations
AA — African American
AI — American Indian

F&RL — Free and Reduced-Priced Lunch

Symbols for Strength of Representation
+ Very strong representation \/+ Strong representation
x/ Fair representation \/-Weak representation

— Evidence contrary to representation

Chapter 1

The Changing Relationship of School to Community

The school-community relationship has taken some dramatic turns over the past
100 years. Often these turns have been driven by changes in school governance policy,
reflecting shifts in the way citizens are represented in school decision-making. For
example, the consolidation of school committees into district school boards reduced the
number of citizen representatives on school governance bodies from as many as 20 per
school to as few as seven per district (Tyack, 1974). The creation of special school
elections in the 19205 effectively reduced the number Of citizens who vote on school
issues by more than half and created an election system that was quiet, untimely, and
more controllable (Lutz & Iannacone, 1978). Fiscal policies that move school finance
from the hands Of local taxpayers to state departments of education have decreased the
amount of control local citizens have over their local public schools, and policies that
allow for increased parental choice in public schooling potentially decrease the public’s
connection to its schools by creating a more privatized system of schooling.

There are reasonable arguments to be made in favor Of all of these changes. The
increase in professional decision-making that spurred the consolidation and the
minimization of citizen boards and the creation Of special school elections was an attempt
to improve the quality of schooling by ensuring that educational decisions were made by
trained, professional educators. The more recent finance reforms that shift local funding
of schools to the state level is a way to address the vast inequities that result from
localized funding programs. Choice and charter school policies attempt to increase the

power parents have over their own child’s education by decreasing the bureaucratic

barriers that have encumbered public school districts, and through a competitive market,
increase the pressure on public school districts to improve education for all students.

With every turn, however, there is a road not taken. What is lost, for example,
when public schooling is more accountable to a market clientele than the community in
which it resides? How does such a shift affect the relationship between the public and the
public school? Specifically, how does it affect citizen representation in school decision-
making, and what effect might such a change have on students and communities? In this
dissertation, I begin to examine this Shift in terms of the relationship between the broader
public and the public charter school by examining ways citizens are represented in
charter school decision-making.

Democratic theorist Robert Dahl (1998) identifies the political institutions
necessary for modern representative democracy. These institutions provide a useful
analytical framework for considering citizen representation in public school decision-
making. He writes that representation that is democratic needs to allow for choice in
representation through free, fair and frequent elections of representatives, freedom Of
expression, access to information, ability to associate with others for more adequate
representation, and representation that is inclusive of all citizens. Using Dahl’s criteria for
democratic representation as an analytical framework, it appears at first glance that the
traditional public school district has the structures in place to represent the citizens of the
district, whether or not those citizens are parents of students enrolled in the district
schools. Charter school policy in Michigan, however, provides more autonomy from
community, relieving public charter schools from direct obligations to the electorate. The

question I aim to answer is whether the differences in Michigan’s public school policies

affect the democratic nature of representation in charter school decision-making to the
point of being unresponsive to the larger community. In other words, are charter schools
responsive to a larger public than the students and parents they directly serve, and if so,
how? Answers to this question only touch the surface of the school-community
relationship, but at least they begin to tell the story of how charter school policies may
affect the larger infrastructure of schools in community.

Definitions of Community

Before one can discuss changes to the school-community relationship, it is
necessary to examine more carefully what is meant by the term “community” (Plank,
1997). Community as related to schools could mean the professional school staff -- the
teachers, administrators and personnel that make a school run; it could mean the students
and parents, or the students, parents and staff; it could mean the neighborhood that
surrounds the school, or again a combination of all of the above; it could mean the city in
which the school resides, or the state system Of education of which it is a part. How
policy addresses the concept of “community” is likely to not only affect the nature of the
school-community relationship but to define it.

Public school policy in the United States has long defined community as a
geographic area surrounding a school. Plank (1997) explains: “Assigning priority to
geography, as has been traditional in the US public schools and school districts, fosters
pluralism and inclusion at the risk of attenuated social and value coherence” (p. 14).
Public school governance also has a tradition of local control, meaning the citizens who
reside in a given school district are responsible to elect representatives to school boards,

vote on funding, building, and re—organization issues and participate in discussions or

debates that affect the way schooling is delivered in their community. If the electorate is
not happy with the way the local school is being governed, it traditionally has had the
right to elect new members to the governing board in hopes that changes would be made
that better reflect citizens’ preferences.

Recent changes to state school policy in Michigan have changed the way the
electorate interacts with the school district, and those changes likely are redefining the
notion of community in the school-community relationship. These changes in policy are
discussed at length in Chapter 4, but suffice it to say here that state policies that shape
public school governance have the power of shifting the definition of the school
community from one of geographic boundaries that is inclusive of citizens who both have
and do not have children in the schools to one that is more focused on students and their
parents, and placing more control for education directly in the hands of the parents and
students the schools directly serve. Turning over control to a powerful group like parents
can be detrimental to the ideal of a common school. As Plank ( 1997) notes:

“. . .despite the intense rhetorical enthusiasm for communities in current policy

debates, a variety of recent policy initiatives and structural changes in the public

school system have undermined rather than strengthened the role of communities
in educational governance. Notable examples include state and national standards,
enforced by testing and backed up with the threat of state take-overs; and the
move to student-based funding, which greatly strengthens the ‘exit’ capabilities
of parents and correspondingly weakens the claims of community institutions on

their putative members” (p. 19).

Scholars like Gutmann, Mintrom , Plank & Boyd, Voke and others suggest that
public schools need to be responsive to all citizens in a community - nOt just those with
students in school — in order to preserve the democratic purposes of public schooling.
Citizens have a vested interest in public schooling because public schools socialize and
educate the next generation of citizens. Gutmann (1987) argues that it is the emerging
generations of public school students that will be caring for today’s citizens tomorrow.
These authors also argue that as members of a self-goveming society, citizens have a
stake in public school decision—making because public schools are a part of the
community infrastructure that affects the lives of local citizens. Therefore, schools have a
responsibility to ensure that school decision-making allows for the representation of
citizen interests.

Others argue that the inclusive representation of citizens in public school
decision-making is important for ensuring necessary community support and investment
in successful public schools (Lutz & Merz, 2000; Stone et al, 2001; Bryk, et al, 1998).
Stone et al posit that the political barriers that have been created to disconnect citizens
from public schools need to be broken down to allow for the mobilization of advocates
who can spur equity in public schooling. Likewise, Bryk et a1 (1998) write that increased
participation of citizens in school decision-making increases trust in schools. They write:
“If local professionals in urban schools do not reform their relationships with parents and
community members to build a stronger foundation of trust, it is hard to envision how
these schools can improve fundamentally, or how communities can better support the

education of their children,” (p.255).

Public schools have long been comerstoness of community; they are the places
that children learn and play but they are also meeting places for senior citizens and
community groups; they are buildings and grounds that take up Space in neighborhoods,
affecting housing markets and Often defining the face of neighborhoods. The hope of
public schooling is to break down the social barriers that prevent cohesive communities
and create opportunities for understanding across social and economic lines.

Levin (2000) and others argue that a system of charter schools would create
greater equity gaps because only those students who have the means to choose to attend a
charter can attend. Those who do not have the means will end up in schools that have
been drained of resources. Levin also argues that a move to privatize public schooling, in
an education market, will create less cohesive communities. The “common good”
purposes of public schooling could disappear under such a scenario, as could the
participative practice of engaging citizens in school decision-making. This could have
detrimental effect on the democratic goals of public schooling.

The public common school as a vehicle for a more cohesive society, however, is
an ideal that some argue is too complex to ever become a reality. Chubb and Moe (1990),
for example, argue that attempting to meet everyone’s needs resulted in large
bureaucratic schools that can be unresponsive to individual students and parents. These
charter school advocates posit that a market system of public schooling would break
down the bureaucratic barriers to quality education and give all parents “purchasing
power” in deciding the best educational fit for their students. Doing so will lead to a
better system of education for everyone because the competition created by the market

would force schools to either improve or shut down. Market advocates like Chubb and

Moe place the power of education in the hands of parents. Critics Of charter schools argue
that the market with parents as its clientele threatens the democratic nature Of public
schooling because it greatly restricts the ability of citizens to have a say in public
schooling.

In contrast, Mintrom (2001) and Smith (2001) argue that charter schools may in
fact be a breeding ground for democracy. The small school environments of charter
schools, they argue, allow for increased deliberation and participation in school decision-
making. Mintrom suggests that the by increasing parental participation in school
decisions through the small charter school environment, communities as a whole will
enhance their capacities for democratic participation. Mintrom’s work, however, does not
consider the absence of other stakeholders — namely citizens who do not have children
enrolled in the charter schools — in the process of charter school decision—making.
Smith’s argument is a broader and does make a case for the larger community. She
argues that the small charter school can serve as an associational democracy for under-
represented communities. Students who have been left behind in the traditional school
district may be better served in a charter school that focuses on meeting the interests of
the community to which those students belong. In this way, then, charter schools may
provide what Dahl calls associational autonomy — or the ability of the under-represented
to associate with others for the purpose of more effective representation.

A system of charter schools as associational democracies may lead to what Fuller
(2004) describes as an increasing pluralistic, post-modem society. He posits that a system
of charter schools made up of small groups of like-minded parents and students

represents a shift away from a more modern conception Of society, which is concerned

about the democratic ideals of common goods and services. He calls for more research

into the tensions between the modern and post-modem approaches to public schooling.

Writes Fuller:
“We should endeavor to understand how policymakers are weighing - even how
they grasp - the virtues of this dizzying pastiche Of cultural communities against
the persisting importance of shared and unifying values. A new generation of
research on the tension between the modemists and the pluralists could yield
stronger policy tools and clearer knowledge of whether richer communities are
indeed being built or sustained, for children, parents, and educators alike. We may
find that the advance of cultural pluralism also brings greater inequality and
legitimates advantages for dominant classes. But either way, this new line of
policy research could enrich the deeply human dynamics of public action and
democratic deliberation.” (p.23).

Similarly, McCarthy (1997) warns that moving forward with policies that redefine the

“basic structure” of education calls for a more concerted effort at understanding what

these changes portend. She writes:
“If the purposes and basic structure of public education in our nation are being
redefined, we need to understand all implications of the decisions. We need to
consider the values that are guiding educational policy into the next century
because m uch more than public schooling is at stake. IF we are not attentive, we
may, by default, embrace policies that are inconsistent with democratic principles,

when a majority of our citizens still believe strongly in those ideals.” (p. 68)

In this dissertation I attempt to answer the calls of Fuller and McCarthy by
beginning to examine the tensions between what Fuller calls the modern and post—modem
approaches to education, by examining the relationship between the broader public and
the public charter school and to begin to identify how these relationships affect the
democratic participation of citizens in public school decision-making. Chapter 2 of the
dissertation examines the literature that frames the theoretical argument regarding
representation in public school decision-making and the effects changes in governance
policy may have on such representation. Also presented in Chapter 2 is an examination of
Michigan’s educational policy landscape and the policy shifts that contribute to the
changing school-community relationship. Chapter 3 delineates the methods of the study,
which focuses on one city in Michigan in which four differently —governed charter
schools operate. The dimensions of representation from Dahl’s conceptions of democracy
presented in Chapter 2 are used as a framework for analyzing interviews, documents, and
observations at public meetings. In chapters 4, 5 and 6, I present findings from the case
study of the individual schools as well as findings from the comparison of schools, and
findings from community respondents. These findings are examined within and across
respondent type (i.e. charter respondents, district respondents, and community
respondents). Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation with implications for public school

policy and a look at emerging questions for future study.

Chapter 2

The Market and The Common School: A difference in representation

Charter schools emerged in the early 19908 as way to experiment with new and
potentially better approaches to public education. Many of the studies evaluating the
effects of charter schools have focused on whether charters improve student achievement,
provide innovative teaching practices, and organize a more efficient system of teaching
and learning. However, charter school reforms also came about as a way to change the
governance of public education, in part, to increase the responsiveness of school leaders
to students and their parents (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Boyd, 2003). Fuller (2004) suggests
that the rise in support for charter schools may be related to a shift in the public’s
conception of the public sphere. He posits that the modern idea of a system of regulated
schooling that aims to develop a common set of skills and values for all students in the
state has given way to a desire for more pluralistic schooling. The post-modem pluralism
Fuller writes about may not only change traditional definitions of the common good; it is
likely to change the relationship between public schools and the communities in which
they reside.

Researchers have begun to examine differences in the way charter schools relate
to the parents they serve (Mintrom, 2003: Beneviste, Camoy & Rothstein, 2003), yet
little has been done to examine how charter schools respond and are responsible to other
members of the local community. Public schools have a long history of working with and
in community. One of the purposes of the common school is to provide a common set of
values and skills to students to prepare them for life in democratic society, often in their

own communities (Labaree, 1997). In light of this goal, public schools have a formal and

10

informal relationship with community. Formal relationships are evident in the public
funding school districts receive directly from tax payers and the influence citizens have
on the governance of public schools through their participation in electing school board
members. Informal relationships include the involvement of community members on
advisory committees, relationships between community organizations and schools to
provide students with school-to-work or service-leaming opportunities, and partnerships
with social service organizations or government agencies to support the social needs of
students.

Charter schools, however, are formally independent of community resources.
They do not have an elected governing board, and often do not identify with any one
school community as public school districts do (Arsen, Plank & Sykes, 1999; Miron &
Nelson, 2002). As a result, charter schools may have few reasons to connect to the
community beyond the parents and students they directly serve.

Not much is known about the relationship between public charter schools and the
communities they serve. As publicly funded institutions, is there a larger community to
which charter schools are responsive, and if so, how is the school-community relationship
different among charter schools? How does this new conception of community change
the way the public and public school interact? These are the questions my dissertation
aims to answer.

Boyd (2002) writes that the trial American school governance is facing today is
related to both pressure for performance from policymakers and pressure for legitimacy
from parents who are not satisfied with the education available from the traditional

school district. Therefore, efforts to increase accountability for school performance on

11

one hand and efforts to increase parental choice on the other have resulted in new school
governance models, directly affecting the ways in which community members interact
with public schools.

How do these new governance models, specifically charter schools, affect the
relationship between the public and their public schools? With little empirical research on
school governance (Land, 2002), the answer remains unclear. There is a growing
literature, however, that supports the importance of engaging the broader community in
public school decision-making, to develop political legitimacy and the trust needed to
support student learning (Mintrom, 2001; Gutmann, 1987; Boyd & Plank, 1994; Voke,
1998; Smith, 1998; Brk & Schneider, (2003); Meier, 2003; Hirota & Jacobs, 2003). The
literature reviewed here examines the potential impact of charter school policy on the
relationship between communities and public schools.

Many scholars of democracy argue that citizen participation and engagement in
civic life helps to maintain a balance of power as well as to build the kind of trust among
citizens that is necessary to produce a common good (Putnam, 1993; 1994; Dahl, 1998;
Richardson, 2002). Applied to the local control of public schooling, community
participation in school decision-making is important because it gives citizens the
opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect their lives (Gutmann, 1987; Plank &
Boyd, 1994). Beneviste, Camoy & Rothstein (2003) simply state: “Society has an interest
in the kind of education that its children receive and this should be an area for debate” (p.
106). As Voke (1998) writes in her argument for greater legitimacy in charter schools, the
need for citizen participation goes beyond engaging school parents: “Yet, clearly those in

the community outside the charter school have an interest in and will be affected by the

12

education taking place within a charter school. All citizens have an important and
common interest in educating future citizens” (p. 4)

The goals of American education are multiple and Often contested (Tyack &
Cuban, 1995; Labaree, 1997) and public schools serve multiple constituents with varied
interests. The complexity of public schooling, therefore, has traditionally called for
democratic representation to insure that multiple goals and interests are considered in
school decisions, and that community members have an Opportunity to examine and
challenge the balance of those goals and how their interests will be represented.

Democratic governance of public schools, however, has been criticized for its
inability to efficiently respond to the needs of individual parents and students due in part
to the multiple interests and constituents of public school bureaucracies (Hess, 1999;
Chubb & Moe, 1990). Charter schools were designed to provide parents with a schooling
option in which they have greater control over their own child’s schooling and greater
access to school authority (Mintrom, 2003; Chubb & Moe, 1990).

The difference between the common school and the charter school may be viewed
in terms of a dissatisfaction theory of education. Hirschman (1970) outlines exit and
voice as the primary vehicles for dealing with discontent in a democratic society. Exit, he
writes, is the economic approach, and provides customers with opportunities to leave one
school for another when the first school is not meeting the needs or interests of the client.
Voice is the political strategy that allows for stakeholders to deliberate issues of interest,
in hopes of improving a negative situation. Hirschman notes that while exit is the easier

way to deal with discontent, in a democratic system that aims to provide fair and

13

equitable service to all citizens, voice is necessary to preserve and improve the quality Of
the system for all stakeholders.

Critics of traditional public school systems argue, however, that large
bureaucratic, top-down school districts do not provide for effective voice. The lack of
responsiveness that Chubb and Moe (1990) identify is largely a failure of schools to react
to the articulation of voice. The lack of power parents have over these systems is what
underscores charter advocates’ mission. Chubb and Moe argue that part of the reason that
large school systems are so unresponsive to parents is that they are obligated to respond
to multiple interests and stakeholders. The “loose-coupling” of public school districts,
they note, prevents much responsiveness to anybody. Charter school policies attempt to
address the responsiveness issue for parents by giving them the option to leave an
unsatisfactory school for another. Yet, as Hirschman ( 1970) notes, the exit strategy does
nothing to foster democratic deliberation aimed at improving the system for all
stakeholders, including those stakeholders who cannot exit the public good effects of
public schools (Labaree, 1997).

Researchers including Mintrom (2001, 2003) and Smith (2001), suggest that the
small communities of charter schools may be more conducive to promoting democratic
voice among participants than large bureaucratic systems. Furthermore they suggest that
the social capital developed through the charter school experience may lead to stronger
democratic participation among charter school participants. Mintrom (2001) reasons that
democracy is best practiced in small communities, where access to information and
authority are easily obtained. Opportunities to participate in decision-making processes

are also more accessible in small communities, and the threat of exit, he argues, will

14

encourage school leaders to make available more opportunities for democratic
participation in school decisions.

Smith (2001) makes a similar argument in her book, “The Democratic Potential of
Charter Schools.” Using the work of political theorist Joshua Cohen, Smith argues that
charter schools may serve as “associative democracies,” taking on a “regulatory role in
cases where the state is limited in its capacity to advance the common good (p. 73).
Associative democracies, she writes, are “intended to encourage secondary associations
capable of fulfilling the functions of representing previously underrepresented interests
and advancing regulatory competence” (p. 75). The large bureaucratic system of
schooling that Chubb and Moe identify as the root of inefficiency could be seen as
preventing effective representation for under-represented groups. Charter schools,
therefore, could become the secondary association that best represents the needs of a
particular group.

Smith notes that the formation of charter schools is likely to lead to more
homogeneous communities, creating “political solidarity” among charter school
participants. She argues, like Mintrom, that such solidarity could lead to more
participative communities deliberating on issues of common concern.l The remaining
question, according to Smith, is whether charter schools can maintain an interest in
democratic governance and civic engagement. Writes Smith, “While most charter schools
will not be concerned first and foremost with democratic governance nor civic education,

public interests in each of these aspects of education require that charters at least meet

 

‘ These ideas are supported by Costa & Kahn’s (2002) research. Costa and Kahn
examined 15 studies of social capital and conclude that small, homogeneous communities
increase social capital among members, and may lead to more voter participation within
that community.

15

some minimal requirements.” She identifies those requirements as: “1) the organization
of charter schools under a Specific policy balances the plurality of interests in public
education; 2) the governance procedures of specific charter schools result in legitimate
collective decisions; and 3) the curricular and pedagogical practices within specific
charter schools promote ‘regulatory competence’ in future citizens” (p. 77).

Mintrom (2001) also notes the potential threats to democracy that charter schools
pose, but concludes that “these could be mitigated through appropriate policy changes”
(p. 628). The management of charter schools by private for-profit management
companies presents a danger to democratic practice, he argues, because the structures that
the companies may impose on schools limits the autonomy of the school itself. He also
notes that school leaders may find ways to “screen” students who attend their schools as a
result of the increased autonomy of the public charter school. Thirdly, Mintrom notes that
democracy could be curtailed by increased focus on parental decision-making and
decreased accountability to the broader public. He writes: “Given the greater influence
that parents enjoy over charter schools, it is possible that some schools will become so
preoccupied by local interests and the specific concerns of parents that they will neglect
to teach essential democratic values and to support the cultivation of a common national
culture” (p. 629).

Putnam’s (1993) research indicates another potential danger that charter schools
pose to democratic practice. While Mintrom posits that the social capital small charter
schools build will lead to a more participative society, data from Putnam’s (1993) study
of regional communities in Italy indicates otherwise. Putnam found hat it was not the

small, close-knit communities that were the most participative, but communities that

16

were modern and diverse. Putnam writes that Benjamin Barber’s idea of democracy
“captures the character of civic community as it emerges from our Italian explorations.
He quotes Barber as saying:

“Strong democracy rests on the idea Of a self-goveming community of citizens

who are united less by homogeneous interests than by civic education and who

are made capable of common purpose and mutual action by virtue of their civic
attitudes and participatory institutions rather than their altruism or their good
nature. Strong democracy is consonant with — indeed it depends upon -— the
politics of conflict, the sociology of pluralism, and the separation of private and

public realms of action. “ (Putnam, 1993, pp 117-188)

Granovetter ( 1973) made a similar argument when he argued that the strong ties
of small, exclusive communities result in a weakened civic community, whereas
individuals that have weaker ties to each other will be more willing to interact across
different characteristics and values. Plank (1997) makes a similar argument, noting that
differences in a community’s size often reflect differences in the community’s character.
He writes:

“Small voluntary communities (e. g. ethnic neighborhoods, Christian schools) are

likely to be closely-knit and rich in ‘social capital’ but at least potentially

subversive of common civic culture. Large statutorily defined communities (e. g.

New York’s community school district) are likely to reflect the value conflicts

and policy dilemmas of the broader society” (p. 15).

Charter schools, therefore, may in effect divide the public sphere into a multitude

17

of small spheres, potentially reducing the number of constituents and consequently the
number of competing interests (Fuller, 2004). This type of division could break down the
relationship between the school and the broader community — the community that is not
represented by the parents of the students enrolled in school.

Some researchers suggest that public schools that fail to be responsive to the
larger community may be detrimental to the development of a cohesive, democratic
society (Gutmann, 1987; Levin, 2000; Fiske & Ladd, 2002). These scholars have
predicted that choice policies that allow students to separate into like-minded
communities will dissolve the social fabric that supports a cohesive, democratic society.
Research by Fiske & Ladd (2002) indicates that choice policies that do not consider the
needs of citizens beyond the local choice school create a system of segregation that
intensifies the benefits of some to the detriments of others. These authors posit that the
democratic representation of all public school stakeholders in public school decision-
making helps to protect against this potential segregation and ultimately the inequities
that such segregation can foster.

Democratic participation and community engagement in public schools

Public schooling began as an institution under local control (Tyack, 1974).
Mintrom (2001) notes that it is at the local level where the potential for democratic
deliberation is at its greatest. Dahl (1998) makes a similar observation: “The more
citizens a democratic unit contains, the less the citizens can participate directly in
government decisions and the more that they must delegate authority to others” (p. 109).
Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest, as Mintrom (2001) has, that charter schools may

present an opportunity for increased parental engagement in school decision-making, and

18

an increase in democratic deliberation among parents served by the charter schools. This
type of participatory democracy is effective, notes Dahl, when all citizens affected by the
organization have an opportunity to participate in decisions. In cases where participatory
democracy falls short, representative democracy insures the interests of all citizens are
considered in democratic decision-making.

Dahl’s criteria for democratic representation seems an appropriate frame for
examining how citizen representation does or does not exist in public charter school
decision-making. Dahl identified six political institutions necessary for democratic
representation. These institutions are: 1. Elected officials; 2. Free, fair, and frequent
elections; 3. Freedom of expression; 4. Alternative sources of information; 5.
Associational autonomy; 6. Inclusive citizenship. It is not unreasonable to consider these
structures when thinking about the representation of public interest in school decision-
making. In fact a Ford Foundation report (Hirota & Jacobs, 2003) on community
engagement in public schools identified structures similar to Dahl’s political institutions
as important to community representation in school decision-making. These basic
structures of representation have traditionally been present in public school district
governance (Tyack, 1973), but as educational policies aimed at creating more autonomy
for public charter schools are implemented, these traditional institutions of representation
are changing, possibly changing the relationship between public schools and the
communities in which they are located.

Consider how differences in choice of representatives, access to information,
freedom of expression, and inclusive participation may affect the school-community

relationship in public schools:

19

Choice of Representatives: By electing Officials, citizens delegate the authority for
decision making to a few representatives who act on behalf of the citizens they serve.
However, charter school policy releases public charter school boards from direct citizen
control through the appointment, not election, of school board members. Whether citizens
have a say in who represents public interests in public charter schools is an open
question. One way to look at representation as applied to schools is to consider that as the
size of the school community gets smaller, the need for representation does likewise
because, theoretically, more people have the ability to participate without elected
representatives. Creating smaller organizations with closer ties to the people they serve
was one of the motivations behind the charter school reforms (Chubb & Moe, 1990).
While charter boards may serve a smaller population potentially increasing the level of
citizen voice, the fact that voters do not directly elect charter representatives may lessen
the amount of community representation. Charter school boards are officially appointed
by the charter’s authorizing agency, which in theory creates a link between the voter and
the charter school, but Miron and Nelson (2002) note that in practice board members are
chosen by the charter school founders and existing board members. The self-perpetuation
of board members, then, may serve to limit representation to the narrow viewpoints of the
founders and the sitting boards. Write Miron & Nelson (2002):“The selection of board
members by authorizers and founders, along with the selection of replacements by
existing board members, serve to narrow the range of interests represented by charter
school boards,” (p.33). While it is the role of elected school board members to represent
community interests in school outcomes in traditionally-govemed public schools, less is

known about how community members are represented in charter schools.

20

Access to information: Dahl argues that effective participation is dependent on citizens’
ability to access alternative and independent sources of information. Public schools in
Michigan are subject to freedom of information laws that make nearly all information of
public concern available to citizens on request. Miron and Nelson (2002) in their
evaluation of Michigan’s charter schools, however, present some evidence that charter
schools in Michigan due to their contracts with private management companies have not
been as public with information as traditional school districts. Being under the
management of private companies allows the charter schools and their management
companies to conceal information as property of the private organization and not as
public information for citizen review, potentially limiting the public’s access to
information about public charter schools.

Freedom of Expression: Whose voice is heard is an important consideration in all
methods of representation. Dahl (1998) argues that freedom of expression by all citizens
is necessary for effective participation. Gutmann (1987) argues for community
democratic deliberation in public schools as a way to represent the interests of multiple
stakeholders in public school outcomes. Critics of deliberation argue that far too often
deliberation only serves the voices of those who are already empowered (Williams, 1998)
and strict deliberative democracy is ineffective in reaching decisions because of the
difficulty in reaching consensus (Posner, 2003). However, even these critics concede
there is a role in representative democracy for expression of citizens’ ideas, and
deliberation in moderation can serve to enrich, not derail, decisions on policy outcomes.
Therefore, citizens’ ability to express their concerns or interests to public school

authorities is an important aspect of democratic representation in public school decision-

21

making. The open meetings laws for public schools apply to public charter schools, but
without a clear tie to the electorate, it is not clear how public charter schools are
responsible for creating citizen access for expression or how responsive charter school
authorities are to citizen concerns.

Associational Autonomy: Dahl’s framework provides for the right of citizens to form
associations that represent their interests, such as political parties or special interest
groups. Examples of the types of associations that have been represented in school
decision-making include teachers unions, special needs students, ethnic communities
such as American Indians, minority groups, low-income families and residents, and local
senior citizen organizations. The charter school decreases the size of community and
some argue threatens the representation of these broader aSsociational groups. However,
Smith (2001) argues that public charter schools may serve as associational democracies,
representing groups of citizens whose needs are not being met through the larger public
school district.

Inclusion: Dahl notes that democratic representation requires Opportunities for all
citizens, if they choose, to participate in decisions that affect them. In addition to regular
open school board meetings in traditionally-govemed public schools, most school
districts have ongoing relationships with community groups that allow for the discussion
of school issues that affect the greater community. For example, representatives of senior
citizen groups, local Rotary clubs, local government groups, and service organizations
and school leaders discuss issues of mutual concern. Charter schools also may have such
liaisons with community groups, but little work has been done to examine how charter

schools interact with the larger community.

22

Public education, because its outcomes affect virtually all citizens in a
community, is a complex web of goals, interests, and constituencies. Reaching some
consensus on the “ultimate agenda” (Dahl, 1998) of schooling in such an environment,
therefore, depends on an ability to address those varied interests. Choice mechanisms
attempt to Simplify the interests and goals of the citizens they serve by creating specific
cultures or environments into which parents and students join (Miller-Kahn & Smith,
2001; Lubienski, 2003). In this way choice mechanisms may divide the public sphere into
a number of separate communities. “Pluralism” as Fuller (2004) uses the term, is not a
function of one school serving many interests, but many different schools serving
different singular interests. However, charter schools are public schools that must be open
to all students. The public nature of charter schools creates a need for charter school
authorities to be responsive and responsible to a broader array of interests simply those Of

the parents and students the charter schools directly serve.

A focus for study: Policy design and its impact on participation in Michigan

 

The ability of citizens to participate and deliberate in decisions that affect their
public schools is an important consideration in the making of school governance policy.
Landy (1993) puts it this way: “The government cannot make good citizens, but its
choice of actions makes that regimen (of citizen participation) relatively easier or harder
to follow” (p.24). Ingram and Schneider (1993) convey a similar sentiment when they
write: “Policy design sends messages about what government is supposed to do, which
citizens are deserving and undeserving, and what sort of participation is appropriate in
democratic societies “ (p. 68). In the last decade, Michigan’s policymakers have made

significant changes to the state’s educational policy design. It is important to consider the

23

changes to the policy landscape in Michigan to understand how these policy shifts might
affect the nature of citizen participation in school decision-making and ultimately the
relationship between the school and its community.

Michigan has long been considered a local control state. The United States
Constitution put the responsibility for public education in the hands of the states, and
Michigan, in turn, put the responsibility of public education in the hands of local
townships. Until recently, citizens in Michigan school districts directly controlled school
financing by voting on local taxes for the operations of local schools. Michigan residents
continue to consider it their right to participate in the governance of their local school
districts.2 However, the local control of citizens in public school decision-making has
dwindled significantly in the last 10 years due to a set of educational policies that
changed the politics and control of public schooling. The first of these changes had to do
with Michigan’s introduction of school choice policies.

Three years after Chubb and Moe (1990) published their call for public schools to
be more responsive to parents, Michigan’s governor and legislature began to implement a
series of policies that would effectively increase parental control in public education. In
1993, Michigan became one of the first states in the nation to experiment with public
charter schools. The state’s charter school legislation was one of several policies
implemented to increase school choice in Michigan (Arsen, Plank, & Sykes, 2000).

According to the Revised School Code of Michigan, any individual or entity in
the state may apply for a contract to organize a public school academy (PSA), as long as

the academy is not affiliated with a church or religious organization. The policy also

 

2 Findings from a Michigan State University 2003 State of the State Survey indicate the
majority of Michigan residents continue to want a say in local public school decisions.

24

stipulates that PSAs — which are more commonly called public charter schools - are not
bound by geographic limitations and may enroll students from anywhere in the state.
PSAs must be under the oversight of a state authorizer, which can be a state university, a
local community college, a local intermediate school district, or a local public school
district. The authorizer is responsible for making sure the PSAs meet state and federal
regulations, and authorizers are responsible for the oversight of PSA boards of control.
Individuals or entities proposing a PSA must submit a plan for board organization,
including names of potential board members. The authorizer is responsible for approving
the individuals to serve as PSA board members. The state put a cap of 150 on the number
of public school academies that can be authorized by state universities, and limits the
authorizations by local bodies to public school academies that are within their geographic
boundaries. Operating funds for PSAs come from a per pupil foundation grant provided
by the state. PSAs do not receive building and site funds and do not have the ability to
ask voters for building and site funds.

Despite the lack of building funds and the daunting tasks of starting a school from
scratch, Michigan’s experiment in the development of public charter schools grew
quickly. A newspaper article from the state’s capital noted that 82,000 students attended
216 charter schools in 2004, up from 1,200 students attending 12 schools in 1994. The
article also noted that Michigan has the fifth-largest number of public school charters in

the country (Putnam, 2004).3

 

3 The number of university authorized charter schools reached its limit of 150, but one of
the state’s tribal community colleges, which has a state-wide service area, has become the
third largest authorizer in the State. Many consider the use of the tribal college’s ability to
authorize public school academies state-wide as a loophole in the law, which was meant
to curb the growth of public school academies state-wide (Putnam, 2004).

25

Also in 1993 and 1994, legislation was passed to promote the free movement of
students from district to district, first by legislating schools of choice, in which students
have the opportunity to leave a home district for another, and second, by making a
majority of school finances dependent on student enrollment. The inter-district school
choice legislation allowed students to transfer out of their home school or district to other
schools and other school districts, and a restructuring of school finance went into effect in
1994 that attached a district’s per pupil foundation allowance directly to the student; in
other words, the funding went to whichever school the student chose to attend.
Michigan’s passing of Proposal A in 1994 set up an environment for an education market
in which charter schools could thrive.

Finally, the passing of 1994 legislation also moved the responsibility of
operational school funding from local communities to the state. Local voters no longer
had the ability to increase taxes to support school operations, and local school districts
could no longer go to voters with such requests. ThIs fact alone has caused a shift in how
schools and communities relate to each other. However, it is the joint impact of these
policies that has drastically changed the face of public education in Michigan by creating
a public education market in which the control of education dollars depends on where
students attend. The new system encourages responsiveness through the threat of exit,
replacing democratic voice as the primary strategy for dealing with discontent
(Hirschman, 1970).

While both school districts and charter schools are part of the state’s public

education system, and both receive public funding, the policies that direct their operations

26

are not all the same. Arsen, Plank, Sykes (2000) note that different policies yield different
outcomes, and it is likely that the differences in the policies that direct these two types of
public schools will lead to variance in how the schools relate to their local communities.
For example, unlike traditional public school districts that serve a geographic service area
and are responsible to the electorate within that service area, PSA’S have no geographic
boundaries. Policies that direct PSAs require no approval from the Michigan electorate.
The only mention of the electorate in the PSA section of the School Code is if a public
school district refuses to authorize a PSA. At that time, the PSA may ask for the question
of authorization to be put on a ballot for a decision by the school district’s electorate.
Michigan’s traditional public school districts boards, in contrast, are responsible to the
electorate within the geographic boundaries of their school district. Voters in school
districts decide who will serve as governing board members, and voters also decide issues
that affect tax increases for school building funds and district organization issues such as
district consolidation or annexations. Michigan PSAs by law do not have the right to ask
voters for building funds; they must provide facilities from the per pupil foundation
amount provided by the state.

Michigan’s school choice policies and education finance restructuring together
shifted the governance of public education out of the hands of the local citizen and into
the hands of the parent consumer. A statement added to the School Code during the time
of this shift indicates that the policies were a purposeful strategy to create a market for
education aimed more at meeting what Labaree (1997) identifies as the private goals of
education. The 1995 addition to the State Code, under Section 10 (“Rights of parents and

legal guardians; duties of public schools”) reads: “The public schools of this state serve

27

the needs of the pupils by cooperating with the pupil's parents and legal guardians to
develop the pupil's intellectual capabilities and vocational skills in a safe and positive
environment.” There is nothing in the State Code that speaks to the civic goals of public
schooling or to the role of public schools in the local community, although the policies
that govern local public school districts maintain a level of citizen participation in school
decision-making.

Michigan’s lO-year history with the use of public charter schools Offers an
opportunity to examine how charter schools interact with communities beyond the
parents and students they directly serve; it provides for the opportunity to examine
empirically McCarthy’s (1997) question of how different models of education (i.e. the
common good model and the market model) balance accountability to shareholders,
consumers, and the general public. In this study, I aim to examine how community
members are represented in charter schools, what opportunities community members
have for voice, what Opportunities they have to access information about charter schools,
and who is included in the community and charter school relationship.

The fact that there are distinct differences in the governance of Michigan’s public
school districts and public charter schools leads one to think that charter school policies
affect the school—community relationship. Yet, very little research has examined how
different policies that direct different systems of public schools address the issue of
community engagement in school outcomes. Competing theories suggest there is both
hope and doubt that charter school governance structure can better address the interests

and concerns of all citizens affected by public schools. Only through empirical study can

28

we know how these changes in school governance affect the ability of all citizens to

participate in school decisions.

29

Chapter 3

The Methodology

The study of responsiveness and representation in public school decision-making
is largely a study of the relationship between public schools and their communities. The
complexity of such a relationship requires a methodology that allows for in-depth
examination of respondents’ perspectives and behaviors in relation to the public policy
that drives this behavior. For this study, therefore, I employ qualitative case-study
methodology to examine representation and responsiveness in four charter schools and
two district elementary schools that sit within the same urban school district boundaries.
My aim is to assess if and how public charter schools are responsive to the communities
in which they reside, with a specific focuson the representation of citizens in school
decision-making.

A second question this study aims to explore is whether differences in school
governance structures among public charter schools affect the responsiveness of school
leaders and the representation of citizens in school decision-making. Dahl’s (1998)
political institutions for democratic representation provide the framework for these
analyses. By examining up-close how citizens are represented in charter school decision-
making and how charter schools are or are not responsive to the community in which
they reside, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of how educational policy

affects the school-community relationship.

30

The Framework and Questions

To begin to answer the two main questions of this study, I turned to Dahl’s (1998)
conception of political institutions for democratic representation. These are fundamental
aspects of democratic governance that have historically been present in the structure of
traditional public school districts (Tyack, 1973). Therefore they provide a basis for
examining citizen representation in public school decision-makin g.

I approach the first question of whether public charter schools in Michigan are
responsive to a larger community through the lens of democratic representation. Dahl’s
political institutions for democratic representation, in effect, provide the subset of
questions that allow me to examine how citizens are represented in public school
decision-making.4 For the purposes of this study, Dahl’s political institutions serve as five
dimensions of representation, which I examine through a set of research questions. These
dimensions are: 1. The ability of citizens to have a choice in who it is that represents their
interests in public school decision-making; 2. the ability of citizens to freely express their
opinions, concerns, and interests to public school authorities; 3. the ability of citizens to
access information about public school decisions that affect them; 4. the ability of
citizens to organize their interests and have their collective interests represented in school
decision-making, and; 5. the insurance that all citizens affected by the decisions of the

public school are included in the public representation of school decisions. Each of these

 

4 Recognizing that public charter schools in Michigan do not conduct public elections,
necessitates an alteration to Dahl’s criteria of “elected officials” and “free, fair and
frequent elections.” Although the election process is a cornerstone of representative
democracy, it is feasible that public charter schools provide other options for including
citizen input into the choice of public representation in public school decision-making.
Therefore, a more appropriate measure of representation in public charter school
decision-making may be “choice in representation.”

31

dimensions provides a point of examination in determining how citizens are represented
in public charter school decision-making and how charter school.

Different respondents provide different perspectives on the representation of
community interests. Therefore, another question of this study addresses the varied
perceptions of representation among respondents. Data from charter school respondents,
district school respondents, and community respondents is examined separately to
determine how these different respondents perceive citizen representation in school
decision-making. Understanding differences in perceptions across these groups helps to
paint a more complete picture of how schools are or are not responsive to a larger
community.

The second set of questions in this study addresses how variances in charter
school governance might affect public representation in school decision-making. To
answer these questions, I examined data across school governance types, while still using
Dahl’s political institutions as a framework for analysis. The differences in governance
types among the charter schools in this study include an elementary charter school that is
managed by an educational management organization (EMO), an elementary charter
school that converted from 20 years as a private school, and an elementary charter school
that is authorized by the local public school district. The fourth charter school in the study
is authorized by a state university and is an independently managed secondary school.

The research questions and sub-questions of the study are presented in Figure 1, below.

32

Figure 1: Research Questions

 

1. Are public charter schools responsive to a larger community than the students and parents they
directly serve?
A. How do governing policies and practices in public charter schools and public district
schools (collectively noted below as “schools”) promote or inhibit citizen representation
based on the five dimensions of representation?
i. How do schools engage citizens in school decision-making processes?
ii. What communities (neighborhoods, churches, ethnic organizations, etc.)
interact with schools on school issues?
iii. What opportunities exist for citizens to voice their concerns regarding school

decisions, and what is the nature of those opportunities?

iv. Who represents community interests in public schools and how are they
chosen?

v. What information is shared with citizens regarding public schools?

vi. How inclusive is representation in public school decision-making?

B. How are citizens represented in public school decisions?

i. From the perspectives of board members
ii. From the perspective of school leaders
iii. From the perspective of neighborhood association directors

2. How do differences in public charter school governance affect the school-community relationship?
A. How do the dimensions of representation compare across differently-govemed public
charter schools?

B. How do these differences affect the representation of citizens in school decision- making?

 

 

 

Qualitative Case Study Methodology

This study relies on a rich set of qualitative data, triangulated with interviews,

Observations, and document review. Using a qualitative approach provides the

33

Opportunity to examine the complexities of relationships that help explain how school
leaders incorporate the interests of community stakeholders in school decisions, and their
reasons for doing so. The triangulation of interviews, observations, and document review
allows for a deeper understanding of how school board members serve the public
interests in their governing decisions. Denzin and Lincoln (2000) write that triangulation
is a “strategy that adds rigor, breadth, complexity, richness, and depth to inquiry” (p. 5).

Qualitative research has a long history in sociology as a means of capturing the
human experience, or as Denzin and Lincoln say, “the routine and problematic moments
and meanings in individuals’ lives” (p. 3). They also note that qualitative research
attempts to answer questions of “how” and focuses on the processes and relationships
that make up the social experience. Quantitative research, on the other hand, focuses on
the causal relationship between variables. While quantitative research allows for the
generalization of findings due to the ability to look over a large number of cases,
qualitative research focuses on a slice of the human experience to provide for a deeper
understanding of social issues. Research that aims to understand how policy changes
affect the nature of citizen representation in public school decision-making requires a
concentrated examination of the school-community relationship. The question this
research aims to answer — Are public charter schools responsive to a larger community
and if so how? - is best answered through a qualitative study that allows for an in-depth
look into the relationships between school leaders and individuals that make up the
broader community.

I also chose to use a case-study approach to the study of representation in public

school decision-making. Yin (1994) defines case—study research as inquiry that

34

“investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when
the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.” The
boundaries between public representation and public charter school decision-making are
not clearly defined. Charter school policy does not require formal reliance on the will of
the electorate, nor does it demand any direct responsibility to a geographic community.
The absence of these requirements in the policy may lead some to assume that public
representation does not exist in public charter school decision-making. However, to make
that assumption would be to lose sight of the variability that such autonomy inevitably
creates and the possibility that within that variability are charter school decision-makers
who choose, without a mandate, to be responsive to a larger public than the students and
parents they directly serve. It is this complexity that requires a more careful, in-depth
look at how public representation, responsiveness and responsibility occur in the public
charter school context.

Yin (1994) also notes that the blurring of context and phenomenon calls for data
collection and analysis strategies that are different than those used in quantitative
research designs. For example, Yin writes that cast study inquiry, “copes with the
technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest
than data points” (p.13). In the case of pubic charter school responsiveness, this is very
clearly the case. The various perceptions of community alone require a research method
that captures the both the multiple definitions and various reasoning of respondents in
regard to how they define the school-community relationship. Second, Yin, like Denzin
and Lincoln (2000), writes that case Study inquiry “relies on multiple sources of

evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion” (p. 13). The

35

triangulation allows for a fuller understanding of how, in the case of this study,
representation and responsiveness take place in public charter school decision-making. In
this study, for example, I make use of interviews, observations, and document review to
examine findings, in hopes that there is evidence of agreement across the various sources.
Finally, Yin writes that case study inquiry “benefits from the prior development of
theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis” (p. 13). Dahl’s conceptions
of democratic representation, along with Mintrom (2001, 2003) and Smith’s (2001) ideas
for the democratic potential of charter schools, guide the theoretical propositions on
which this study is based.

The design for this research could be considered a single-case, as it examines the
relationships that exist within one urban community. However, I have approached this
work as a multiple-comparative case-study since I study citizen representation in four
public charter schools and compare that representation to representation in two district
elementary schools. I also examine to a smaller degree the differences and similarities in
representation that exist across three different neighborhoods within the central city.

While qualitative, case-study research provides an opportunity to explore complex
experiences and relationships, such as the representation of citizens in school decision-
making, this approach has its weaknesses. Because case-study research is focused on a
small set of data, the findings from the case are not generalizable; what may be true for
communities in one city may not be true for communities across cities. By examining
data from several different schools and using a comparison set of schools, I can see if
similar findings are found across schools and in that way strengthen the usefulness of the

study’s findings. However, the data set is too small to claim that findings from this study

36

are likely to be universal. At most, these findings indicate potential opportunities or
challenges in representation that can occur as a result of autonomous public charter
school policy in Michigan. These findings also may “test” the theoretical propositions of
Dahl (1998), Smith (2001), and Mintrom (2001).
Sample Selection

This study takes place within the geographic boundaries of one urban school
district in Michigan. Michigan is one of the nation’s leaders in developing public charter
schools, and Michigan’s 10-year experiment with public charter school policy provides a
solid base for understanding how such policy may affect the school-community
relationship, specifically the representation of community in school decision-making. In
order to limit the confounding variables that potentially could exist with a set of schools
across cities, I chose to focus my study on the school-community relationship within one
urban school district. However, since I am also studying the variances in representation
and responsiveness that might occur across different types of public charter schools, the
schools in the study span the city’s neighborhoods. The term “broader community” in this
study means the citizens who reside within the boundaries of the local neighborhood
public school. Respondents and sites for this study were selected based on their ability to
present evidence of representation and responsiveness of public charter schools across
different types of schools and within the local neighborhoods. Below is a description of
how the schools and respondents were selected.

My goal in selecting public charter schools was to create a data set that would
allow me to see how school leaders in various types of charter schools approach public

representation and more broadly engage in the school-community relations. Because I

37

limited my study to the confines of one urban district, I needed to find enough public
charter schools with enough variance to provide a good, comparative data set. To that
end, I chose to include three elementary charter schools, one secondary charter school,
and two district elementary schools.

The secondary charter school is included in the study because its mission speaks
directly to the question of community representation in school decision-making.
Examining the secondary school also provides an opportunity to see how a secondary
school that aims to provide a comprehensive school experience may be different in its
interaction with community than a charter elementary school. The school serves students
in grades 7-12.

Like the majority of public charter schools in the nation, the remaining schools in
my study are elementary schools, each with a varying characteristic that may affect how
the school is managed and ultimately governed. The second school in the study is a K-6
elementary school that is located in an old Catholic school building, still owned by the
Catholic Church. The school aims to develop an innovative curriculum based on the work
of Reggio Emilia and to share that curriculum with other educators. This school also was
chosen because it is the one school in the city that is chartered by the local public school
district, a fact that could create a closer connection between the district’s charter and the
local community.

A third charter school was chosen because it is the only school in the city that
converted from a private school to a charter school. The school’s playground borders the
playground of the neighborhood district elementary school, which sits directly below the

hill from the charter school. The charter school has been in the neighborhood for 30

38

years, maintaining the same administration and mission it has had for its 20 years as a
private school. The school serves students in grades K—6.

The fourth school is the only charter school in the study that serves a primarily
inner city African American population. It also is the only charter in the study managed
by an education management organization (EMO). The EMO oversees the principal,
teachers, and school staff, the general operations of the school, including instruction,
accounting, maintenance and custodial work. The curriculum is designed by the school
staff, with the support of EMO consultants, and professional development of educators is
provided by the EMO. The EMO representative reports to the charter school board.

I chose two district elementary schools for the study based on their proximity to
the charter schools in the study. The first elementary school in the study also serves the
city’s inner city African American population and provides a direct comparison to its
charter school counterpart. The second district school in the study borders another charter
school in the study, literally sitting down the hill from the private-conversion charter
school.

The respondents in this study were chosen for both their leadership roles in
addressing issues of representation and responsiveness and their knowledge of these
issues within the school-community context. Two school board members from each
school were asked to participate in the study. In the case of the district schools, I
interviewed two of the districts’ school board members, who represented both of the
district schools in the study. In each case, I interviewed the schools’ board presidents and

another board member based on the board member’s availability. Including school board

39

members as respondents in this study was crucial to examining issues of representation
and responsiveness.

Another set Of respondents was made up Of school administrators from each
school in the study. In the case of two of the charter schools, I interviewed an
administrative team consisting of a principal-like administrator in charge of instructional
leadership and a superintendent-like administrator in charge of overall operations. Two of
the charter schools only have one administrator. The district schools also have only one
administrator, the school principal. Since this study is school-based and not district-
based, I chose not to interview the urban school district superintendent. Interview data
from the district superintendent would likely include reflection of a district-wide
perspective, which could confound the focus of this study.

Finally, in order to capture the perspective of the citizens in the neighboring
communities, I interviewed three neighborhood association directors who represented the
communities in which the schools in this study reside. Each of these directors is a paid
employee of the city, and each has the task of working within the neighborhood to
address citizen concerns regarding public services in the neighborhood. Putnam’s work
on civic engagement ( 1993) identifies neighborhood associations as organizations of
civic engagement. Interviewing the directors of the neighborhood associations was the
most systematic approach to gathering citizen input.
mg Collection Straggias

Data collection for this study consisted of semi-structured interviews with 22
respondents, observations of a public school board meeting for each of the five school

boards in the study, and a review of approximately 20 documents related to the

representation of the public in public school decision-making. The triangulation of data
provided an opportunity to more fully understand findings and to see whether findings
were consistent across data sources (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Yin, 1994). Data collection
occurred over approximately four months, from August to November, 2004.

The semi-structured interviews with respondents lasted about an hour to an hour
and a half. These respondents consisted of three neighborhood association directors, and
nine charter school board members, including a third board member from the Reggio
Emilia school who presented a particularly interesting relationship between the charter
school and the private Catholic college that spurred the development of the school. I also
interviewed six charter school administrators, two district school administrators, two
district board members, and three neighborhood association directors. Interviews were
guided by a list of questions relating to citizen representation in school decision-making,
and specifically related to the dimensions of representation that were based on Dahl’s
political institutions. Questions related to these dimensions included:

1. How are citizens represented in school decision—making? (Associational
Autonomy, Inclusive Representation)

2. How do citizens express their interests or concerns in school decisions?
(Freedom of Expression)

3. What information do citizens have access to regarding the school? How do

citizens in the neighborhood access this information? (Freedom of Information)

4. Who represents neighborhood citizens in school decisions, and how are

representatives chosen? (Choice in Representation)

41

5. Describe the school’s relationship with the community in which it resides?

How does the school interact with the local community? (Inclusive

Representation)

7. How do the differences in policies regarding the electorate affect the nature of

the community-school relationship, the nature of citizen representation in public

school decision—making? (Choice in Representation, Associational Autonomy)

8. Who does this school serve? Who is represented in school decisions?

(Inclusive representation)

I also asked each of the respondents to visually describe the school’s relationship to its
host community, including those relationships they deem as obligatory, those they see as
responsive but voluntary, and those relationships they perceive as ancillary. These visual
depictions created an opportunity for respondents to brainstorm. The exercise also
provided an opportunity to revisit issues of representation and responsiveness using a
different format than question and answer. All of the interviews were audio taped and
professionally transcribed to provide the most accurate record of the interview.

In addition to the interviews, I observed a public board meeting for each of the
schools. The sample of meetings I observed was a convenience sample. Meetings were
chosen based on my ability to attend during the time-frame of the research project. In the
case of the school district, I attended the district board meeting. Again the fact that the
district board meeting is district focused presents some difficulties for comparison, but
the observation of the district board meeting was important because in the case of the
district, the avenue for representation in large part is through the district school board.

Michigan policy stipulates that all public schools, district and charter, must conduct

42

monthly Open public meetings. This is one of the few requirements in the Revised School
Code that directly underscores the responsibility public charter schools have to the
broader public. The Open Meetings Act requirements in the Revised School Code aims to
insure that citizens have access to the school decision—making process and the authority
that conducts that process. Observing how these meetings are conducted is important to
understanding issues of representation and responsiveness in school decision—making.

For each board meeting, I arrived about 10 minutes early and stayed for the
duration of the meeting. At each meeting, I asked for or was given the meeting packet,
including the agenda and other documents to be discussed. I also took notes on the
number of people present at the board meeting, who those people were in relation to the
school or the community (where possible), the interactions between the board members
and the school administrators and or staff, and interactions between the school board
members and community members. I also noted the types of issues discussed, any
tensions that arose in the meeting, and any discussions directly related to the
representation Of public interests. I also kept descriptive notes of the accessibility to the
buildings, the arrangement of the board rooms, and any other environmental aspect that
may have been relevant to the study.

I also collected documents related to issues of representation and responsiveness.
I examined Michigan charter school policy as written in the Michigan Revised School
Code. As part of my assessment of the free flow of information in these schools, I also
asked school respondents for information that reflects how the school represents or
responds to the community in which it resides. I relied on the respondents to provide

information to me. What I received varied, but the documents included board by-laws,

43

school fliers, brochures, newsletters, and in the case of the secondary school, the school
handbook. I also collected board meeting minutes, agendas and various materials from
my board meeting observations. In addition, I retrieved annual reports on all of the
schools on-line, either through the school’s Web site or through the charter school
authorizer’s Web site. The information I collected from the Web sites allowed me to
better understand the flow of information from the school to the community in which it
resides. Finally, I conducted a newspaper review of all articles that were published in the
city’s major newspaper, regarding the four public charter schools. An overview of the

data I collected from respondents is presented in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Overview of Data Collection

 

Ipterviewa
Charter Schools:
0 SCA: 2 Administrators

2 Board Members

0 REA: 1 Administrator
3 Board Members
1 District Liaison

0 ICA: 1 Administrator

2 Board Members

0 CA: 2 Administrators

2 Board Members

District Schools:

2 Board Members
0 ICE: 1 Principal
0 SEE: 1 Principal
Community:
' DNA: 1 Director
0 SNA: 1 Director

0 SWNA: 1 Director

 

 

9231mm

1 Board Meeting

1 Board Meeting

1 Board Meeting

1 Board Meeting

1 Board Meeting

 

Documents

Board By-laws, meeting minutes,
school handbook, news articles,
school newsletter, annual report
Board By-laws, meeting minutes,
school newsletter, news articles,
annual report, letters of agreement
Meeting minutes, enrollment
update, annual report, news
articles, brochure

Board By-laws, Meeting minutes,
financial update, brochure,
newsletter, annual report
Meeting minutes, financial
update, newsletters, Committee
reports (in board packet), annual

report

Brochure
Brochure

Brochure

 

45

 

Data Analysis Strategies

To analyze the data in the study, I used the dimensions of representation based on
Dahl’s political institutions of modern representative democracy. Mintrom’s (2001) and
Smith’s (2001) theories related to the democratic potential of charter schools are also
considered in the analysis. In particular, Smith’s work that suggests charter schools may
serve as associational democracies for the under-represented is related to Dahl’s notion of
associational autonomy, which requires an opportunity for citizens who are under-
represented to find representation through organization or association with others. All of
the data was coded, using color highlighting, according to the dimensions of
representation. The data also was analyzed according to respondent type: charter school
respondents, district respondents, and community respondents. Data also was analyzed
according to the four types of public charter schools in the study: the district charter, the
private conversion charter, the EMO charter, and the secondary charter.

My first analysis of the data was as one. large data set. I examined all transcripts,
observations and documents for evidence related to the five dimensions of representation.
I also examined the visual depictions of representation that the respondents provided to
see what comparisons and contrasts could be made and how this data supported or did not
support findings from the interviews, observations, and other documents. I also read
through the newspaper articles, taking note of issues related to charter school governance
and the charter schools’ relationship with the surrounding community.

Once that work was done, I broke the data down into respondent type. Doing this
allowed me first to see comparisons and contrasts that existed within the different types

of charter schools. School missions and board make-up emerged as items of importance,

46

and these pieces were further investigated to see how they affected the nature of
representation in school decision-making. I analyzed data from the newspaper articles for
information that either supported or contrasted evidence from the other sources.

I then examined the data for comparisons and contrasts of charter schools against
district schools. Again I looked at school missions, board make-up, and sirrrilarities and
differences in school leadership and how administrators interact with their host
communities. I also compared the meeting observations of charter schools and the district
board, as well as the information flow from school to community in both sets of schools.
Newspaper accounts also provided insight into the relationship between the public charter
schools and the public school district. This evidence was highlighted and examined in
accordance with evidence from the other sources. All of this data was considered in light
of Michigan’s policies that direct the public governance of public charter schools and
public school districts.

Limitations of the Study

Michigan’s decade-long charter school policy allows for an examination of how
charter school leaders establish relationships with the larger communities in which they
reside, including how charter school leaders represent citizens from these communities in
charter school decision-making. However, cultures, ideologies, and civic practices vary
across communities (Putnam, 1993) so it is likely that the findings from the study will
present an indication of effects of the different dimensions of participation on actual
participation, but they will not tell the whole story. As Yin (1994) notes, case-study
findings can inform theoretical propositions but because of the small data set, these

findings cannot be generalized across cities or states.

47

Another limitation of this study has to do with the nature of a school district
versus the nature of a public charter school. Where possible, I made an effort to compare
public charter school data to district school data, but in the case of the board
observations, the public charter school board meeting, which focuses on one school, was
compared to the public district board meeting, which focuses on the entire school district.
This difference may be reflected in the scope of the information covered at a board
meeting as well as the number of citizens who participate in school board meetings.
However, I saw little difference in the nature of the data I was collecting to inform
citizens’ ability to access information, opportunities for expression, opportunities for
associational autonomy, and the inclusiveness of representation. For the analyses of these

dimensions, I believe the comparison between the charter and district boards served its

purpose.

48

Chapter 4

Close-Up: A Look at community representation in four charter schools

 

Elmore (1983) notes that when regulatory policies are decreased, variability in
practice increases. His observation is certainly applicable to the missions of public
schools. The regulations that drive public school districts to be accountable to all students
and citizens in their geographic areas lead to similar missions and similar practice in
meeting the scope of those multiple needs and interests. Theoretically, public school
academies, free of some of the regulations district schools face, are able to create specific
programs based on varying missions. One of the fundamental goals of the charter school
movement is to use autonomy from regulation to create and experiment with new
concepts and practices in education. As a result, the four public charter schools in this
study have varying missions, governance structures, and board make-ups that lead to
variability in the way school leaders interact with the local community.

This chapter presents a look at the school-community relationships in these four
schools through interviews with school administrators and board members, board
meeting observations, and document review. In addition to an examination of the four
charter schools, the study includes a look at two district elementary schools and their
relationship to the local community. The Stories that follow reflect how differences in
missions, board make-up and governance structures affect how each school addresses
issues of representation, including choice of representation, freedom of information,

freedom of expression, associational representation, and inclusive representation.

49

Secondag Charter Academy (SCA)5

SCA started in 1997 as a result of a group Of parents who attempted to use their
political voice to make changes for their school, but became so frustrated by their lack of
power over the bureaucratic urban district and the district’s superintendent, that they took
advantage of Michigan’s charter school policy to begin their own school. One of the
guiding forces behind the founding board’s interest in starting a charter school was that
there were very few options for middle school students in the city. Only one secondary
school in the district provided a small setting for middle school students, and that school
was a gifted and talented school that required students to have a history of high academic
achievement. As a result, founders reported that parents of middle school students would
opt to leave the city in favor of smaller middle schools elsewhere in the area. Bethany,
SCA’s administrator, reported: “(The founders) had a desire to keep those families in the
city so that we could have a more diverse and healthier downtown population. 80 that
was really the big picture — kind of a community based goal for starting the school.” The
school’s student population is 43 percent African American, 38 percent White, 14 percent
Hispanic, 4 percent American Indian, and 2 percent Asian"

The exodus of families from the downtown area, the lack of opportunities for
secondary students to have a small urban school, and the underutilization of public
downtown services and organizations underlie the mission of the SCA. SCA’S Handbook

reads:

 

5 The names of the schools, the city in which the schools reside, the respondents and
other identifying references have been changed to protect the identity of the study’s

respondents.
6 Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2002-2003.

50

“The mission of (SCA) is to equip all of its students with the necessary skills and
experiences which will empower them to be positive and productive citizens of a
global community in the twenty-first century, while fostering an understanding of,
and an appreciation for, the contributions of all people to our world” (Student /
Family Handbook, 2003-2004, p. 14).
The Handbook further explains the school’s efforts to instill a sense of the broader
community by utilizing “community resources in downtown, exposing the students to a
variety of experiences outside of the school facility, and giving them an appreciation for
the value of their community and of individuals as members of this community” (p.15).
The school’s first building was rented from a developer who was developing a
downtown children’s mall. The school had a portion of the mall for its school. The
relationship between the developer and the school board soured as disagreements over
who owed what ensued. Newspaper accounts indicate that the developer was claiming
that the school was not paying its utility bills and the school board was claiming the
developer was attempting to have the school pay for utilities they were not using.
Newspaper articles also document reports of the developer keeping SCA students from
eating lunch in the mall or frequenting the mall’s premises during lunch hours. At one
point, the developer turned the heat off on the school while students were still in session.
The school board voted to leave the building, and found a new home in an independent
building across from a downtown hospital.7
SCA’s new school is a large space with partial walls separating classrooms. High

school students are at one end of the building and middle school students are at the other.

 

7 River City Press, 1997-1999.
51

There is no gymnasium, but the school has a champion basketball team. The school uses
the Y as its gymnasium, just as it uses the city’s public library as its school library. The
SCA, by design, is located downtown, close to the public library, public museums, the
YWCA, the YMCA, and a neighborhood of historic homes, which provide a dual
opportunity to meet the needs of students and the organizations themselves. The use of
existing organizations and services for high school students was one innovation the
school’s educators and board members were hoping to test with the charter school.
Barbara, the president of SCA’S school board put it this way:
“In our vision, we didn’t have to duplicate things that already existed. You have
resources downtown like the Y and the (theater) which are tremendously under-
utilized during the weekdays. I mean kids aren’t available and most adults aren’t
able to utilize them. . ..By the same token, we do not provide busing, but we cut a
deal with the (public) bus system to provide low-cost bus tickets for our kids.
Now the kids had to buy the tickets, which is why we really worked hard to get
the cost as low as we could for most of our families. But it was also giving
revenue to a struggling public transportation system. . .. So we had a lot of reasons

we did what we did.”

Associational Autonomy
The autonomy of the school’s board allows for program innovation, and SCA
respondents say it is that innovation that allows them to meet the needs of the students

who are not well-served by the large district secondary schools. Those students, said

52

Barbara, are either at the high end of the academic spectrum and are bored in the

traditional classroom or at the low end and struggling academically.
“I know when charters first started the battle cry was ‘Oh, they’re going to skim
off all the best students.’ Wrong. Think about this. If your child is doing well,
they’re happy, they’re not having any problems, they’re happy socially. They’re
not going to leave. You’re going to have the students who are unhappy socially
for some reasons or whose parents are unhappy with the social climate. You’re
going to have students who are struggling educationally, and you’re going to have
students who are not being challenged educationally. That’s who you get. Both
ends. You don’t get a lot in the middle. So those are the kids we serve.”

One of SCA’s founding aims was to provide more city students with the option of a small

secondary school in part to keep city residents from leaving the downtown area. School

board members see the school as a way to increase the opportunity of students who reside

in the city. As Barbara stated:
“(The traditional district) has a selection process that has been blessed by the
State, apparently, for (its select school). But charters are under such tight scrutiny
that we couldn’t even do the kinds of things that school does. And that’s fine. But
we Still provide a rigorous curriculum. . . .So our teachers are really challenged to
provide for the students who come to us with a 3rd or 4‘h grade reading level but

also to challenge the high functioning student. And all in the same classroom.”

Representation of community groups in SCA decision-making is less than what

might be expected in a system that requires school administrators to be responsive to

53

voters, or in an urban district that is under constant scrutiny through local media.
However, SCA respondents note that school leaders make it a point to have input from
community organizations regarding their school board nominations. The SCA board
makes it a practice of soliciting names of potential board members from local community
leadership organizations and the school’s partnering organizations, such as the downtown
YMCA, the public library, and the local theaters. That input, said SCA respondents, is an
important part of their mission, which is in part to contribute to a healthy downtown
environment.

SCA maintains its autonomy as an independently governed and independently
managed public school. Its authorizer is a state university, and a representative from the
university attends the school’s board meetings. SCA does not contract with an education
management organization (EMO). Board President Barbara said a contract with an EMO
would take away the school’s ability to build the program they want to build and meet the
local needs of their students. “We don’t want a management company because it’s our
belief that he who controls the curriculum controls the purse strings — and the bottom
line. That may be well and good but we have a vision and a curriculum that we want to
have, and we don’t want that changed — because that’s the whole reason we went to all
these lengths (to charter a school)” SCA administrators echoed Barbara’s statement,
saying they want to set the curriculum according to the mission of the school and not the
demands of the EMO.

Choice of Representation
Unlike school district boards that are elected by a majority of the electorate within

the school district, SCA board members, like all Of the public charter school boards in

54

Michigan, are appointed. In the case of this school, as well as the other public charter
schools in the study, the sitting board nominates a candidate for office and submits the
nomination to the charter school authorizer. The authorizer reviews the nomination and
approves or rejects the nomination. In the history of SCA, the authorizer has never
disapproved of SCA’s board nominations. As Bethany, the school administrator noted:
“The current board members do a pretty thorough screening process, and they have a
pretty good idea of what Specific skills they’re looking for.” The public charter school
authorizers are the only outside body to review board nominations. Over the years there
have been some changes to the way the authorizers approach the nomination process.
Board President Barbara reported that the university authorizer used to require only one
nomination from charter school boards, but now, as a result of public scrutiny over some
public school academy board nominations in other parts of the state, the university
requires two nominations. Barbara noted that the extra nomination gives the authorizer an
option in case one of the nominees does not meet the authorizers’ criteria. Even so,
Barbara said SCA has never been denied its first choice nominee.

The sitting board strives for diversity and community representation on the board.
Board members and administrators report that community representation on the SCA
board is important to fulfilling the mission of the school as a downtown school. Board
members solicit suggestions for board candidates from the organizations they aim to
represent in the downtown area, including leadership training organizations. Like other
public charter school boards, parents of enrolled students are encouraged to serve as
board trustees, but Bethany reported that at no time during the school’s history were there

more than two parents on the board. SCA also requires at least one educator, who is not

55

an employee of the school, to be a part of the school’s board, and looks to community
leaders to fill board openings. According to the authorizer’s policy that regulates the
nomination of SCA board members to protect against conflict of interests. For example,
SCA board candidates may not be employed by the school or employed by an
organization that contracts with the school; board candidates also may not be officers of
an organization that contracts with the academy, or employees or officers of the
authorizing entity.

Public charter schools in Michigan do not depend on the will of the electorate for
school decision-making; therefore, said board member Kathleen, charter school board
members consider different interests than those represented in traditional public school
district decisions. Charter school board members focus on issues of the school, not the
broader community. Board President Barbara said the appointment of school board
members by a sitting board allows the school to bring in leaders who are focused on the
needs of the individual school and not the “special interests” that may have served to get
them elected.

“I’m well aware that public school supporters make a big hue and cry over how

these board members get elected. Well, frankly, I know some of the board

members who’ve been elected (to the city school board). I know how
dysfunctional the city public school board was because you have special interest
groups who will get a candidate elected to the school board who has a real agenda
of their own, which is not always the agenda most school board members want to
follow. . ..At least (in charter schools) you get people who are still trying to get to

the same place. To me that’s a better thing.”

56

Voting in public charter schools, said the board president, happens “with the feet.” “It’s
much easier at a charter school for parents (to deal with discontent). If they don’t like it,
they can walk.” The population who “vote” in a charter school, then, is limited to the
parents and students who choose to attend or not attend.

Board members report that citizen voice, or the voice of those who do not have
students in the school, is seldom heard. SCA respondents attribute the lack of voice to
citizen disinterest. SCA board members and administrators noted that citizens may
contact the school administrators or attend school board meetings if there is an issue, and
SCA respondents say few citizens have done either.

Freedom of Information

SCA attempts to communicate with the community through school newsletters
that are placed in neighborhood businesses and organizations. The newsletters also go
home to parents of students enrolled in the school, and school partners. As SCA’S
Administrator Bethany explained: “It goes to parents, it goes to students, it goes to board
members, former board members, and then representatives of community
(organizations). . ..that includes basically friends of the school and people who are
continuing to be interested in what we’re doing. And if somebody asked, we’d add them
to the list. We wouldn’t have any reason not to.”

Very few community members attend SCA board meetings. Said Bethany: “For
the most part I think often when things are going smoothly — I mean in my experience
serving on a number of boards in this community, the only time people came out was

when there was an issue or a problem.”

57

The media coverage of the school also died down once the school found its new
home. When the school was embroiled in conflict with its first landlord, Board President

9,

Barbara said the school had “more media than they ever wanted to see. “We were
fighting the media about every day it seemed like. But it was good and bad.” She noted a
story about how a media broadcast of an emergency board meeting, which she had hoped
to keep “under the radar,” helped the school and students.

“We just didn’t want any more publicity. It had been such a zoo. So we had to
call an emergency board meeting because she couldn’t authorize a $20,000
expenditure on our treasurer’s word. So we faxed from here a notice of a special
meeting. And (we) took Off for the meeting five minutes later. . ..We followed the
(news) truck up to the building. But we authorized the expenditure and when the
treasurer finally called (the vendor) about 9 am. and said’ we’re good to go. How
soon can you get started?’ (The vendor) said, ‘we’re already on it. I saw you on
the news this morning and I saw you authorized the expenditure sol sent the guys
over this morning at 7:30.’ And so the media, as much as you don’t want it,
sometimes it works out to your benefit.”

Since moving into a new space with a new landlord, however, the school has
seen little of the media at its board meetings. Bethany reported that she sends the media
notices of the board meetings and the agendas in advance of the meeting to the
newspaper, but the reporter does not attend the meetings.

Freedom of Expression

Citizens who wish to address the SCA school board may do so in the Open

meetings portion of the public board meeting, but respondents say in the seven years

58

since the school has been founded, citizens have not attended the school’s board
meetings. Noted Barbara, SCA’S board president: “Even with all the hassles that were
going on with (our former landlord), we never had anybody but the media show up.
Frankly, I don’t think, in my Opinion, most people who don’t have a connection with the
school system don’t really show up at public meetings. “ Barbara reported that a few of
the neighbors visited the school when it moved into its new location to find out about the
school, and some of the nearby businesses sent flowers to welcome the school to the
neighborhood, but no one from the broader community has come to a school board
meeting. Bethany and Krista, the school’s administrators, noted that they are likely the
first peoplee for neighbors or residents to approach with an issue, but they said they have
received few calls from people outside of the school.

The SCA board meeting I attended was formal and professional, although staff
and board members were friendly and offered to answer any questions I had. The meeting
was fairly routine. Below are notes from the board observation:

SCA ’s board meeting was conducted in a small conference room in the school ’s
office area. SCA is easily accessible, as it sits on the corner of two main streets
just south of the downtown area. As I approached the door from the outside, a
woman on the inside greeted, opening the door for me. It was not clear to me
whether the door was locked as it had been opened for me before I approached it.
Five board members were in attendance and sat at the main conference table with
the school’s lead administrator, who serves as the school ’s superintendent and
general counsel. At a second table were the school principal — or learning

facilitator — the school accountant, the representative from the authorizing

59

university, and myself. The president ran the meeting and the superintendent

provided input when asked or where explanations were needed. The meeting

followed the agenda with relatively routine information and action items. The

board went into closed session for the purpose of discussing the sale of property

after the open meetings portion of the meeting was completed. The learning

facilitator took that time to give me a tour of the building. By the time we were

done with the tour, the board was out of closed session and had adjourned.
There was nothing about the board meeting that seemed to limit freedom of expression if
anyone were there to express a concern. Board members seemed open and friendly and
willing to answer questions.
Inclusive Representation

The mission of SCA reflects a desire to serve a diverse student body. As the

mission states, the school aims to foster “an understanding of, and an appreciation for,
contributions of all people to our world” (p. 15). “We wanted a social and racial mixture
in our student body,” reported the board president, who is a founding member of the
board. The desire to have a diverse student body is coupled with the board’s desire to
have a diverse group of staff and school trustees who represented “a variety of racial and
socioeconomic backgrounds.”

SCA has a resource room and resource teacher for special needs children. In
addition, the school contracts with the city school district for special education services
for SCA students. However, the school’s educational facilitator, Krista, indicated that

there are times when the charter school does not have the resources to meet the special

60

needs of all students. Some students who have come to SCA, she said, are better served
enrolling in a district school.
In terms of formal representation of citizens in SCA school decision-making,
SCA respondents noted that members of the community are welcome to serve on the
school’s governing board. That service depends upon the approval and nomination by the
Sitting SCA board. Yet, SCA leaders see responsiveness to the broader community less in
formal democratic terms and more as being connected to the community through the
downtown organizations and neighborhood associations. Administrator Bethany noted
that SCA sits on the border of two neighborhood associations. She said she sees
relationships to community organizations as vital for the education of the child. School
and community, she said, cannot be separate entities. She noted that SCA partners with
community organizations to meet neighborhood needs. She said the YWCA works with
girls who are at risk of domestic violence, and a local business partner that has been
working to help people living in welfare become self-sufficient is working with the
school to build a curriculum that addresses the needs of that population. Said Bethany:
“SO we try and introduce ourselves to different community organizations and
businesses in town and figure out where our missions are overlapping. And we try
and develop partnering relationships. And I think the more you open your door up
to (community) and say come on in, here’s what we’re doing, show us how you
might be able to work in cooperation with us toward that goal, I think that gives
you a lot of legitimacy because you’re not holed off someplace where people

don’t have access.”

61

Unlike SCA, Reggio Emilia Academy (REA) emerged not from parent
dissatisfaction with the current administration, but out of a desire by parents of preschool
children to continue the pedagogy their children were experiencing in pre-school well
into the elementary years. The early child-care education program is based in the
pedagogical theory of Reggio Emilia, and was run by a private Catholic college in the
city for several years. About five years ago, a number of parents whose children would
soon be leaving the preschool program for elementary school approached the program’s
director with hopes of starting a public charter elementary school that could continue the
Reggio Emilia approach in elementary education. The school is developed around the
idea of open communication and relationships. The mission of REA is “to continuously
expand the potential of each child within the diverse community of (the city)” (REA
2003-2004 Annual Report). The student population of REA is 43 percent White, 23
percent Hispanic, 19 percent African American, 10 percent American Indian, and 3
percent Asian. Eighty-one percent of REA’s students for the 2002-2003 school year were
eligible for free and reduced lunch.8

The concept of “community” is written into REA’S mission, and respondents
reported that the neighborhood surrounding the school is an important part of that
community. Principal Karen put it this way:

“A cornerstone of this philosophy is that you’re a part of the community in which

you do your daily work - in which you live. This is your community and you’re

not an island, you’re part of it. So it’s really important that we develop those

 

8 Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2002-2003.
62

relationships, and quite often that’s not the case with communities and schools.
Children and our image of children is that they need to be connected to their
world. And the community has the right and responsibility to build a school. It’s
not separate.”
Data from REA indicate, however, that so far “community’ in the school relates to
organizations that provide a learning opportunity for students, and not necessarily the

citizens or residents of the surrounding community. Up to this point, REA respondents

9 ‘6 ,9

indicated that the activities of the school, including the school 5 resource raising events
have been by invitation only, in part to develop more fruitful relationships. Respondents
did say that it is the goal of REA to establish stronger relationships in the community
with both organizations and neighbors, and REA would like to expand its outreach to the
educational community, sharing its practice and pedagogy. To the disappointment of the
district liaison, that sharing has not yet happened. She said part of the difficulty in
disseminating REA’s practice has been getting district staff to “get over” their tensions
with public charter schools. Principal Karen also noted that she has not pushed those
relationships yet because she wants to have the program in place and tested before
inviting others to observe. “We’re almost ready,” she said.
Associational Autonomy

With urging from parents and staff of the preschool program, the Catholic
college’s dean developed the idea of a public elementary school charter using the Reggio
Emilia approach. Board Member Mike, the CFO of the college and REA board treasurer,
reported that the college president approved the idea, but wanted to make sure the school

was developed in collaboration with the public school district. The college’s interest in

63

partnering with the public school district, he said, was to provide a public school that
would enhance the district’s offerings and serve as an incubating ground for developing
innovative teaching techniques for district educators, and the college saw the public
charter school as having the autonomy to develop an innovative program that could be
shared with the district schools. Board Member Kate put it this way:

“ We don’t talk about being a charter, we talk about being a Reggio school. That’s

how we define ourselves. So the chartering was more of a means to an end than

really a whole lot of our identity. But I would say our implicit understanding of
being a charter - the reason we think that there should be charters is because they

are experiments in education that the broader community can learn from. And I

think that was some of the stated purposes for charters being developed. I don’t

think that’s necessarily been realized very often. And I think that we see with this
school that we have a potential for realizing some of that purpose of charter
schools. It’s not just to provide an alternative to the public schools; it’s to provide

a different way of doing education and seeing what you can learn about it. And

when we talk about where we want to go in the future , that’s one of the things

that drives us.”

Karen made a similar statement, saying her attraction to the school had more to do
with the freedom to develop a curriculum using pedagogy she believed in rather than the
development of a public charter school. “The idea of being able to be free of the larger
bureaucracy to do just this (pedagogy) was what drew me here. I was never interested in

starting a charter school. I’m a public school proponent personally. So anything for profit

or just for the sake of having a school closer to somebody’s home, or any other reason
wouldn’t have interested me.”

Karen noted that the mission of REA is to use its autonomy to be a lab school for
area college education students and to be a model of school reform for the public school
district.

“The (district) superintendent has been out here a couple of times and he sees us

as an incubation place. And we’re finally getting ready to have visitors. You

know you have to build the infrastructure and get set, but (now) we’re at a place
where we’re saying bring ‘em on. We’ll continue to improve, but we’re ready to
have people see how we put the theory into practice. And that is our hope and our
very basic reason for being is that this will spread.”

Like SCA, REA opted not to hire a management company, although Karen noted
that the Catholic college provides some of the same services that a management company
would provide, such as accounting and bookkeeping. REA also contracts with the college
to provide a curriculum and teaching consultant who is a specialist in the Reggio Emilia
approach. The “pedogista” has a very close relationship with the principal, the faculty,
and the board. The pedogista attends board meetings and participates in board
discussions. Even so, said Principal Karen, the college’s interest in REA is to support the
board’s vision for a Reggio Emilia elementary school. A management company,
however, might curtail the autonomy of the school and its mission. Said Karen:

“The last thing the school would do would be to hand that over to some

management company or (the private college). That is the professionals’ job here.

We would never give control of that curriculum or how we do business to any

65

other management company because the sole purpose for starting the school was
to implement this philosophy,”

Choice in Representation

Like other public charter schools in the study, the REA board nominates potential
board members and votes on those nominations, presenting its choice(s) to the authorizer
for approval. Like the university authorizers in the study, the public school district board
approves the nominations of the REA board and has the responsibility for overseeing
REA. Unlike the other authorizers in the study, the public school district is governed by
an elected board, which might create a more direct link of representation of REA
governance to the district electorate. However, evidence suggests the public school
district board has little to do with the appointment of REA board members. The district
does appoint a liaison to monitor the activities of and governance of REA, and the liaison
has the responsibility of reporting back to the district board, but as Board Member Kate
mentions: “(The board appointment) is pretty much our decision, although it has to be
approved by the (district) board. They’ve really, as far as I know, they really don’t seem
to question. This is a blip in their screen, I think.” Kate said that the district liaison also is
responsible for presenting REA’s budget to the district board for approval, but it appears
the district board keeps a hands-off approach to REA.

The REA board nominates potential board members based on their credentials,
their interest in the school and the skills they bring to the table. REA’S by-laws require
that at least one parent of an enrolled student sit on the board of directors as well as at
least one professional educator. The by-laws note that no employees of the public school

academy or the public school district that charters the school may occupy a seat on the

66

board. The limitations do not address conflict of interest issues with other entities,
however, that are specifically mentioned in Michigan’s Revised School Code, such as
affiliations or contracts with religious organizations. Although the board treasurer noted
that his work with the school is on a volunteer basis, SCA does have a contract with the
college’s pedogista, and SCA leases its building from the neighborhood Catholic church.
The lease is actually run through the Catholic college, because “the church did not want
to rent to a charter school.” Beyond the limitations, the by-laws also state that board
member qualifications shall include:

“(a) an interest in children and their education; (b) enthusiasm for the public

school academy and conviction of its purpose; (c) willingness to give time and

energy to the public school academy; ((1) special skills to address specific
management and needs of the public school academy; (e) ability to represent the
community and interpret community needs and views; (0 willingness to accept
and support decisions democratically made; and (g) ability to represent the public

school academy to the community.” (REA By-Laws, p. 2).

There is no requirement for choosing board members based how they might represent the
broader community interest.

The practice of finding board members is that the board turns first to parents of
students enrolled. Board Member Mike reported: “Parents are a high priority. We also
want someone interested in Reggio, and then in public education in general. And then
another criteria would be someone that would be interested and have expertise in a
particular area such as marketing, finance, or education.” REA district liaison said the

difference between board members in the district and REA board members is that REA

67

board members’ interest is with the individual school. “The (district) board is obviously
interested in the whole system. But I see the charter board as much more involved with
the actual kids. The board is able to focus on this one school and what it needs.”

REA’ 5 founding board was tightly tied to the Catholic college that spearheaded
the charter. The school was begun under the guidance and support of the college, and
several of the school’s initial board members were employees of the college. A college
faculty member, who serves as a paid education consultant to the program, often
participates freely in discussions of the board. Kate acknowledged the challenge in
developing a public board out of the private college’s charter school initiative.

“It’s interesting being a part of a founding board, particularly when the roots of

this were so much around (the private Catholic college). So that (the college) had

really formed this board. I was really the only outsider in terms of not having been

associated with the college (or the school). I didn’t have a child in school; I

wasn’t a staff member at (the college). So it was very much (the college’s)

project. And a lot of even the beginning decisions were very much (the college’s)
decisions. And our treasurer is still the financial person from (the college),
although he manages to get clearance.”

Kate said, however, the board has grown into its own entity and relies less and
less on the college for decision-making.

“I think what’s happened in the last several years is a really kind of growing

understanding that we are the people who are responsible for this. It isn’t what

(the college) tells us, it’s what we are responsible for. So even with all of the

68

connections and support that’s there — which is very valuable — we also know that
when it would come down to it, (the college) has no legal responsibility or rights.”

The board of the REA comprise parents or former parents of either the public
charter school students, or students who were in the affiliated early childhood program.
Board members also include the founding private college employees, and Kate, a local
community college associate dean. REA also has a public school district liaison who
attends board meetings and provides information to the REA board about district
initiatives and reports back to the district board about issues related to REA.

Kate said part of the board’s responsibility is to represent community, but more
broadly than through direct representation. “I think we represent the community in some
basic ways around fiduciary responsibility. I think we feel a responsibility for this
experiment and what it is that the various communities can learn from this and how do
we make sure that happens.” Board President Kristin was a little more concrete in making
the ties to the broader community:

“First and foremost in my mind the school serves its students and the students’

families. However, it’s a very common theme in our board meetings that we are a

public school. That not only are we serving our student body and the families, but

we are also working on the relationships within our immediate community and
within the broader community. So we have a representative from (the district)
who is invited to our board meetings and typically is there. We’ve had the
superintendent (from the district) at our meeting once since he’s been hired. We

do see our role as being part of the larger community.”

69

She also noted that the role of an REA board member is to represent the public in the
expenditure of public funds.

REA’S principal made the point, however, that the school’s legitimacy as a public
charter school comes not from the direct representation of citizens, but from its
accountability to state and Federal regulations. She explained:

“We have to adhere to all the rules of the Department of Education in the State of

Michigan. So we’re considered a district. The difference is we have one little

school building and 200 children compared to all their school buildings and their

thousands of children. But we have all the same rules, we have all the same
reports, the same pupil accounting, the same student counting, the same audits,
the same rules for special education. All of those state mles and federal laws
apply to this school.”
Unlike traditional public school districts in Michigan, however, the school is governed by
a self—appointed board, made up of members who are very close to the work of the
school. This difference is what allows REA to focus on its program. As Board Member
Mike explained:

“When you look at (the district) board member, they’re elected and ours are

appointed. I think what we have is our board is focused on the school and on the

services that are provided, the academic programming. So there’s no political
agenda, if you will. It’s Reggio Emilia inspired and that’s what the focus is. The
focus is really on the school and the support we provide (the principal)”
However, data from REA indicate that the lack of community representation on

the school’s board may result in decision-making that does not consider the public needs

70

of public schooling. At the board meeting I attended, for example, the board decided to
further delay the implementation of an elevator to make the second story accessible based
on the needs of the school and not the needs of the individuals who do not have access to
either the second story board room or the second story classroom. Following are notes
from the meeting:
The board was struggling with how to handle an egress issue. A child enrolled in
the school developed a need for a wheelchair and could no longer walk up the
steps to her second-story classroom. After a year of trying to get accommodations
for their child, the parents pulled the child from the school and found another
school. The parents wrote a letter to the REA board telling in detail the
frustration of not having access in a public school for their daughter. The letter
and discussion were presented in open meeting, with the free use of the child’s
and parents ’ names. Board Member Kate pointed out that access to the second
story had been an issue for 4 years and it is something the board needs to
address. After much discussion, the board decided building an elevator in the
middle of the year would be too disruptive and building an elevator separate from
the school ’s other renovations was not an efficient use of resources, so board
members recommended waiting until the summer to act. When the principal was
asked if this would create a problem for anyone else who might enroll, the
principal said, “We have enough numbers now that we could just say we are
full. ” The board accepted this response as adequate for delaying work on the

access issue.

71

Freedom of Information

The school has a newsletter that goes to the parents and other school partners, and
is posted on the school’s Web Site. The school hosts two events each year that are open to
the community: an open house and a spaghetti dinner. The principal noted that she invites
key people to those events, although she said a few community members have attended
on their own. Another opportunity for information sharing is the resource raising events
the school director has started, but these are by invitation only. “The whole premise,”
said the principal, “is that you invite key people. And you identify them maybe because
they’re in your area. You start inviting them in for an overview of the philosophy and a
cup of coffee and to meet some of the children and take a tour and have a
conversation. . .It’s different than let’s just Show you who we are. It’s a relationship.”

Board Member Mike noted that there is little information that flows from the
board to the community; communications with the community come through the school
principal. Said Mike: “What the board has been involved in is a complaint or two about
the facilities — it’s not accessible. That’s one. But we recognize that and we’re trying to
deal with that as we speak.”

Unlike the other charter schools in the study, whose authorizers and the EMO
highlight information on their charter schools on Web sites, REA’s authorizer — the city
school district — has very little information about the charter or its relationship to the
district on the district Web site. A review of district newsletters shows that there is

information about tax proposals, school reform initiatives, district-wide opportunities,

72

transportation for the district’s traditional schools, but nothing on REA.9 Nor does the
district Web site list REA as one of its elementary schools. In fact, REA does not appear
in any listing of the district’s schools, although a search through the district Website did
yield an annual report that included a page on REA, and there were a few references to
board meetings at which REA’s reauthorization or the REA liaison were on the agenda.
Information about the school, however, is not readily accessible through the district’s
home page.
Freedom of Expression

REA respondents noted that parents and board members have a formal avenue for
voice in REA school decision-making. Board Member Kate said the school has an active
parent board and the school improvement team is made up of parents and staff. The
board, which includes a majority of parents, also has decision-making power. Kate also
notes, however, that many of the board members wear community hats , and the board
takes into account other community voices in its decision-making such as the interests of
the local Catholic Church, which is in essence the school’s landlord, and the interests of
the surrounding neighborhood. However, interviews with other board members and the
school administrator indicate that participation in many of the school’s relationship —
building activities is by invitation only, and very little if any connection has been made
with local residents. Explained Principal Karen:

“1 have to say the community-at-large doesn’t really care what the philosophy of

the school is. Unless they’re invited in. and then when they’re invited in, there are

people who fall in love with it. But for the most part, I don’t think they care about

 

9 A review of the quarterly newsletters from 2001 through Fall of 2004 provides no
information about REA. The newsletters were accessed through the district’s Web site.

73

the philosophy of the school. In fact, my personal opinion is that the community

at large doesn’t give the schools enough (respect) to even imagine that they have

(a philosophy)”

Board members noted that it is rare for the board to be contacted by community
members about REA. The principal said that residents who have concerns about the
school are more likely to call her office. She said she has received some calls from
residents about parking issues. “They just come in here and tell me. We have parents
concerned that we don’t have an elevator and they tell me. “ REA’S district liaison also
noted there have been times when the district board has been contacted about issues with
the charter school, mostly from REA parents. “Then I would call (the REA board
president) and say the REA board needs to deal with this.”

All public charter school board meetings are open meetings. This is the one area
of the School Code for public school academies that explicitly attempts to protect citizen
voice in public school governance. Like the traditional school district board meetings, all
public school academy board meetings must be posted and all meetings must be open to
the public. Below are additional notes from that meeting:

As I walked up to the REA school for the board meeting, I realized I did not have

the code to get into the building, but the preschool director was holding doors for

parents who were leaving her program, so I walked through the open door. It did

not dawn on me at the time that the door would remain locked once she left for

the evening. As the board meeting started, it was clear I was the only

“community” member in attendance other than the district liaison, who also is

considered a community member. About an hour in t0 the meeting on the summer

74

evening, the board is interrupted by pebbles hitting the window and a woman
calling from the streets: “Let me in. Hey, you guys let me in.” It was Kate, a
board member who also forgot her code into the building.
When I asde board members about how citizens might attend a board meeting when the
door is locked, they said they had not thought of that before, although the district liaison
indicated this was a problem she already identified. “That always bugged me,” she said
but she never brought it to the attention of the board. All of the respondents noted that it
is easy for board members to forget that they are a public board. As Kate explained:
“I think it doesn’t feel very public to us. This is my own interpretation. I mean,
we know it’s public. We know it’s an open meeting. We know anybody could get
the notes and look at them. We know all of that. But we don’t experience any of
it. I mean, there’s never anybody there. It’s always just us. There’s not even staff
there. I think about our community college board or the public school district
board, you’d have the media there and it’s being recorded for television and you
have staff members there. So that when you come to a contract issue or a
personnel issue or legal issues, there actually is a public that will hear it. I don’t
think we’ve really confronted that.”
Inclusive Representation
REA founders wanted to be chartered through the public school district in part to
insure inclusivity of all students in the community. “Our intention is that the school
would serve children and families in general,” reported Board Member Kate. “And it is
our intent that that would be a pretty diverse group, certainly in racial and ethnic ways,

but also in socioeconomic ways. So we don’t want to be an elite school of, you know,

75

peOple who are interested in (Reggio Emelia). We really want diverse children and
families to be involved.” Board Member Mike had a similar explanation:

“We wanted to do this in conjunction with (the district) so that these children
would have the benefit of a Reggio inspired elementary experience and then
mainstream into the (district’s) middle schools. Also, strategically, we wanted the
school to be in the downtown area so that we would have a diverse population of
children. And I think we’ve accomplished that at the school. It’s about 50 percent
minority.”

REA has systematically created ties with community by developing partnerships
with area businesses and service organizations, such as the non-profit agency housed
across the street from the school. The school has a formal partnership with the nearby
Catholic church, which is in essence the school’s landlord, and there have been efforts to
draw neighboring organizations into the school to share information and discuss issues of
relevance to both the school and the community, although these “resource raising”
initiatives have been by invitation only. Efforts to inform the community or share what
the school has learned with the community-at-large have been minimal in the school’s
first four years, although school leaders say it has been important to focus on building a
program before sharing it with others. “First we want a quality program for the children,
and then we can bring in these other pieces,” noted Mike.

One of the pieces Mike noted that has not yet been done is fixing the egress issues
with the building. “We’ve got this great building. The downside is it is not accessible —
there’s no elevator.” Mike said part of the delay in addressing the elevator issue is that

the board wanted to work it into its building construction plan and not build an elevator

76

that does not fit with the bigger plan. 80, the school has done without access to the
second floor, where upper grade classes and board meetings are conducted. While board
members are cognizant of the egress issue and appear genuinely interested in getting it
resolved, as long as the school is without access to second floor programming and as long
as that lack of access prohibit students from attending the program, it appears the school
is in direct violation of Section 504(2) of the Michigan. Revised School Code, which

states: A public school academy. . .shall not discriminate in its pupil admissions policies

or practices on the basis of status as a handicapped person, or any other basis that
would be illegal if used by a school district.” Furthermore, conducting open board
meetings on the second floor of an inaccessible building suggests the interests of disabled

citizens are not being represented in the school.

The School-Community Relationship
REA, because it is authorized by the city district, follows the same employment
terms as the district, which means it has union teachers. Mike explained: “It’s not typical
for a charter school to operate within the MEA, but that’s part of the up front
organization of the school.” He added, “I think it’s been a really good relationship.”
REA has not established relationships with other schools in the area, including the
district’s schools in the neighborhood, even though part of the school’s mission is to
disseminate the RE pedagogy to educators in the traditional public school district. Said
Principal Karen:
“It’s still a dirty word in traditional public school circles because we’re taking
kids. They don’t get the kids, they don’t get the money. So it’s competition. And
that’s not what we want to do. I think we’re a little different than a lot of public

charters in that way. We don’t really want to steal children. We want enough kids

77

to work with to build the school so people can see it. Because what we’re really
trying to do is make things good for all children. Sol still think it’s really hard to
work together with public schools. And that’s why it’s pretty darn interesting that
we’re chartered by (the public school district)”
Mary, REA’S district liaison also indicated that the district’s history of tension
over public charter schools has affected the ability of the charter to serve its purpose as a
learning lab for teachers.
“The idea was to have people be able to spend time there learning it,
understanding it, and seeing if it was something that should be instated anywhere
within the district. I have a hard time even getting people to visit. There’s the
whole old feelings about charters.”
Mary noted that when charter schools were first introduced in the state, district staff
“couldn’t even say the word ‘charter’ without being severely reprimanded. The whole
concept of charters was that they’re out to get us. And that’s all the charters were looked
at was competition.” She said she thinks the tension has lightened some over the years,
but in order for the district to use the charter school as a lab school, district leadership
will need to show interest in making that happen. “I think it’s just a hump they need to
get over.” Board President Kristin said:
“We’ve had conversations about how it is kind of an awkward situation in some
ways. And that (the district) is our chartering agency and yet we do to some extent
compete for children. But the other piece that we’re also aware of is that we are
not limited to the geographical area. And so we do recruit even outside of the city

in terms of families that might be interested in the Reggio model for their kids. So

78

I don’t think it feels like a terribly difficult thing. It’s more around a feeling like

we do provide an option and that we want to provide that option. “

Inner City Academy (ICA)

ICA was founded as school for inner city elementary students and was
spearheaded by the pastor of an inner city Baptist church, although the school has no
contractual arrangement with the church. The founders were granted a charter through a
nearby state university for a kindergarten through 6th grade program. The school opened
in 1998 and was located across the street from the pastor’s church. The pastor and several
church members served on the original board of directors, but newspaper articles of the
school in 1988 reported the pastor as emphasizing the school is a public school with “no
religious education and no organized prayer.”'°“It’s a church school” said the pastor. “We
are the founders, the people of record and in a sense, we are the owners. You won’t see
them praying and there won’t be any religious symbols on the walls — you can’t promote
religion, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have values and morals.”

ICA serves a predominantly African American population; 96 percent African
American and 4 percent Hispanic, and 92 percent of the students are eligible for free and
reduced lunch. ” Early newspaper articles about the school note that it had an African
American focus, although ICA respondents all noted that the aim of the school is to serve
the needs of the students in the inner city, not necessarily African American children.

Principal Kyla explained the founder’s vision:

 

1° River City Press, 9/9/1998. A1, Wilkerson, Roland “Black families turn to new charter
in search of education alternative.
” Source: National Center of Education Statistics, 2002-2003.

79

“He had a vision for a school that would serve inner city youth, primarily — giving
them all the luxuries that sometimes they can’t have. He really wanted them to
have the same opportunities and recognized that there was a need to have
outstanding teachers, facilities, programming. He got together with a couple of
people, who became board members, and said ‘how can we do this? I want a
school in the middle of the city that’s not run down because our youth deserve
it.”’

ICA had three principals within its first three years, hired through the education

management organization (EMO) that manages the school. Its current principal, Kyla,

started her teaching career as a charter school teacher in the same management company

for which she currently works. She has been with the EMO since 1995. The principal

joined ICA as its educational leader in 2001. Kyla has been with the school for three

years.

“When the school was looking for a permanent school leader - they had a couple
of school leaders come through the building - they asked, ‘Would you be
willing,’ and I said, ‘Yes. They need some stability. I’m young. I can grab this by
the horns.’ And I’m very happy. So it was really was kind of a movement within
the same company for me. “

The mission of the school has evolved from a general focus to an emphasis on

reading and higher order thinking skills. ICA also has changed from a K-6 school to a K-

5, creating a greater focus on the elementary student. The school’s current mission reads:

“(ICA) provides a rich teaching and learning environment that produces lifelong readers

that utilize higher level thinking and creative problem solving methods, possess moral

integrity, master practical life skills and have sense of social responsibility” (ICA’s 2003-

80

2004 Annual Report). Long-time board member Jerry describes his vision for ICA as a
prime feeder school to the district’s middle schools.

“I’d like our children to be so good that they will be a prized catch for the draft

into middle schools. Our children ought to be so good when they get out of this

wonderful environment that they will be prized by other schools as an important
plus to their institution. We’re not there yet.”

ICA’S history is rich with challenges and tensions with community groups. It
began with a struggle to get a land-use permit from the city commission to house
elementary children in temporary buildings in one of the city’s most depressed
neighborhoods. The school’s first building was located in a run-down area of the city and
did not have adequate space for lunch or assemblies. ICA requested permits from the city
to use temporary units for its classrooms, to be located in the run-down neighborhood.
The city commission initially rejected the request, citing safety and landscape concerns.
A June 1988 newspaper article reported that the city commission narrowly approved the
use of portable classrooms for the opening of the school, granting ICA a one-year permit.
The commission’s first vote on the use of the portable classrooms was 4-3 against the
school, citing safety concerns with respect to using six portable units on 3.5 acres for a
public school. “I’m really in support of what you’re doing with the charter school, but
from what I can see, these are almost internment camp conditions for kids,” said one
commissioner who voted against the project initially.l2 Commissioners also objected to

the property itself, noting the property needed landscaping. The commission changed its

‘¥

'2 River City Press, June 18, 1988, Inside the City Section, page 1. Rick Wilson
“Charter’s portable classrooms get ok.”

81

vote when the school amended its plan to four mobile units and a limit of 200 students
and agreed to develop a landscaping plan and a safety plan for students.

According to respondent interviews and newspaper reports,13 the search for a
suitable building took more than five years and involved ongoing tensions with the city.
For example, in 2002, after having expressed public frustration with the school’s
continued use of portable classrooms, the city commission required the school to provide
monthly updates on its progress toward finding a permanent location, with the threat of
repealing its permit and forcing the school to move if it was not making sufficient
progress. A court decision in 2002, however, put an end to the reports, when it was ruled
that public schools are not subject to local land-use rules."

ICA continued to search for a permanent home, although the search continued to
have its tensions, this time with the city school district. ICA board members said that the
struggle to buy a building from the district was directly related to the district’s
unwillingness to support the public charter school movement. The evidence, they say, is
in the fact that the district would not accept ICA’S bid to buy a vacant district school,
even though Board Member Jerry stated:

“We were the highest bidder.” The papers quoted the (district) board as saying

‘we’re not about to do anything for them because they’re competing with us and

will steal our children.’ ...I could see the charter school — our school — working

 

‘3 River City Press, 1998 - 2004.

'4 River City Press, January 21, 2002, Al. by Jim Harger. “Ruling exempts schools from
city zoning.”

'5 ICA’s bid for the vacant building was the highest, but the terms included a land
contract with no payment down. It was the only bid that requested such terms. River City
Press, May 2, 2003, D3. Rick Wilson and Dave Mu rray. “(ICA) made the highest bid,
but the (district) isn’t sure it should sell to a charter — if at all.”

82

with the district as a feeder into middle schools with having a strong transitional

program and relationships so that the children would benefit. I don’t hold out a

whole lot of hope that that’s going to happen in the near term.”

Editorials in the city’s newspaper agreed with ICA board members that the city
school district board was too inflexible and unwilling to work with public charter schools.
A May 24, 2002 editorial read:

“(District) school board members’ edginess about selling closed buildings to

charter public schools is understandable, but they should get over it. The most

natural future for vacated schools is to put children and teachers back into them.

Ownership of the school shouldn’t matter — particularly where, as with charter

and traditional public schools, the taxpayers own both.”"’

Newspaper reports over ICA’s bid for the project substantiate the claim that the
district board was concerned over the competitive nature of the charter and district school
relationship. The paper quoted the district’s board president as saying: “Why would we
give a sweetheart deal to a competitor who would turn around and try to steal our school.
I can’t imagine us giving a building to that school.” However, the newspaper also noted
that the district had concerns over selling buildings it might need in the future. In the end,
the district did not sell its vacant property to ICA or anyone.

ICA’s search for a building also included a rift with a local business district that

board member Fred suggested was racially motivated. He explained:

 

'6 River City Press, Editorial, A14. “From school to school: City school board should be
open to re-use of building as charter schools.”

83

“We tried to move into East Side17 years ago. Then the socially acceptable people

Of East Side chose to protest a gentleman selling us a building. Enough so that the

Mayor made a phone call and asked us to cancel a town meeting there for fear of

a riot. This was six years ago. We almost had one. Yeah, it was ugly. Real ugly.
He said a community meeting to discuss the issue led to racial aggression. “There were
posters, placards. Nigger lover and those kinds of things,” he said.

The overt racial incident that Board Member Fred described is presented
differently in newspaper coverage. The newspaper report read: “Instead of coming
together Wednesday to share their mutual concerns, those attending said the meeting
erupted angrily after (the pastor) questioned whether the group’s resistance was racist.”18
The president of the neighborhood business association addressed the community in a
letter in the local newspaper. “Following a recent public meeting about the charter
school’s proposed move to (East Side), a city commissioner remarked that he was
disturbed by the “lack of civility” on both sides. For any role some of our members may
have played in that “lack of civility,” we apologize.” ‘9 The director also wrote: “The
(association) was not trying to ‘Save (East Side)’ from what appears to be a group of
beautiful elementary children. We too want what is best for the children. ...Our hope for
the students would be a location adjacent to green Space, necessary for healthy exercise

and growing bodies, instead of the concrete and asphalt of a bustling business district.”

Another newspaper article reported that East Side business association members were

 

'7 Pseudonym

'8 River City Press, June 3, 1999. A15, Rick Wilson “Businesses object to charter moving
in “

‘9 River City Press, July 1, 1999. “School debate healthy for (East Side)” Leigh Murray
A13

84

concerned that the placement of a school in the district would force the area’s landmark
bars and restaurants to close. However, at least one business owner noted that “this is not
just about businesses and bars. . . .This is about changing the character of a neighborhood
that took 20 years to build.”20

Fred said the school’s new location, its permanent building, which was completed
in 2004, sits one block out of the historical East Side district. The new location he said is
in a neighborhood that is far more “enlightened.” Fred reported that the neighborhood
director expressed excitement that the school would bring diversity into its community.
“She says. . . ’you’re not going to be rejected just because of who you are. You might be
rejected later because of who you become.’ I could have jumped across the table and
kissed her.”
Associational Autonomy: It is clear from the ICA interviews that the founding purpose of
ICA was to provide quality education to inner city children who were not being well-
served by the district schools. Board Member Jerry indicated that the founding pastor’s
concern for the children of his congregation was in essence a concern for the children of
the inner city. He put it this way:

“(The pastor) was concerned about the children of his congregation and by

extension the children of the inner city who he believed, and evidence would

support, were not getting the attention they really needed to help them develop.

And I say that ‘evidence would support’ because we find that many of the

children we are getting from the public schools are one, two, sometimes even

three grade levels below what they should be.”

 

20 River City Press, June 9, 1999. “(East Side) residents: Change not always good” Rick
Wilson. B1

85

Board members noted that the population of ICA is nearly all African American
students from the inner city, although they said the school is not segregated on purpose.
Nevertheless, said Board Member Fred, “regardless of the mission of the school, we
serve the African American community in (this) part of the city.” That service, he said, is
necessary to provide the under-represented and underserved children in the inner city a
chance for a better life. In our interview, Fred wrestled with the issue of racial
segregation, the notion of racial quotas, and how that affects African American
communities. He explained:

“Out of every dollar in the African American community that comes from wages,

17 cents of it sticks around for one more trip through. If you go look at China

Town in Chicago, there’s a study that was done that showed something like $18 -

that the dollar goes 18 times before it leaves the community because they go to a

Chinese doctor, a Chinese restaurant, Chinese laundry, they go to Chinese

businesses.”

He went on to say that in addition to low economic returns, the African American
community has lost its leadership through equal opportunity quotas and affirmative
action policies, and in order to build healthy inner cities, opportunities for inner city
youth must be brought up to par with the opportunities other children receive. Fred
stated:

“Businesses find good African American talent and get them inside their business

so they can make their EEO quota. . .And now we’ve got C people being A leaders

because we grade on a curve and there are no As and Bs left. Now this to me is a

bigger challenge than (arguing about) charter schools. We are truly arguing about

86

the salt shakers in the dining room of the Titantic when water is coming in. We

should be stepping back and saying ‘what do we do to build a vibrant inner city

community where this doesn’t happen.’ So when you back way up and want to
know what we’re doing as a board, we’re trying to do this right here.”

Unlike the other schools in the study, ICA is managed by a for-profit education
management organization (EMO), and this relationship has the potential to affect the
autonomy of the charter school. Miron and Nelson (2000) for example note that for-profit
EMOS, through their control of curriculum, facilities, and human resources often exert
control over the board that hired them. ICA board members however reported that the
EMO is under their control, and the ICA building is owned by the school not the
management company.

The ICA board is responsible for the oversight of the school, or in this case the
work of the EMO that was hired to run the school. All of the employees of the school are
employees of the management company, although the board has selection approval of the
school leader. At the board meetings, it is the EMO representative that reports to the
board. The difference in reporting is clear from the board meeting observations. At the

ICA board meeting I attended, the principal sits next to the EMO representative at a table
to the side of the board members. The public sits in front of the board members and off to
the side of the EMO representative and her employees. Questions from the board were
for the most part directed to the EMO representative, although the principal addressed
questions specific to student services, such as the number of students who receive

tutoring and the number of students who need tutoring. The EMO representative

87

addressed issues related to professional development of school staff, organizational
issues, facilities issues, and issues related to finance.

Board Member Fred noted that the hiring of a management company is “no
different than if you were to hire someone to do your lawn.” He said, “Although it’s a
much more sophisticated problem, the concept is the same. “ Board Member Jerry also
explained the use of an EMO:

“We don’t have the infrastructure that a public school system has with a number

of schools. And by combining with other schools and having a management group

do the recruiting, do the training of teachers, provide the supervision, do the
management of the facility, work on all of the compliance issues that are
mandated by the state as well as the compliance for building codes and fire
regulations and all of the myriad regulatory issues - the (EMO) provides all that
kind of thing as well as support for us. We had talked about doing it ourselves.

We said we wouldn’t do it as well, where they have a number of schools and they

can afford to do the kind of in-service training that would be very difficult for a

single school to do.”

Principal Kyla noted satisfaction with the level of support the EMO provides, both for the
school and her own professional development. She said she has a lot of independence in
her role as principal, and ICA is “site-based managed.” However, she said, the EMO
provides support for finances, payroll, human resources, grant writing, test preparation,
teacher evaluation, and professional development. Kyla noted that ICA develops its own

curriculum but the EMO provides curriculum coaches to the school. The curriculum

88

coaches provide ICA educators with tools such as pacing guides and guidelines for lesson
plans.

At the board meeting, it was clear that board members felt comfortable
questioning the EMO representative and her staff and asking for financial reports and
other needed information. Board Member Fred said the relationship with the EMO has
evolved over time, but there was a point where ICA nearly severed ties with the
management company because the staff was not staying on top of deadlines and
requirements, like making sure all staff had the proper certifications. It took a while for
the board to push back, but eventually Fred said the EMO resolved its issue and the
relationship is “stronger because of it.” He explained:

“As the guy who owns the grass, I (noticed) the grass ain’t growing. But you

don’t really know if you never grew grass before. You assume, maybe it takes a

long time. Well, then at some point you say ‘this is bullshit. I don’t think this is

right.’ And so there came a time when we had a tough meeting. And we came

very close to ending our relationship. But because of that, we’re stronger for it. I

do not feel uncomfortable picking up the phone and calling the CEO of the

company that’s got probably 70 schools and expect a call back before the sun
goes down. It’ll happen.”
Choice in Representation

ICA board members were asked to serve by the founder, the pastor of an inner
city Baptist church. Two of the nine board members are parents of students in the school.
“The rest of us are too old to have children in school,” noted Board Member Jerry. The

Other five are considered leaders in the community, including a retired vice-president for

89

marketing at IBM, a local grocery store director, a retired Christian book publisher, a
General Motors purchasing agent, an associate director for the local YMCA, an
entrepreneur, and an employee with an inner city youth service organization. Three of
the board members in addition to the pastor, who also is a board member, are members of
the pastor’s church.

Like the other charters, the charter authorizer — in this case a state university -
approves or rejects board member nominations and oversees the work of the ICA board.
The sitting board nominates potential board members by a two-thirds majority vote. Fred
noted:

“The unique thing about a charter board unlike an elected board is that we have

the ability to solicit candidates based upon needed skills. So if for instance there’s

an election process and nine people get elected, there’s a possibility that none of
them may have accounting skills or none of them may have marketing skills. And

it’s not only a possibility, it’s likely. In our situation, when we look at adding a

board member, we look at a need or a skill before we go to the marketplace to try

to find someone that has both a heart (for) the school as well as the skill required
to facilitate our work.”

Fred also noted that the board typically turns to professionals in the community
and people who have demonstrated a commitment to the inner city. The ICA by-laws
require at least one parent to sit on the board. ICA currently has two sitting board
members who are parents of enrolled ICA students. Although the ICA board has

responsibilities to the university authorizer and ultimately to the state of Michigan, Fred

90

said the board represents the students they serve as well as parents “who want to make a
choice.”

Board Member Jerry also noted the difference between elected school district
boards and appointed charter school boards. He drew on his experience as an elected
school board member in another city to make the comparison. “I guess because I was
elected by the electorate, I was representing them. At the same time, I guess I thought I
was representing the children as well. Here, very clearly I’m representing the children’s
interests.” Jerry also pointed out that when he was a district board member he head to
deal with a lot of bureaucratic issues, including negotiations with five different unions.
As a board member of ICA, he said, “We don’t have that.”

Principal Kyla also noted that the decreased bureaucracy of ICA helps board
members focus on the needs of the students in the school. “I like the way board members
are selected. I think they do a fine job. They care about children and that’s what I want.”
Kyla also said ICA gets its public legitimacy through its reputation and integrity. “As
long as I’m doing what I have to do which is to educate children and abide by the laws of
the land, (being political) is not a priority for me.”

The ICA board of directors includes a variety of community members connected
in some way to the interests of the inner city, in large part through the Baptist church that
serves the neighborhood. Five of the ICA board members are also members of the Baptist
church. Only two of the board members have students enrolled in the school. The focus
of the school and the board is on the students and parents of the school as well as the

children of the inner city.

91

ICA respondents report that very few individuals outside of the school have
approached the board. At the board meeting I attended, the board discussed the possible
use of the school’s gymnasium by a group from the local Baptist church. The board
decided since the school was so new and the school staff was still working on procedures
for its use with its own students, that it is not yet ready to make the space available to
others. Board Member Jerry explains:

“I don’t want us to be viewed as isolationist in any way. I want to protect the

building for the children. I’m not trying to squirrel it away. To the extent that we

can (share the building) in a way that is meaningful and protects the interest of the
children, I’m willing to consider that. My concern at the outset is that we’re just
in this building. We don’t even know how to manage it yet. And then to start
renting it somebody else, I think it’s a little premature.”

ICA’s board members are approved through the charter school’s authorizing
agency. Fred reported that the university authorizer has increased the role it takes in the
nomination approval process. “They have in the latest documentation full authority to
make changes (to the board) if they need to.” He said ICA’s board nominations have
never been rejected, although he noted the university authorizer has made changes to
boards in other schools. However, in ICA’s board minutes of August 31, 2004, the
authorizer is quoted as saying that the new changes for board nominations and approval
are “not intended (for the university) to control the selection of board members for its
charter schools” but more to provide consistency in the board selection process among

the university’s charter schools. Principal Kyla described the relationship with the

92

authorizer as one of compliance. Although she noted the university is “very, very helpful,
they’re very much for accountability.”
Freedom of Information
While the ICA respondents were open in interviews about ICA and its
relationships with the community, access to the school administrator and access to
materials were demonstrably more difficult in this school. Scheduling an interview with
the principal took more than a month of phone calls and interviews. The principal needed
to get clearance from her supervisors including the board and her EMO representative.
Multiple requests for board meeting minutes and by-laws did not materialize, although
minutes of three of the board’s 2004 meetings are available on the school’s Web site.
Much of that difficulty may be the timing of the research. ICA was in the middle of its
move to its permanent building, increasing enrollment by nearly 100 students, and the
principal was hiring and training several new staff members. Part of the difference in
responsiveness, however, may be related to the school’s affiliation with a for-profit
EMO. For example, the EMO’s presence at the board meeting created another noticeable
layer of control. Notes from an ICA board meeting observation indicate this control:
I walked into the classroom that was being used for the ICA board room and
reached for the board minutes and board packets that were sitting out on the
table. I greeted the principal who introduced me to the EMO representative. I
also was introduced to the board president. I walked over to the public sitting
area where there was one other person. I introduced myself to a man who
introduced himself as the representative of ICA ’s authorizing university. I sat

down and realized I did not have an agenda or meeting materials, so I looked

93

around and saw the materials were sitting on the table in front of the EMU
representative. I walked up to the table to get a packet. As I reached for the
packet, the EMO representative put her hand on the materials, looked me sternly
in the eye and stated: “The principal will hand the appropriate information out to
you.” I sat down and waited to receive my agenda and materials for the public
meeting. I could see the board members preparing for the start of the meeting.
The meeting got underway and there was no sign that the principal was going to
distribute a board packet to me. I leaned over to the authorizer and asked what
materials he had in his hand. He told me they were the board agenda and meeting
materials. I asked him how he received the materials, and he told me the
materials were on the table for anybody to take. These were the same materials I
had attempted to retrieve 10 minutes earlier. He motioned to me to pick up the

materials, which I did, to the visible dismay of the EMU representative.

The protection of information by the EMO representative may be linked to an

organizational culture within that EMO. A study on the freedom of personnel information

among public schools in the city done by the city’s newspaper found that this particular

EMO was one of a two EMOs that refused to provide information to the newspaper,

saying none of its information “is subject to FOIA.”2| State policy has subsequently

changed to require the release of such information, but prior to the state requirement,

some EMOs maintained that their private status protected them from making such

information public, even if requested through the Freedom of Information Act (Miron &

Nelson, 2000).

 

2‘ River City Press, March 26, 2000. “Public, private issues collide in teacher
information.” Ed Golder. A 23

94

Like other public school charters, ICA distributes information to its parents and
students, and provides enrollment brochures to neighbors in late summer. The school
also runs recruiting advertisements in the newspaper and on the radio in the fall, and ICA
hosts a school carnival, which is publicized in the newspaper and on the radio. The
school’s Web site also provides information about the school. Yet, Board Member Jerry
said there is little information that goes from the school to the community.

“We’ve had a few articles in the (newspaper). Our president is communicating
with two organizations. We’re doing some communication with (the senior
home). (Our principal) is now on the advisory board of the Salvation Army,
which will be a reach in the community. But there isn’t a lot beyond that other

than (information) through the parents that I’m aware of.”

Freedom of Expression

More than any other charter in the study, ICA has engaged in public debate and
deliberation with the broader community over the location of ICA, the use of public land
to house ICA, the purchase of existing properties, and finally the move into their
permanent location.”ICA respondents report that community members are free to contact
them either through the school office or through the board to voice their opinion or
objection to school policies or events. The board meetings are conducted in a classroom
in the school’s building. The building is easily accessible, and the door to the building at
the time of the board meeting was open for board members and others.

Respondents say very few individual community members outside of the parents

served by the school have attended board meetings or addressed the school administrator,

 

22 These events are discussed at length under the heading “School-Community
Relationship” below.

95

although they said there have been times when concerns have been raised by parents and
others in the community. Principal Kyla noted how residents of the senior home across
the street from the new building attended a staff meeting to get to know the people at the
school. “They told me they wanted to come and meet everyone. They wanted to talk to
the staff and get some feedback, and it was really cool.” Kyla also recalled that there was
more active community voice prior to the move to the new school. She said:
“They were concerned and they were just really saying, ‘When are you guys
going to get something for these kids?’ And I know that in prior board meetings
they had come and said, ‘Hey, we don’t like the conditions there. It’s not school
worthy.’ I do know that they were for awhile quite vocal in that community.”
ICA leaders also have made a point to meet with neighbors or community groups
about issues of concern, such as the destruction of trees on the school’s new site, the
safety of the school’s original modular units, or the concerns raised when the school was
looking at buying a building in a nearby business district.
Inclusive Representation
Representation of the broader community at ICA includes representation of the
senior home across the street, the environmental group that is concerned about the
school’s landscaping, and the neighborhood association that may potentially set up an
Office in the school building. But ICA’s core focus of representation remains the families
in the community who have not had the opportunity to take advantage of school choice.
Board Member Jerry explained: “Our population is virtually all inner city Black children.
We do have probably a dozen or two Hispanic children. There are a few Caucasian

children I think from the same geographic area. Last year we had 95 percent of our

96

children eligible for assisted or free lunch.” Eleven percent of ICA students are receiving
special education services.

While ICA board members say the school has focused on serving the inner city
African American community, ICA’s new location has the potential to change the
demographics of the school. Board Member Fred noted that the school is enrolling some
students from its new, mostly White, neighborhood. “We have several people in the
school this year from the neighborhood. Not a lot. Our enrollment will change if when
they go home at the end of the school year their parents tell other people that they were
served well.” He said that even if the demographics of the school change, the mission
will not.

“It can’t. We actually provide choices for people who can’t afford choices. You

don’t have to be Black to be enslaved. Economic slavery has a predominant color,

but it isn’t an exclusive color. So people that have choices and have resources will
not choose us. They won’t choose the (city district schools) either. They’ll choose

St. Josephs or God knows where. But they’ll choose something. But people

without resources that want a choice, they’re still our constituency because they

don’t have resources.”
I CA is the only charter school in the study to provide busing, and its bus service extends
beyond the city, into several neighboring cities in the county. Fred noted, “So we’re
actually zip code independent. So if you want to make a choice and you happen to live
four miles away, we can facilitate that choice.”

While the focus of ICA is on the students and families they serve, Fred also noted

that public charter schools are part of a state system of public schooling, which, through

97

the use of public funds, represents the taxpayer. He said part of the role of the ICA board
is to represent the taxpayer through sound financial decisions. He said, however, that the
inability to work with the district school has curbed his ability to be as economical with
taxpayer money as he could be. For example, Fred reported that the struggle to buy a
vacant school from the school district was an example of taxpayer money being wasted
on a new school building when a vacant school building existed in the same
neighborhood. Said Fred, “The absolute loser is the taxpayer. It’s the taxpayers who pay
for those empty buildings. The taxpayer is going to pay for my new one.” Fred also
noted that ICA’s building, if the school were ever to close, is protected from being taken
over by the state. “We own the building, so if we were to go out of business, our
creditors would take over.”

The School-Community Relationship:

ICA’s relationship with the community in trying to find a permanent home was
fraught with tension, but ICA attempted to engage the broader community in
deliberations over its place in community. Even with ICA’s final move to its new
location, the school leaders reached out to the neighborhood leaders to address issues or
concerns regarding ICA’s move into the community. One of the first groups it addressed
was an environmental group that was concerned about the trees that would have to be cut
down to build the school. AS Principal Kyla remembers, “The environmentalists were
not that excited. You know, I can understand that if that’s your stance. Mine was
children.” ICA subsequently worked with the group and agreed that ICA’s students

would work with the environmentalists to replace some of the trees when the school was

98

built. “It’s been great. We’re not trying to hurt the environment. We just want to get the
children in a good place.”

ICA’s school has little relationship with the other public schools in the city, and
its relationship with the school district has been tense. Board Member Fred said the
antagonism the district has with ICA and other public charter schools has “poisoned” the
school’s relationships. He explained:

“I received a donation of $88,000 from the business community to bring Marva

Collins and her methodology into our school for a year. A very courageous

business man did that, but because he felt he had to explain himself to the school

district, he told them that this little error in judgment on his part was not going to
impact his overall commitment to public school education. . ..IfI go solicit funds
from a business, they’re going to make sure that it’s okay with the school district
to help me. . ..So I’m here to tell you that the public school board has poisoned the
community’s view of a charter school so that relationships are extremely
difficult.”

Board members report that early on ICA attempted to forge partnerships with the
city district, envisioning the charter could be a feeder school for the district’s middle
schools, but the relationship between ICA and the city school district was too tense and
often adversarial. Part of the tension is related to the district’s distrust of public charter
schools as schools that “steal” students away from the city schools. Yet, members of ICA
also operate in a competitive spirit. At the school’s board meeting, the EMO

representative congratulated the board and school staff on increased enrollment. “The

99

buzz in the (city) school district is how ICA has grown and how it is taking (the district’s)
students. So congratulations.”

Although interview and observation data from ICA indicate a level of
competition, Jerry expressed an interest in being seen as a part of the public school
system. He explained the paradox this way:

“I don’t want to view ourselves as competing with the (district) schools. This

community needs a strong public school system. There’s no question about that.

By the same token we feel that there are a large number of students because of the

sheer volume in the public schools who are not getting the specialized attention

that they need to fully develop. And they’ve got some other impediments at home
and other things that we need to try to find ways to supplement perhaps in a way
that public schools can’t because of size. At the same time I know that the
students (who) are attending here are not attending somewhere else. And so the
sense is that it’s taking away from the financial base, but I don’t know that it’s
adversely impacting their educational opportunities. I think we’re enhancing the
community’s education of children by providing small units, which can focus
more on a more discrete group of children. “

ICA respondents say the school has stronger relationships with the private,
parochial and other public charter schools in town. ICA collaborates with these schools
for shared services such as providing bus service to these schools when they need buses
for field trips or special events. ICA respondents also say the school has a good
relationship with the Intermediate School District. Principal Kyla stated: “We’re very

connected with the ISD. They are quite crucial to us.” Kyla said the ISD provides

100

auditing and accounting services to ICA on a contractual basis and also supports public
charter schools with regular charter school meetings at the ISD. The meetings primarily
provide a venue for receiving information about regulations or policies that are new or in
development. The school’s transportation staff take classes through the ISD.

ICA also is working to develop strong relationships with the neighborhood
association and business association in the community around the school. Board Member
Jerry explained:

“The immediate community we’re in - there is a community association and a

business association and (our president) has taken the initiative to be in touch with

their offices. He’s been to some of their meetings, he’s made presentations to
them, and told them about what we’re trying to do. The garden club, which is just
to the north of our property, wants to work with our children to plant trees on our
back corridor. They want to work with us and we want to work with them on
landscaping. It will involve the children. At the (senior home) immediately across
the street we are looking at a cross generational program. Our children have
already been over there to visit the residents and some of the residents have been
to visit the school. We would like to be part of not only the immediate
community, but the greater community serving these children. That’s what we’re
trying to do.”

When asked what kind of responsibility such a relationship puts on the school, Jerry

replied:

“We’d like to have the community see us as an organization which they can

support because we’re helping to educate children that will have an impact on that

101

community in the long term. And that support, we haven’t even defined what all

that means. We would like to involve business owners in activities here. We have

talked, for instance, about providing an office for the neighborhood association.

We haven’t done that yet, but we have space in the building and we will be

looking at those kind of alternatives.”

Jerry also noted the school is trying to be good neighbors to residents while preserving
the integrity of ICA’s assets, “which we have a fiduciary responsibility to do.” Jerry
summed up his hopes for the relationship between the community and the school this
way: “We have to be at peace with the community in which we’re living, and we have to
be viewed as a constructive and productive part of that community.”

In talking with Board Member Fred about ICA’s obligation to the neighborhood,
he noted that it is law that defines obligation and the public charter school is obligated to
obey the law. Responded Fred:

“1 mean I want to be a good neighbor. Do I have to be a good neighbor? Laws

take care of neighborhood, right? So the laws of the land take care of my

obligations. So everything (else) is voluntary. I choose to buy my local stuff from
the local bakery for my open house. I choose to invite the Neighborhood

Association to use my facility. I choose to give the neighbor a dollar a year lease

on a piece of property so he can park his truck. I choose all of those sorts of

things. Now legally, I’m obligated to the tax payers to open my meetings up, to
obey the Sunshine Laws”, and to use discretion on fiduciary matters and

eventually go get the kids educated or else my kids will fall behind and they will

 

2’ “Sunshine Laws” require most regulatory meetings and decisions be open to the public.

102

be left behind and I’ll be on a bad list. And when that bad list happens, eventually

I’ll be out of business. I choose not to go out of business.”

Conversion Acadermy EA)

Conversion Academy (CA) became a charter in 1994, one of the first schools to
be granted a charter in the State of Michigan. Originally a private elementary school
founded in 1971, the school converted to CA charter school when Michigan’s charter
school policy went into effect. The husband-and-wife administration team that founded
the private school also run the charter school. Tom tends to the non-instructional
administrative duties and Nancy serves as the school’s head instructional leader, or
school principal. Both are retiring at the end of the 2004-2005 school year.

The CA administrators report that the mission of the school did not change with
public charter status. The mission was always to create “with our parents an innovative
and caring learning community that will enable all children to become independent
thinkers, nonviolent problem solvers and responsible citizens ready to contribute in an
interdependent world.”2" Goals for the school include developing students to “become
self explorers, seekers of knowledge, effective communicators, and future planners.”25
Respondents report that the school has always aimed to serve a diverse population. The
school’s student population is 47 percent African American, 40 percent White, 12
percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Asian. Forty percent of the students receive free and
reduced lunch.

Associational Autonomy

 

2" Source: CA’s Web site.
25 Ibid.

103

The autonomy of CA can be seen in the fact that its board is made up entirely of
CA parents, and board members indicated that the CA board has little authority over the
school’s administrators, in part because of the previous longevity of the school as a
private school. One board member noted that she is looking forward to a new
administration, one that she can help shape. Tom, she said, “is unshapable.” The board
president also noted that the school’s culture did not change much when it went from a
private school to a public charter school. He said, “It was Tom and Nancy’s private
school and it is Tom and Nancy’s charter school.”

Nancy noted that public charter schools are not nearly as autonomous as they
were meant to be. The charter school authorizer, She said, operates at a level that is too
micromanaging for innovation and creativity to take place. She explained:

“The idea (of charter schools), which always sounded really good — but it’s never

really happened - was that you would create schools that were free from some of

that bureaucracy so that they could design programs and sort of experiment with
different ways to work with children and teach children in different learning styles
and so on and so forth. In reality, we’ve never really been able to do that because
charter school have been under the microscope to a huge degree.”

Unlike SCA and ICA, there is little to indicate that CA is using its autonomy to
represent an under-represented or under-served population, or like REA attempting to
build a program for the purpose of sharing innovative teaching practices with the larger
education community. CA administrators noted one of the reasons they switched from a

private school to a charter school was to open up their program to greater number of

104

people and a more diverse population, but there is little in the data to define that
population. CA Board Member Cathy said CA offers an alternative to “public schools.”
CA also has autonomy over its building, which is owned by a private foundation
to protect it from a takeover by the state if the school were ever to close. Cathy explained:
“When charter schools were first established there was something in the law that
basically said that if a charter school did not succeed that its assets could be
seized and become part of the State again. And so this school wasn’t a building
that we were rented, it was a building that the previous private school had already
purchased — or was purchasing. So there was no way they were going to let the
assets go back to the state when they had already spent all that time and money
investing in it. So they created the foundation.”
Cathy said the foundation has a board, but CA Administrator Tom is the only one she
knows who is on that board. None of the CA members Sit on the foundation board.
Choice in Representation
The CA school board chooses its members primarily from the parents of students
enrolled in the school. Board Member Cathy noted that the school has advertised for
board members in newspapers at times. Cathy also said people are not showing interest in
board seats, Tom, the school administrator, will call parents and ask if they would be
interested in serving on the board. Once board nominations are made, CA’s authorizer
comes out to the school to conduct interviews with the board candidates. Explained
Tom: “They have a process where they require certain application materials and they

review that. Then they come and interview each potential board member. And then they

105

approve, they say yes. So it’s just basically the board members are appointed by the
existing board with the approval of the authorizer.”

Although the administrators noted there have been community members who
have served on the board in the past, all of the current board members are either parents
of enrolled students or parents of students who have been enrolled in the school. Board
Member Cathy explained: “We have tried to solicit people from the community but their
dedication just isn’t the same for a small school.”

Like other charter board members in the study, CA respondents said an appointed
board allows for sitting boards to identify board candidates who will fit the needs of the
school and focus on school priorities. Board Member Cathy explained:

“Appointment allows the board to select who they think is the best qualified

rather than popular vote - and you know money and politics come into that. And

that really has no place in the public schools as far as I’m concerned. You know,

in our charter school, to be on the board there is no political gain. I suppose it may

look good on your resume, but I’m not sure where that’s going to get you in life.”
Cathy also said that an election in her school would not “make sense” because so few
people are interested in serving on the board. “You’d be voting for the one person who is
there.” The CA’S Administrator Tom indicated that the public nature of district boards
creates too much scrutiny for school board members to focus on the interests of the
school. Explained Tom:

“I think of a local school system and how much dissidence they seem to have

there, and I think it’s because one of the ways they try to win their battles is by

electing board members who will support those positions. I think they also have

106

the disadvantage of being under the public eye so much more. There are media at
most of their meetings. You can watch them on TV. And they’re trying to satisfy
so many people.”
In contrast, Tom said he does not remember media ever coming to a CA board meeting.
Steve noted that even though board members are appointed, they are public
officials responsible for public funds. “We’ve got a strong responsibility to the State of
Michigan, to tax payers, to be honest and fair and spend money wisely and maximize the
amount of money that we spend that goes directly toward the education of students at
CA.” Steve said the board is responsible to the “entire school community,” which he
defined as teachers, students, parents, and the charter school authorizer. “We feel that
(the authorizer’s) oversight of us is pretty careful. If we don’t finish our notes properly,
they know.” He went on to say that the authorizer’s oversight of the charter school is
more in-depth than most people realize.
“When I heard the claim politically that charter schools don’t receive any
oversight, I just have the hardest time believing that is true. Do people realize? I
mean we have reporting requirements. (Our authorizer) gave us a new board
orientation guide and there are at least four pages of reporting requirement dates.
There’s a calendar, and you have to provide information in a timely way through
the whole school year. There are three kinds of tests that the school does on its
students and those tests are published in the paper. So I don’t think it is that
nobody is looking over our Shoulder.”

Administrator Tom agreed.

107

“The case is that they require a lot of us. They are on top of us all the time making
sure that we complete the paperwork that we have to complete for the State.
Making sure that we comply with the laws. Making sure that we file our federal
papers with regard to constitutionality and prayer in the schools. Anything that
there is to check I get e-mails from them saying did you do that. So they are on
top of us all the time.”

Administrator Nancy noted that the level of accountability to the charter school

authorizers exceeds the level of accountability district schools face.

“I taught in a public school for three years before I started working (at the private

school), and so I’m pretty sure that most schools don’t have the oversight that

charter schools have. Certainly other schools have their district, and they have the
state, and they have some of the same things over them that we do. But they don’t
have an authorizer.”

CA respondents report that the concept of “community” is important to the
school, but the concept is defined more in terms of the school community - the students,
their families and the school staff. To that end, Board Member Cathy noted that her
primary role is to represent the parents in the school. “We’re trying to make sure that the
parents’ voices get heard and that we just start paying attention to what the administrator
is doing.” She also said she expects her role as a board member to change with the search
for a new administrator. She said:

“I think there’ll be more oversight, more monitoring of what’s going on. And

we’ll have a chance to shape the administrator a little more. Right now, there’s no

chance to shape Tom. I mean he’s unshapable at this point. Or even Nancy for

108

that matter. I’ve enjoyed them. I know they’ve done a great job, but it’s time, I
think, for them to move on and for somebody new to come. I think the board will
have an increased responsibility because of that.”

Board President Steve noted that the school has to be responsive to the city’s
school district area “because that is where we are drawing from,” but he also said the
school is not very responsive to the local community. “I think we have a dim awareness
of the local community and a hope — a kind of flickering hope — that we would connect
with that community. But in fact that’s probably in the future.” The future, Steve said,
may lie with the hiring of a new school administrator.

Freedom of Information

CA sends information home from parents via a weekly newsletter and publishes
information on its Web site, but the school sends little information to the local
community. The Web site includes a history of the school, the school’s mission and
goals, the parent newsletter, and notices of upcoming events and announcements. At the
time this report was written, the CA Web site also included a posting about open board
seats. Even so, board president Steve noted that the Web site is not as informative as it
could be. He said:

“Our Web site doesn’t really have a lot of information, frankly. It’s a volunteer

maintained Web site. I think the board can do a better job in the future of keeping

our minutes there, keeping our public information really public. We do post the

stuff, of course, but it’d be more accessible if we (posted on the Web)”

109

Steve also noted that a school Web site is not a good match for getting information out
the general public because people not connected to the school will not go to the Web site.
“I don’t think we have a systematic way to communicate with the local community.”

Even information about enrollment is not particularly widespread said CA
respondents. CA does not distribute much recruitment information or hold open houses
for community. “We don’t tend to do that,” said Tom, “because we don’t have that many
openings. And so it’s easier or more productive for us to make appointments for people
and show them through individually rather than sitting in a room full of people and
showing slides of videos of the best of CA.” Tom did say that CA may do a little
advertising with fliers and newspapers during enrollment periods, but not much. “It’s
expensive and not necessary for us.”

Cathy noted that CA attempts to teach students that they are a part of a greater
community, but she said she does not believe the community is well-enough informed
about the school. She said:

“I don’t know if the community sees us as an entity at all. I mean we are
educating our students about the community, but I don’t know that the community
is really educated about us much. I don’t know that people really know who we
are or what we’re about. I don’t even know if people in my neighborhood — and
I’m only two miles from the school — even really know that this school is there, or
that it is a charter school.

She also noted that community members in general know little about charter schools, and
again suggested more could be done to publicize information about what charter schools

are and where they are located. “I mean we’re 10 years old and there are still people who

110

don’t understand that they don’t have to pay for a charter school. “ Media is one way that
information can get to the broader community, but administrators Tom and Nancy noted
that they have not had any media cover their board meetings.

CA respondents noted that they are attempting to provide more information to
their school community — to the parents and staff in their school — through what they
hope to be an annual State of the School meeting. Respondents said the meeting will
focus on school funding and the administrative search. “It is our first annual meeting,”
noted Steve. “Somebody on the board thought it was important to give people an idea of
where we stand. I think one of the things primarily is to give people a sense of how we’re

going to be in tough shape if things (with state funding) don’t change.”

Freedom of Expression

Citizen expression may happen at CA like any of the other charter schools in the
study: through public comment at the school’s public board meetings, or directly through
the school administrators. CA respondents say they do not hear from the broader
community, however. Said Steve, “Besides professionals who have come to (board
meetings) to give presentations, it’s a handful of people who’ve ever come (to the
meetings). So it’s a pretty quiet comer of the educational world.”

Yet, like REA, the CA board meeting I attended was conducted behind a locked
school door. The following is from the author’s observation notes:

The board meeting I attended was held in a locked school building. I was

surprised to see the doors were open when I arrived, and I had the thought that

this school holds its meetings in an accessible building, but as soon as I arrived I

111

was greeted by the administrator who greeted me and then walked past me to the
door and said “I ’ll be there in a minute. I just need to lock the door. ” The doors
are locked in the building for safety ’s sake. The school does not have security
guards to watch the building while the meetings are taking place. CA ’s board
meeting was conducted in the gymnasium at the opposite end of the school from
the school entrance, so it would be difiicult for anyone to be able to enter the
meeting after the meeting got started.
Inclusive Representation
Although it is difficult to define the parameters of who is represented in CA
decision-making, CA respondents made clear that the focus of representation is on the
students and parents enrolled in the school. As a public charter school, CA must have
open enrollments and if more students are interested in the school than there are
openings, students are selected by lottery. However, CA also conducts an entrance
interview with prospective parents and students, which Nancy said is important for
parents because some kids need “more of a traditional structure than what CA offers.”
She said CA’s non-grading policy and the practice of students calling the teachers by the
first name is somewhat of a culture shock to some parents, so it is important to let parents
know up front about the school’s structure. Nancy said the school also requires parents to
Sign a participation agreement. Single parents must agree to participate in the school 20
hours a year. The requirement is doubled for two-parent families. Said Board President
Steve: “You have to be involved, and if you’re not involved, you’re given the heave ho —

at least that’s the threat.”

112

Both board members noted that the charter school draws primarily from the city’s
public school district area, but also reaches beyond the city limits. The board president
spoke in terms of CA being a public school and open to anyone who wants to make the
choice to come to CA. Another board member, Cathy, said it serves “any parents who
want an alternative to public school education.”

CA’S focus is on the student and family that chooses to attend the charter school,
although respondents indicate that the school strives for a diverse population. Explained
Board President Steve:

“I think we serve families that want to have a choice in an environment that is

somewhat diverse and is caring. We’re realizing that we’re not connecting with

the Hispanic population as well as we would like, and that is our most immediate

neighborhood and our greatest potential for growth. So adding an English as a

Second Language Program and strengthening what admittedly is a really weak

Spanish record, those are two priorities we have.”

CA administrators reported that one of the reasons they applied for charter school status
was to be a more inclusive school. Said Tom:

“We had been for a number of years frustrated. We were trying to serve a diverse

community and people from different economic backgrounds, operating a tuition-

based school. We didn’t want to be exclusive and it was frustrating for us to be
eliminating people that wanted to come here.”
Tom said the push to keep tuition low also kept the school on the’financial edge. “We
were not able to pay staff what we wished we could pay them. We ended up being kind

of a training ground for teachers.” Moving to charter status, Tom said, has improved the

113

school’s ability to hang on to teachers. “ We virtually have the same people now that
we’ve had for seven years.” The school’s population is also diverse, with 47 percent
African American, 40 percent White, 12 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Asian. More
than 40 percent of CA’S students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

While respondents report ongoing activities with community agencies and groups
to provide students with learning opportunities beyond the school walls, activity with
these groups is for the benefit of student learning; it is not a function of representing
community in school decision-making, although the service students provide to the
organizations in community benefits the organization to some degree.

The School-Community Relationship

CA administrators report that their relationship with the broader community - the
community beyond the parents and students served in the school — occurs mostly as a
result of the learning partnerships they create for their students. The school works with
the local environmental agency on conservation projects and gardening projects, for
example. CA also works with a foster grandparents group that provides volunteers for the
classrooms. The school also works with another volunteer program called HOST — or
Helping One Student at a Time. The program brings in volunteers from the business
community to work with students. Beyond the connections the school makes to
community for the sake of student learning, CA administrators said they “don’t
consciously think about it,” but must be somewhat aware of those relationships through
their day to day dealings with parents and businesses. “When we’re interacting with the
business community I think we’re mainly thinking of the (larger city)” Tom noted the

school “has some” relationships with local business communities and the neighborhood

114

association. He noted that the neighborhood association provides a vehicle for connecting
students to service-learning opportunities.

Tom defined the role of school in community as providing “support to the
missions of the community agencies and service to others.” Nancy noted the difficulty in
defining a school community. “Community gets defined for you in some ways by who
contacts you.” Nancy added: “I think community is defined by what the school stands for,
what the school believes, the philosophy, and so on.”

CA’s relationship with the city district school is “uneasy” according to Board
President Steve because CA is a charter school and charter schools “have taken away
from the numbers (of students enrolled in the district)” The relationship is tense, he said,
based on the fact that “when we try to get cooperation from the public schools for using
their buses, we can’t get it. They don’t want to do things that they perceive are directly
supporting a charter school.” CA Administrators noted that they received more
cooperation from the school district when the school was a private school. Tom noted:

“Very early on they refused to let us use their co-op for school supplies. As a

private school they let us do that.” Nancy remembered: “We could buy used desks

or paper goods. We bought all our school supplies through them. But then when
we became a charter school. . . .”
Tom also explained his effort in trying to establish an accounting contract with the
district:
“ I went through about a two-week period of discussions and meetings with them.
They were going to do our accounting for us. I went to meetings and explained

how it would work and the people at that level were open to it, but at one point

115

they got word from up above saying, “No. You will not provide any service to

charter schools.’ It would have been a contracted service. It could have been a

profit for them. They could have made money on it, you know?”

Board President Steve said the relationship between the charter school and the
nearby public school also is tense:

“I don’t know what the relationship is exactly with the school nearby. I think that

is uneasy, too. CA put a fence up alongside (the neighboring school). CA had

problems with the kids from the public school walking alongside the charter
school.” Steve said although there is little relationship with the district schools
and the nearby church, he said it has been a “peaceful coexistence” with the
nearby school and church.

Administrator Tom attributes at least part of the adversarial relationship between
public district schools and charter schools to the state governor that introduced the charter
legislation. “It’s partly a function of some schools feeling ownership of students and the
dollars, but it’s also a function of the way charter schools were introduced. They were
introduced with a lot of criticism.” Nancy added that the rhetoric around the reason for
charter schools was critical of public school districts and public school teachers.

CA administrators noted that they have seen changes in the school-community
relationship as a result of the charter school movement. District schools, they reported,
are much more client-based than they were before the charter policies, and district
schools are more open to visitors and parents who are searching for schools. “They have
to be,” said Nancy. “There’s competition.” Torn agreed, “Each child is a treasure. Each is

worth $6,700.”

116

 

Charter School Findings: Comparisons and Contras_t§

The answer to the question this dissertation poses, “Are charter schools
responsive to a broader community than the students and parents they directly serve,”
appears to be, “It depends.” It depends on mission, on the individual and collective
visions of board members, and it depends on the structures in place that affect the
governance of the schools. None of the charter schools successfully met all of the criteria
for democratic representation. At least two of the schools limited expression at board
meetings by meeting behind locked doors. Information flow to the community was
practically non-existent in three schools, and very limited in a fourth, and representation
of community in school decision-making was primarily dependent on how much input
the community might have in the selection of board members and the make-up of
individual boards. But there is evidence from the study that depending on a school’s
mission, charter schools may in fact serve as an associational democracy (Smith, 2001),
representing the educational needs of the under-represented. Finally, the autonomy of
public charter schools provides an opportunity for innovation. If it is in the mission of the
school to share that innovation for the betterment of public education in the state, the
public charter school may be seen as representing a more global interest than just the
parents and students participating in the charter school program.

The mission and vision of a public charter school in many ways also drives the
school-community relationship. In each of the four schools in the study, the missions and
visions articulated by respondents defined “community” and how that community would
be represented. SCAs mission, for example, identified an interest in working with the

downtown community to preserve and build a healthy downtown environment. Part of

117

that mission was to serve students who otherwise would leave the city and part of that
mission was to serve the needs of underutilized organizations and agencies. This mission
permeated the conversations with SCA respondents and it clearly directed school leaders
to keep the interests of the downtown neighborhood in mind when making school
decisions. Board members also included input from the downtown organizations when
nominating potential board members. ICA respondents identified its community as the
inner city, and its aim to serve the inner city youth who have been underserved by the
district schools. Both of these schools exemplified what Smith (2001) identified as the
democratic potential of charter schools; the ability of the charter school to serve as an
“associational democracy” that represents the educational needs of the otherwise under-
represented.

The data from REA and CA did not indicate as strong a tendency toward
associational representation, but respondents from these schools did talk about their
missions in relation to “community.” As Plank (1997) argued, however, “community” is
a term that needs to be defined to be adequately understood. In these two schools,
“community” was less about representation of citizen or neighborhood interests and more
about building a “community” within the school that supports the teaching and learning
of the school’s students. REA respondents noted “learning in community” is an important
concept in the Reggio Emilia approach. Educators and students engage the surrounding
community as a learning field, rather than as a function of representing local interests in
school decisions. The evidence did suggest, however, that REA is working with local
agencies and businesses to develop relationships that serve both the needs of the students

and the neighboring organizations. REA also discussed the idea that they aim to serve a

118

community of educators who could benefit from the lessons learned through REA’S
innovation. CA respondents also talked about their goal to build a learning community. In
this case, community means the students and parents enrolled in the school, although the
school’s relationships with community organizations provide service-leaming
opportunities that benefit both the students and the organizations. CA respondents noted
that the school had very little relationship with local residents.

Data from the study also indicate that who makes up the board of a public charter
school affects how the community is represented in school decision-making. When the
broader community is not well-represented in school decision-making, the immediate
needs of the school will take precedence over more public interests like equitable access.
For example, REA’S board is primarily made up of representatives from the private
college that spearheaded the school and REA parents and former parents. REA’s decision
to continue to delay action on the implementation of creating an accessible environment
for both students and citizens who might be interested in attending the second-floor board
meetings was based on what was convenient for the school. Here is an example where the
policy of autonomous governance goes against the policy of equitable access. In another
example, CA administrators require 20 to 40 hours of parent participation in school
activities, or according to a CA board member, parents and students are “given the heave
ho.” While there is much research to recommend parental involvement in a child’s
education, requiring participation as a condition of enrollment is an exclusionary practice,
and a board that is more representative of the larger community may be more likely to

question such a practice than a board that is made up entirely of CA parents.

119

It is the role of the public school authorizer to ensure the autonomy of charter
schools does not jeopardize issues of equity and access, and while data from interviews
and documents indicate that the responsibilities of authorizers are substantial, data also
indicate authorizers play little role in the oversight of how the public is represented in
school decision making. The fact that none of the school’s board nominations were ever
rejected indicates that the autonomy these schools have extends to its ability to appoint its
own governors, which can lead to self—interested governance at the expense of the public
interest. Only one of the school’s authorizers actively interviews board candidates and
that is for a board that is made up entirely of parents. The lack of authority CA board
members said they have over their administrator presents another set of issues for charter
school governance. What is the purpose of a governing board if it lacks the authority to
govern?

So, the make-up of the school boards make a difference to community
representation, but do the differences in governance structures make a difference to
representation? According to data in this study, not as much as one would think. Miron
and Nelson (2001) indicate that charter schools managed by for-profit organizations run
the risk of ceding control to the management organizations themselves. EMOs that
control facilities, curriculum, and employees have great power over governing boards.
ICA is the only school in the study to be managed by an EMO and data from this study
indicate that EMOs do exercise a considerable amount of control over school
programming. In the case of ICA, however, the board appears to exercise its role as the
authority in control; the EMO is seen by the board as a service provider, which can be

fired at any time for not meeting the expectations of the board. ICA owns its own

120

building, so the EMO does not have control over its facilities. Data from ICA indicate
that its EMO relationship is not an impediment to meeting the goals it has set out to
achieve, again in large part to the make-up of the board and the board’s mission in
meeting the needs of the inner city neighborhood. However, there is a noticeable
difference in the autonomy of the boards in term of developing their educational program.
The ICA board identified that it wanted a quality program for inner city youth and looked
for a provider to provide that program. Board members were not interested in designing
curriculum; they recognized that they did not have the time or expertise to do that.
However, respondents of the other charter schools in the study indicated that the design
of their own program was an important part of their work. Even the CA board, which
primarily adopted the program of the former private school, discussed making changes to
the educational program based on the needs of students and their families.

The fact that REA is governed by a local school district may lead one to think that
. the district governing board, which is elected by the community, would take a greater role
in the governance of the charter school, but data indicate the practice of the university
authorizer and the district authorizer are much the same. Each provides a liaison to the
charter school, and it is the liaison’s responsibility to provide support and monitor the
progress of the school. In the case of the district charter school, however, there was data
to indicate that district citizens may put pressures on the district board for help in dealing
with unresolved issues at the charter school. However, data indicate such pressure only
happened when an REA parent turns to the board for help in resolving an issue. Having a
local district authorizer iS not likely to increase charter school oversight if citizens do not

have access to charter school board meetings or are not informed about charter school

121

decisions. Lack of citizen representation, in other words, makes it difficult for the
citizenry to effectively use their power as an electorate to engage the district board in
more charter oversight.

In some ways, the district is more hands-off or distant from its charter school than
other types of authorizers. The district does not include charter information on its Web
site and REA respondents indicated that the district board pays little attention to what
goes on at the charter school. The fact that REA has been out of compliance with School
Code policy regarding access to its second floor for four years is an indication that the
district board is not as attentive to the charter school’s practices as it should be. Data also
indicate that the district liaison role is less of an enforcer than a communicator. The fact
that the liaison has been “bothered” by the practice of meeting in a locked school but has
done nothing to change that practice indicates that the district and its liaison exercises
little control over the charter school board.

The district charter also had noticeably different relationships with the community
than charters authorized by the two universities. The REA board has a contract with an
employee of the private Catholic college that initiated the school, and the treasurer of the
college serves as the treasurer of the board. In addition, the school’s landlord is — in
essence — the neighborhood church, although the lease agreement is run through the
college and not through the church itself. REA respondents acknowledged these
relationships are tricky, but they say they have taken care to make sure they do not
impede on the public nature of the school. The board treasurer, for example, has a
conflict of interest statement that outlines his limitations as a board member. However, it

is notable that the district is the only authorizer in the study that does not limit these types

122

of relationships. Data from a draft of standards for authorizers by the state indicate that
conflicts of interests are the responsibility of authorizers. As written in the document:
“Authorizers shall establish policy and procedures to oversee public school academies
regarding potential conflicts of interest, implement a system that monitors for its
identification, and analyze that potential when identified.”26 It is clear from interview and
document data that both university authorizers in the study have increased their standards
for the nomination of board members. A revised document by one of the university
authorizers in the study states that board members of its public school academies may not
“be a director, officer, or employee of an company or other entity that contracts with the
Academy.”27

Data from the schools indicate that all of the schools aim in some sense to use
their autonomy to provide a program that addresses educational needs in ways that large,
bureaucratic schools cannot. It was in the mission of SCA and REA, however, to develop
a program that could change the way education in general is delivered. In this way, these
two schools’ aimed to respond to the needs of a larger community by improving the
practice of public education.

A look at the comparison of demographics in the charter schools and their
neighboring district schools helps to explain the story (Table 1). SCA’S mission was to
design a school similar to that of the district’s select middle high school, but one that

serves a broader group of students. SCA in comparison with the district’s middle high

school shows greater diversity in its student population, with much greater numbers of

 

2" Source: PSA Authorization Draft Standards, Central Michigan University
http://www.cmucso.org/charter.asp?Link=PSAAuthDRAFTStandards.pdf
27 Source: Method of Selection Resolution, Grand Valley State University.

123

African American and Hispanic students and much fewer White students. ICA, which
aimed to serve the youth of the inner city - namely African American children — shows
very similar demographics to the neighborhood’s district elementary school, indicating
that the charter school’s population is reflective of the population it aimed to serve.

Also telling is the fact the other two charters, whose missions are less
representative of the neighborhood and more focused on building a particular type of
school, serves different populations of students than their neighboring schools. CA,
which borders SEE, for example, serves much fewer students who are on Free and
Reduced Lunch, have a much greater White population and a much smaller Hispanic
population than the school next door. REA likewise serves a different population than its
neighboring school. These data indicate that ICA and SCA are more representative of the
neighborhood than the schools that have a mission less representative of neighborhood

interests than program interests.

124

Table 1: Demographics of charter schools compared to neighborhood schools

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School — SCA MHS REA NWE ICA ICE CA SEE
(Charter (District (Charter (District (Charter (District (Charter (District
Demographic 7-12) 7-12)** K-S) K—5)** K-6) K~6) K-6) K- 5)
I

White 38% 78% 43% 21% — — 40% 08%
AA 43% 12% 19% 14% 96% 93% 47% 57%
Al 04% <01% 10% 3% —- <01% — 01%
Asian 02% 06% 03% <01 % - — 01% 04%

Hispanic 14% 04% 23% 79% 04% 04% 12% 30%

F&RL N A 14% 81% 86% 92% 93% 40% 81%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AA=African American; AI=American Indian; F&RL=Free and Reduced Lunch
*Statistics taken from the National Center for Educational Statistics, 2002-2003
**Data from these schools are being used for comparison sake only; otherwise, these
schools are not part of the study’s data set.

The relationship that the charter schools have with their host communities is
limited to a few budding partnerships with local organizations and businesses. SCA and
ICA respondents described more effort at reaching out to the broader community than the
other charters. This again, may be related the missions of these schools. These schools
aim to represent the needs of the neighborhood by serving the underserved students in the
city’s downtown and inner city, respectively. While the mission of REA is to reach out to
the education community, respondents reported that that work has not yet been done.

Finally, all of the charter school respondents noted that their relationships with the

city school district and the district schools are tense, if not outright adversarial.

125

Respondents noted that the cause of the tension is in large part the competitive nature of
the state’s school choice policies. Data indicate that the district board was unresponsive
to local charter school boards’ attempts to collaborate with the district through contracted
food services, the purchase of vacant property, and in the case of CA, the continuation of
arrangements it had had with the district as a private school. The mission of the schools
had little effect on easing tensions with district schools. Even respondents from REA, the
district’s own charter, indicated that district schools see them as competition and have not

embraced the charter school as a potential pilot of best practices.

126

Chapter 5

The District Schools

The school choice policies that were implemented by the state in 1993 and 1994
came about because of the perception that public school districts were not responsive to
the needs of parents and students. The large, bureaucratic systems of schooling not only
prevented school districts from responding to needs but also buffered them from
accountability (Chubb & Moe, 1990). In essence, then, Michigan’s school choice policies
attempted to force responsiveness of public school districts by infusing exit into the
school system as a way to deal with discontent (Hirschman, 1970).

Data on district schools in the study are intended for two reasons: 1) to provide a
comparison to the charter schools as to how public school districts address issues of
community representation and school-community relationships; and 2) to understand, in
part, how Michigan’s choice policies affect the relationship between the public school
district and public charter schools, and ultimately how that relationship affects the
representation of community in public school decision-making.

The mission of River City Public School District is “Stronger /Better /Together,”
highlighting the value of interdependence between the schools and city. River City
Public School District enrolls more than 24,000 students, has 5 high schools, 6 middle
schools, 44 elementary schools, 20 alternative education programs, 11 Special education
sites and an adult education program. In addition to the district schools, the district also
charters the REA school, but REA is not included in the districts list of elementary

offerings. Two of the district’s elementary schools, Inner City Elementary and South East

127

Elementary, were included in this study. Respondents from these schools included the
school principals and two members of the district board.
Inner City Elementm

ICE is noted as the district’s most troubled school. It sits in the heart of the inner
city and its building is one of the district’s oldest and most run-down. The school serves
325 K-6 students. The school’s population is 93 percent African American, 4 percent
Hispanic, 2 percent White, and less than 1 percent American Indian. Ninety-three percent
of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

The school district shut down ICE in 1993, citing poor student performance on
test scores. The district recruited Sharon, a teacher in another of the district’s schools to
serve as ICE’s principal in 1995. With the passing of a school bond proposal to build new
buildings in the district, ICE was identified as the first school in the district to be rebuilt.
Plans are underway to knock down the old building and build a brand new building in the
same location. Respondents said the new school will be the first new building in the
neighborhood in decades, and the board president, who is a community developer, said he
expects that the new school building may spur other positive developments in the
neighborhood.

Principal Sharon has seen a tum-around in her school since the school reopened.
She said:

“When they closed ICE in 1993, not one child fiom (the school) had gone on to
college in over a decade. And 75 percent of the children from ICA did not

graduate from high school in over a decade, and then no one passed the MEAP

128

test two years in a row. Not one child. Plus the environment was sick and the

parents were very hostile. And the standards were just so low.”

Now, she said, she is getting invitations for high school graduations and induction
ceremonies for honor societies from children who attended ICE. Principal Sharon’s
focus for the school has been to develop a climate conducive to learning and to rebuild
relationships with parents. The school’s belief statements are as follows:

“A positive environment enhances the development of the whole child.

Children should be provided with a variety of learning experiences to meet each

child’s diverse needs.

Children have the right to a safe and orderly school climate.

Parental involvement is a crucial part of developing lifelong learners.” (ICE,

2003-2003 Annual Report).

Principal Sharon considers her job a spiritual calling that requires her to lead the
community in its support of the school. “What I believe I have done by the grace of God
has been to convey what God (wants for) these children and because of that the public
has just reached out.” Sharon said the community gift giving to the school exceeds all of
the other schools in the region. “One year the district had a major budget cut and I was
going to lose our social worker, our counselor, all these key things and I needed
$138,000, and one woman gave me $150,000.” Sharon noted that the school has a
partnership with the nearby church, which provides 200-300 volunteer hours a year.
Churches are important to the school-community relationship she said because churches
have a tradition of ministering to people in need, and inner city public schools, she said,

are also a ministry to people in need.

129

Sharon said her philosophy in turning around the school is to reach out to the
families of the children, to treat the children as her own, and not to lay blame for student
circumstances but to provide students what they need to be successful in school.

“So when children show up dirty, with dirty uniforms and smelling bad, instead of

going ‘Isn’t that awful,’ we do home visits and we wash the children’s clothes. I

have a closet down the hall just full of uniforms, clean shirts, underwear, socks,

whatever children need. So that we’re not just saying to the parents, your child is

dirty. . . .It is bad that their parents would let them come to school like that, but

what is worse is that you know better and you let them stay that way. So that’s

when we started washing the clothes and making sure (the children know) that the

grown people in your life are supposed to take care of you. And that they know

they have a back-up plan: if things aren’t going right at home, you’ve got us.”
South East Elementary (SEE)

South East Elementary’s (SEE) playground borders the playground of Conversion
Academy. The two schools have been back to back since CA first opened as a private
school 30 years ago. SEE serves 275 K-S students. The student population is 57 percent
African American, 30 percent Hispanic, 8 percent White, 4 percent Asian, and 1 percent
American Indian. Eighty-one percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price
lunch. The school is a language center for the district, with students speaking 11 different
languages. The school also serves students from a local homeless shelter, which sits
within the school’s boundaries. SEE’s mission is as follows:

“The staff at SEE is committed to and accepts the responsibility to educate all

children to meet or exceed all grade level expectations. We believe that learning

130

rules of appropriate behavior and being part of a community is necessary for

children to develop into well-rounded citizens. Our belief is also that students

need to continue to express their individuality in a creative way in the learning

process.” — 2003-2004 Annual Report
Jenny, the principal of SEE noted that students come from various sections of the
neighborhood, which is divided into ethnic pockets. Despite the divisions, Jenny noted
that the school and neighborhood are like “family.”
Associational Autonomy

The concept of associational representation in democratic societies provides for
individuals who may not be able to effectively represent themselves to find representation
in association with others. In an urban school district, this type of representation is likely
to be found at the board level, but data indicate that it also is found at the school level.
District board members noted that the district responds to a variety of groups including
the Afiican American Men’s Group, a Hispanic group, and a Second Language Parent
group. Board Member Andie said while it is healthy that the individual groups have their
own representation, she said at times it is a challenge to address the needs of separate
groups instead of working together as one community. “There’s a feeling that we need to
all be in the same room at once.” She did give an example, however, of the importance of
associational representation in the district schools. She explained:

“We had a Native American group come to us and say, ‘You know we’re just so

offended by the (school’s nickname) Chippewa Indians. We are just really

offended.’ And when you sit down and look at it you go, ‘yeah, I can see where

you’re coming from. You really aren’t a cute mascot, you really living people.

131

Maybe living people shouldn’t be treated as mascots.’ And I understand how it all

started. All of the streets around the old Chippewa School are all Indian name

streets. I can see how it happened way back then, but it’s not appropriate now.”
Andie said the district board made the decision to change the name of the school and the
name of the school mascot in response to the request by the Native American group. That
change, she said, offended another group of citizens in the community —— namely alumni
of the Indian-named school. She said the incident exemplifies the balance district boards
must strike in working with a large community. In many cases, it is a matter of weighing
one group’s interests against another’s. She said: “Well (the alumni) are offended
because I’m changing a little bit of (their) past versus (the Native Americans) are
offended because I’ve turned them into a cartoon.” The district, she said, appropriately
changed the name to be more inclusive of the citizens the district serves.

Like two of the charter schools in the study, the two district schools in the study
serve specific pOpulations of disadvantaged families, and in many ways their principals
use their position to advocate for the needs of the neighborhood and not necessarily the
needs of the district. Sharon noted, for example, that schools must have a good
relationship with their district boards because the boards support the school activities, but
the district board and the district office is “just a parenting umbrella” to the school.
Sharon said the school is an integral part of its inner city neighborhood and part of her
work with the district board is to keep the neighborhood intact. She said when the district
began talking about a new building for ICE there was some talk about moving the

location, but she was adamant about keeping the school in its original neighborhood.

132

“I said what do you mean where are we going to build it? Right here. The same
place the children always come. We have a bad habit in this nation of whenever
we build something new we move it away so other kids can’t get to it. And the
kids right here never experience anything like that. So that kind of shut all of that
talk down right off the bat. So then we took a look at this site.”

Sharon’s advocacy extends beyond the school doors, however. She said she sees
her role as an advocate for the disadvantaged youth in her school and the families in the
neighborhood, which means it is her responsibility to enlighten the community that sits
outside of the inner city. Citizens outside of the inner city, said Sharon, are often unaware
of the needs of the inner city, and it takes a connection between the broader community
and the school to bridge that gap. To that end, Principal Sharon sits on a number of
community boards. She joined the city’s zoo board recently and told this story:

“I go in there and I’m trying to be quiet. And they’re talking and they’re good
people. They’re good people. But they were going to raise the fee. They were
saying what a wonderful year they had had. They had made all this money and
they were way over their projections, and then they said they were going to raise
the fee. And I’m like why would you raise the fee and poor kids can’t come now.
So I tried to just say, ‘Well, now if everything’s been so successful this year and
you made excess, why would you raise the fee when there are poor children
who can’t go now?’ And they just looked at each other. They weren’t bad people.
I said, ‘My whole school — the whole population of poor kids — they don’t go to
the zoo. They can’t. It’s gotten to the point where it’s a major thing if I’ve got

four kids that can go. We have to read about it. We can’t go.’ And they were like,

‘Really?’ So long story short, as a result of that one meeting, out of that one
dialogue came a new program called Jump, and it pays for poor children and their
families to go to the 200 two times a year, and it’s got a bus pass, too.”
Sharon noted that the zoo is only one example of the types of activities her students do
not have access to. The city is rich with cultural opportunities but she said those
opportunities are not accessible to poor inner city children.

Sharon also uses her autonomy to direct the priorities of the school. While the
state’s department of education, for example, has targeted the school as a school inneed
of improvement on the state’s assessment test, the school’s principal remarked that her
priorities are not the test, but the children. “The inner city schools — there’s so many
barriers that when they start telling me the most important thing is getting them ready for
the MEAP, I just have to laugh.” Part of the problem, Principal Sharon noted, is that the
students in the inner city cannot compete with suburban students who have a strong
support system and “everything they need.” She said, “Here I’ve got a kid who starts
kindergarten and they have had the 0 to 5 gap -— just a big black hole. And we’re trying to
fill that hole up as fast as we can. Well you never really fill it up.”

SEE’s principal indicated that she advocates for the needs of the local
neighborhood in the same way that ICE’s principal does. However, she noted that SEE
represents a number of different groups, including non-English speaking families, and
youth from homeless shelters. Jenny said the school provides a place of continuity for the
transient youth and families that make up her school population. She said: “You want
those children to feel comfortable in one location. So they might move several times but

be bused to us — so that we are the continuity for them.”

134

Choice in Representation

Unlike in public charter schools, voters have a direct say in the choice of
representatives who make up the district’s board. In this way, voters in district schools
have direct input into how they are represented in school decision-making, although there
was some disagreement among board members as to how citizens are represented in a
city-wide election. The district board president noted that the city-wide election does not
fairly represent the needs of the individual neighborhoods as evidenced by the imbalance
of neighborhood representation on the school board. The district board is made up of 9
citizens who are elected from a city-wide pool of candidates. Four of the members reside
in the city’s South East side, two are from the North East, two are from the North West
and one is from the South West. While the city-wide election allows for all citizens in the
district to pick its public school trustees, Michael noted that a ward election system
would be more fair and more representative of the city’s constituents.

Board Member Andie, however, said that as an official elected city-wide, the
responsibility of board members is to represent the city as a whole and not individual
neighborhoods. She said the role of the district board member is to serve “as an interface”
between the community — the parents of school children and the community that does not
have kids in school - and the school. She said:

“We have a social responsibility because we produce the people who are going to
sell them their goods, produce their goods, drive on the same street with them,
live next door to them, work for them perhaps, employ them perhaps. This is why

there is a social interest in maintaining strong public schools to begin with,

because we affect everybody.”

135

Board President Michael agreed that the district board has the responsibility to represent
all citizens in school decisions. However, he said the immediate neighborhood that
surrounds a school Should be of greater concern than the community at large.
“If you were to think about it in terms of concentric circles, at the core it’s the
families of the school system itself, because they have the greatest interest. The
second would be I believe the neighborhood around that school and everything
that’s made up around those neighborhoods. So that could be neighborhood
associations, business associations, businesses, hospitals, people that have a
vested interest. And then the next concentric circle would be the folks in the city
because the city can’t be healthy if we don’t have healthy public schools. So for
me it’s a matter of concentric circles, and if you look at the whole pie, it’s
everybody, but I think we have to prioritize where are responsibilities lie.”
Respondents noted that one of the main differences between
representation of community in the district and representation of community in charter
schools is that the public school district does not turn students away. Board Member
Andie said it is a “source of pride” with her that the district schools serve everybody. She
explained:
“Charter schools are perfectly free to say ‘I’m sorry, the 3rd grade is full.’ We’re
not. And I think that is a very important thing. And I’m actually kind of proud of
it. It doesn’t matter if we have too many 3rd graders. Your 31rd grader has a room
with us. It’s one of the challenges, but it is a source of pride for me that we do

serve everybody no matter when they walk in, no matter what they present with.”

136

The district board members also said they have the responsibility of serving the interests
of the State.

The fact that district board members are elected and not appointed means different
things to the two district board members. Board Member Andie notes that the election
process in the district board election gives the decision-making power to all voters in the
community, and it is the responsibility of the community to understand how the decisions
they make in the voting booth affect the school district and the community. For Michael,
the election provides for a “theoretical” legitimacy of office from the city’s electorate.
However, practically speaking, he said legitimacy of office comes from the same place as
it does for public charter schools: producing a good product that attracts parents to the
school.

One of the disadvantages to the election process, according to Michael, is that it
attracts candidates whose interest may not be the best interest of the kids. He said there
are three types of candidates who run for office in an urban school district:

“The first kind is going to be someone that just really wants to be involved in the

system and feels they can make a difference. That’s a good board member — you

know, somebody who understands their role and serves it and does their role well.

The second type of board member I think is somebody who has political

aspirations. It’s a fairly easy election process. I mean, you get a hundred names on

a list and you run a campaign. It’s an easy first step into the political realm. The

third type of person that I think an urban school board would attract would be

somebody that has a personal axe to grind. And that Spectrum’s pretty broad.

They’re mad about something in the school system so they’re going to come in

137

and they’re going to take it over. Or maybe they think that the public school

system in America is the answer to all evils. Or they have some ideological

viewpoint about what public schools are.”
The motivational differences among board members can cause problems for an urban
school system. He explained:

“It can hurt you because if you look at just those three things, there’s competing

values. If you care about the system, you’re in the first camp. If you’re trying to

gain higher political office, you don’t want to be controversial. So then you’re

dealing with things out of political motive and maybe not out of what’s best for

kids.”
The differences in the way individual board members behave also have an effect on the
school-community relationship. Michael noted one long-time district board member who
has been abrasive in his talk against charter schools, home-schooling, and parochial
schools. This member is unique among the members of the board, and yet the voice of the
one board member can create a negative relationship with the larger community. In other
words, he said, having a board member who “blasts” choice parents is detrimental to the
district and to the community. “If we’re out there trying to gain support on an initiative or
a bond issue for which we need all of the (city’s) voters or on a bond issue, I think
offending charter school parents, parochial school parents, and home school parents is
certainly not the way to engender love and support from those organizations.”

All of the district respondents noted that the district schools represent the larger
community interest in part through the relationship between the presence of a

neighborhood school and residential property values. Respondents noted in the case of

138

charter schools that correlation does not exist. Michael noted the investment of residents
into the neighborhood school goes beyond real estate, however. “Our schools are by and
large filled by an attendance area. So people who live within that neighborhood send their
kids to that school. So they have a lot more vested interest as opposed to someone who
drives in, drops their kids off, and leaves.” Michael also made the point that school
closings in a district affect the whole community in a much more dramatic way than a
charter school closing would.

“The political ramifications are far reaching beyond just closing the school down.

The City Commission had to be involved because of the public interest in that

property. We had some empty land that we’re selling and if we were any other

landowner, the highest bid wins. But we’re not. We’re a landowner that happens
to be a public school system. So we have to have all these contingencies and all
these assurances from the buyer in regard to what the use of the building is going
to be. Because from now until I don’t know how many years from now, the
public will always equate that property to our school system.”

The principals of the two district elementary schools in the study said they
recognized that the residents in their school area are their constituents, but like the charter
school principals, both principals said their responsibility is primarily to the students and
parents of the school. Neither said they thought the difference in how board members are
chosen in districts and charter schools makes a difference to how community’s needs are
addressed in schools. Principal Sharon said, rather, that the difference is in the school
leadership and the vision of school leaders. SEE’s Principal Jenny said that representation

may depend more on the type of school than on the difference between election and

139

appointment. “You could have someone that sits and heads a charter school that could be
a neighborhood person,” just as an elected district board member may be. She also noted
that charter school board members could be individuals “that’s never seen the
neighborhood or never been associated with it.” Another issue with community
representation in charter schools, noted Jenny, is that the community is to a large extent
unaware of the public nature of charter schools. CA , she said, has been in the
neighborhood for 30 years, and even though it has been a public school for the last 10
years, the community still thinks of it as a private school.

The district’s governing relationship with REA garners little attention from the
district board. However, Board Member Andie noted that if citizens were to come to the
district board to with a concern about the charter school, it would be up to the district
board to make sure the issue is resolved by the school. Otherwise, Andie reported that
the responsibility of the district board is to ensure that the school meets its legal deadlines
and obligations. “We don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day operations of it. We
sign off on whoever they say they want on their board, but we don’t pick their board . We
don’t interfere with it. We charter it, but we don’t interfere.” She added: “It is the way
chartering works that we’re supposed to keep our fingers out. The ISD said it best — they
said noses in, fingers out.”

Freedom of Expression

The freedom of citizens to express their concerns to a school district is monitored
in large part through the exercise of voice in public school district board meetings. Public
district board meetings are open to the public, and respondents said board members as

public officials are typically available to the public to address concerns or issues that

140

come up. Board Member Andie explained: “Anybody can call us up. Our phone numbers
are published. They’re on our Web site. They’re right there. Anybody can and does call
me up. Our e-mail is not published as readily, although we have an e-mail address where
everything can go to our board secretary and She sees to it that we get it.” Andie said the
board provides two places in the board meeting for public comment, and anyone who
addresses the board will receive a written response if one is requested.
At the board meeting I attended, it was clear that community voice was a large
part of the district’s meetings. Following are observations from that board meeting:
As I approached the district administration building for the 6 pm. board meeting,
I noticed the entrance and parking lot was well lit and the doors were unlocked —
not propped open for board members as they were in the charter school meetings
— but unlocked, freely opening and shutting. I walked in with several others. I was
15 minutes early. A security guard greeted people as they came in and pointed the
way to the auditorium in which the meeting would be held. There were two
entrances into the auditorium. At both entrances were long tables with stocks of
papers. They were copies of the meeting ’s agenda and documentation. The
packets were thick and available for anyone as they walked in. There was no one
monitoring the distribution of packets. I sat in the back center of the auditorium
so I could take notice of people that might be coming into the meeting. There was
a steady flow of people and by the time the meeting started, I counted 65 people
sitting in the auditorium, a diverse mix of women and men. Some were noticeably
district stafif but it appeared by the way people were dressed and how they were

talking that the majority of people in the audience were community members.

141

There was a television news interview taking place with ICE ’s Principal Sharon
at the front of the auditorium. Board members were bustling about ignoring the
interview.
The agenda for the meeting was short, with some board recognitions the district called
“celebrations,” the discussion and action of a small land sale to a community
development group, and some staff reports on finances, enrollment, construction and the
possibility of a year-round school at one of the schools. Yet the meeting lasted 3 1/2
hours due to the volume of public comment. The following notes from the board meeting
attempt to capture the exercise of community voice in the district board meeting:
A fier the board made its recognitions to a community volunteer and school stafl
for the work they are doing in the district, the board president then addressed the
audience and explained the procedure for public comment. He said each person is
entitled to 3-minutes to make their comment, but asked since there were so many
people in the audience that if there were a group of people together making the
some comment, if individuals would consider consolidating their time. He also
asked that if individuals were there to either support or not support the sale of
property to a certain community development organization, If they would simply
make their support known by saying support. And if they were there to support the
sale of land to the other community development organization that was interested
in the property if they would make their support known simply by saying support
for the other organization. About 20 people spoke, with maybe five to seven of

them taking full use of their 3 -minute period. During this time people were

142

flowing in and out of the meeting. The board closed the first public comment

about 7 :1 0 p. m. at which time 10 to 15 people left the room.

From 7:10 pm. until about 8:40 pm. the board heard from staff, who reported on
various initiatives in the district, including school construction, which included a
discussion of the needs of neighborhood residents. The board also heard about district
enrollment, and a year-round school initiative. At 8:40 pm, the board took action on its
proposals and opened up public comment again for items not on the agenda. This time the
board heard from a passionate mother about the transportation needs of her student. My
notes read as follows:

Once the action was taken, another 15 to 20 people left the room. After the action

items were taken care of there was a second public comment for items not on the

agenda. At this point, a woman addressed the board asking for the district to
transport her childfiom her house to the school of choice in which the child is

enrolled. She made the point that the child’s neighborhood school is listed as a

“failing school” and therefore, by law, she said the district had to provide

transportation for her child to the school of his choice in the district. She argued:

“My son should have transportation to his school and he does not have

transportation. He is the only one in his neighborhood who has to walk a mile or

more to school. ” The board did not respond to her request and when she asked
for a response, the superintendent replied: “ We have reviewed this and given you
an answer. I do not believe you will get a diflerent answer this time either. We are

doing what everyone else is doing in this situation. ” The woman asked the board

143

for a copy of the district’s policy and the board president said he would send her

a copy of that policy.

At the end of the discussion, the board heard from the district education
association president who presented the district’s business manager with an award. At
9: 10 pm, the board heard board comments, and the meeting adjourned about 9:30 pm.
The district board meetings are video-taped and run on the district’s television station for
approximately two weeks, until a new meeting is taped.

Board President Michael noted that while the board tries to be responsive to the
concerns of citizens, it does not always do the best job of responding to citizen needs.

“You know it’s one of three things — we’re going to handle it right, we’re going to

overreact, or we’re going to drop the ball. And dropping the ball usually involves

not taking the claim seriously or realizing that the problem that was presented has

such huge structural implications that there’s no way you can figure out how to

solve it so you just kind of throw your hands up and say, ‘Oh well, that’s just the

way it is,’ rather than get in and try to find a different way to deal with it.”

Board Member Andie noted that the responsibility for voice is a two-way street.
She said voters have a responsibility to use the avenues for voice that the district makes
available. The turnout for voting in the district, said the board respondents, is typically
about 8 percent. Said Andie:

“When we’re running an election we say this is the closest form of representative
government you’re ever going to get. The person who represents you may end up
living next to you. How often are you going to live next to the president? This is

what’s going to affect the quality of life in our city. The community has got to pay

144

attention. If you’re seeing the school board isn’t setting sound policy, isn’t
demanding accountability from their one employee, if the board isn’t if doing the
job that needs to be done to maintain the schools which are at least as an
important chunk of the infrastructure as the sewer system, if the community at
large isn’t seeing what they want to see about how their schools are running, it’s
the community’s responsibility to vote.”
Michael said in his view the district does a good job of getting input from “everybody”
when it comes to school decision-making. “I think we do a fantastic job gaining
community input on almost all levels of the decision-making process.” He gave the
example of a 360-degree evaluation in which principals and teachers will be evaluated
not only by their supervisors, but the community that uses their services. “We’ll
eventually have parental input directly reflecting on teacher evaluations in a reasonable
kind of way.”

Michael also mentioned that community has voice in school decision-making
through a number of community liaison committees set up through the district. The
school leaders meet regularly with the City leaders, for example, and the district
superintendent also meets with what is called the CEO Roundtable, which includes heads
of major industries in the area. There is another group called the Education Reform
Initiatives that includes representatives from all of the foundations in the city. Finally,
Michael noted the district board meets regularly with the local community college board

to discuss issues of mutual concern.

145

Andie said the voice that the community has in the public school system is
important to the health of the whole city. By contrast, she said, the lack of citizen voice in
charter schools is dangerous to the health of the city:

“Charter schools were founded on the basis of non-interference from the

community at large. You are separate. You are nimble . You aren’t carrying the

weight of the community. You may react however you want. Well, that’s good
except when you get so many of them that they are now part of the infrastructure
of the city. And you can’t say you’re independent anymore.”
At the school level, ICE’s Principal Sharon noted that community members can
take part in decision making by volunteering to represent the community on the School
Improvement Team, although she also said the school makes the invitation to either
groups or individuals they’d like to have sit on the School Improvement Team. She also
said all of the residents in the neighborhood are invited to participate in community
forums, such as the ones the school and the district have been hosting regarding the new
school’s new building project. “The first meeting is tomorrow and we’ve got the whole
community. The district sent out (notices) to over 3,000 residents in the neighborhood.”

Sharon said residents’ voices are important in the planning of the new building
because the school will be a big part of the neighborhood, and the neighbors need to have
patience with the construction process. “So we want them at the meetings to tell them w
hat they can expect. That there’s going to be days that we’re all tired of this construction
going on, and you might be awakened at 6 in the morning with a jack drill, and you need

to say, “Oh, that’s the school.”’

146

Principal Jenny at SEE also said neighborhood residents feel comfortable calling
her with issues or concerns. “The door is always open. It’s an open dialogue. And they
laugh at me because I say I want to be more business oriented. I want it to be Shared
leadership, not top down. So suggestions are always welcome.” Jenny said she feels in
the neighborhood as if “we are all family,” although she said she does not feel as though
CA is part of that family. “They’re up there doing their own thing. I don’t know if they
want to be a part of what we’re doing.”

Freedom of Information

The district has many avenues for the dissemination of information to the
community. Andie noted that the only pieces of information that are not accessible by the
public are pieces related to contract negotiations, anything that would violate the rights of
a student or a family, and superintendent reviews if the superintendent asks that they be
conducted in private. “We are definitely very interested in making sure that we’re as
open as we can possibly be about everything without violating somebody’s rights.”

The district has a newsletter that is mailed to every household in the city four
times a year. The newsletter includes contact information, test information, the school
calendar, and news updates. The district’s Web site is extensive, and includes pages for
board information and meeting notes, administration and communications from the
superintendent, news and events, athletics, student services, district services,
transportation, human services, the school calendar, information on the school bond
project, pages and links to individual schools, and a page about the city itself and the
partnerships that exist between the schools and the city-wide community. The district

also has a cable television station that broadcasts board meetings and school events, and

147

all board meetings are covered by area media that disseminates information to the public
through the newspapers and television news programs.

School newsletters go out to families of students in the district schools once a
week, but like their charter school counterparts, individual district schools send little
information to neighborhood residents who do not have children in the school. However,
both principals noted that they make a point of communicating information about the
school to the larger community. ICA Principal Sharon said every Friday she tells senior
citizens about what is going on in the school and school forums are open to community to
express issues of concern or interest. SEE Principal Jenny said she tries to keep the
community informed about school events through the school marquee, which she said
neighbors pay attention to.

Inclusive Representation

District respondents noted that the public school district serves everyone in the
city, and representation is inclusive. Sharon noted that ICE serves “ whoever shows up at
the door. That’s what the mission of the public schools is — to educate and better the lives
of every person who shows up at the door. So it’s not exclusive.” She also noted that who
shows up defines the priorities for the school. A district school that serves poor children
who do not have support at home will have different priorities than a school that can turn
away students who do not meet the school’s expectations. She noted a friend of hers is a
charter school principal in town who asked her why the public district schools let the
children participate in the school program if they exhibit poor behavior. “And I told her,
‘So where do they go?”’ Sharon said she has seen students come back to her school after

being encouraged to leave a charter school. She said:

148

“The charter schools have a way of if you don’t work well with them, if things
don’t go smooth, they let you know that you need to go to your neighborhood
school. And we’ve had kids return here from charters because of that. And that’s
one thing I believe charters need to stop (doing). If they’re going to call
themselves a public school, the state needs to hold them to the same standards. If

a child shows up at a lot of our charter schools and has behavior issues, they do

not get to stay.”

SEE’s Principal Jenny described her school community as inclusive of “the
neighborhood, the parents, the church, all of those affiliated with the surrounding
neighborhood.” Jenny also noted the differences She sees between the district school and
local charter schools.

“With the district school we take children no matter what. We can’t selectively

screen if there are behavior issues. We can’t choose to release them. We continue

to teach them and work with their needs. Behavior problems in a charter school, if
they become too apparent, they can make them leave, revoke their transfer, and
then they will be absorbed back into the public (district) school.”
Jenny said the district offers the special education services charter schools cannot offer,
and so often charter schools will contract with the district to provide those services to
student. The relationship between the charter and the district she said is “two-way street
that feels like it is going one way.” She said it is fi'ustrating to her to see the charter

schools rely on district programs but then be selective in the students they serve.

149

The School-Community Relationship

The district respondents, namely the district board members, clearly stated that
the district works hard to maintain a strong relationship with the community at large.
Even the principals who noted that their responsibilities were primarily to their students
and parents, indicated that they, too, have significant relationships with the broader
community. For example, ICE’s Principal Sharon notes that the success of the school is
reflected in part in an improved relationship between the school and community, and her
work in building that community.

“When 1 first got here, (the residents) were bitter about the school. They had no

respect for the school. ...I think pretty much everybody had kind of started

looking at it as a lost cause back then. And it took awhile for them to take
ownership again and want to be a part of it. Now we have a lot of people who
come and who (do) different things for the school.”

Part of what Sharon does to draw in the community includes reaching out to
citizens by talking with them on the street, in the grocery story, or providing services
such as the Friday lunches to senior citizens. “The food truck has turned into a wonderful
opportunity to go and talk to our neighbors right around us every Friday. And if
something is going on at school, I announce it at the food truck.” Sharon said:

“I’m trying to (get) the old feeling of the village where even though they’re

seniors they look out for the kids. And they look out for the building. And all the

different cousins of these kids. That’s why I think we probably almost never have
incidents of graffiti or anything because I try to — even when I’m walking down

the street I’ll see some of the bigger cousins and say, ‘how are you doing? How’s

150

Wu.”

school going?’ Or, ‘You’re really smart. You need to be back in school.’ And take

the time to build community like that.”

District respondents indicated that the district also has relationships with other
schools in the area as well as the Intermediate School District. Board Member Andie
noted that she sits on the ISD’s Intermediate Association of School Boards to connect to
other schools in the county. The relationships with other districts, she said, are healthy for
all the schools. Explained Andie, “We have this ability to sit down and say, ‘Alright,
legislatively what’s hurting you? Or what do you need to see happen? Or what would

happen if this were passed?’ And it’s allowed us a forum to try to sort it out so that we

 

don’t step on somebody else’s needs without knowing about them.” The district also has
formal relationships with parochial and private schools, but district respondents report
that the district has very little relationship to area charter schools, and the relationship the
district does have with charter schools is tense. Andie noted:
“There are charters that we can prove come-on to our kids to come to them and
magically after count day they can’t serve them anymore. And so we get this
sorting kind of action. . . .And it happens marvelously year after year. Especially
kids with learning disabilities. What it means is they routinely scoop, pick out the
more able, higher SES kids and filter back the lower functioning kids and hand
them back to us. And that scooping action and filtering action creates a false
image in our public schools of what our public looks like. There’s no way on
earth that this city is 72 percent living at the poverty rate. But my schools are.

And the more mechanisms society has for scooping out what’s making it and

151

dropping back (what’s not), the harder my pool becomes to deal with. The harder

it is to educate and provide opportunity.”

SEE’S Principal Jenny relayed a similar story of charter schools recruiting students for
count day and then sending them back to the neighborhood school. She said that type of
selection process can “tear the (school-community) relationship apart.” She said:

“We’ll have children that have been in our schools for weeks, and automatically,

almost the day before, the parents will get a call (from a charter) and say bring

them in the next day. So you’ve had relationships with children or families
forever, and they think it’s going to be better. And they’ll leave on that hope, and
they’ll call you within three weeks and come back. So it’s like sometimes I feel
like we’re the revolving door for money, when it happens like that. We know
we’re going to lose them, but you don’t feel so bad when that was a life choice

they made. But when you feel like they’re snatched from you, it makes you feel a

little resentful.”

Board President Michael was more discriminating in his criticism of charter
schools, saying he has much respect for some charters, but little respect for charter
schools that are out to make a profit. “Well we actually have a charter school — a school
that we charter, so I wouldn’t say necessarily that we’re against charter schools. Frankly,
I think it depends on what premise one has about charter schools and why there’s a need
for charter schools. If you are of the sort that has the premise that charter schools are
necessary for competition then there cannot be a relationship between charter schools and
public schools.” Michael said, however, there he supports the work of certain charter

schools that are designed to help students at-risk or disadvantaged students -charters like

152

SCA or ICA, for example. Said Michael, “When it comes to helping the struggling kids,
there’s no comer on the market. If you want to come into our schools and help struggling
kids and struggling communities, man, I will Open the door wide for you.” He added that
any of the four charter schools in the central city are schools for which he has high
respect. The schools he does not respect are those that locate around the periphery where
to get a higher per pupil foundation rate “and then pick off our students. I don’t believe
there is a lot of room for wanting to work with them, frankly.”

District School Findings: Comparisons and Contrasts with Public Charter Schools

Data from the district respondents indicate that there are both differences and
similarities in the way citizens are represented in school decision-making. These data also
help further explain the relationship between the public charter schools and the city’s
school district. This relationship is important to understanding how community is
represented in the overall system of public school decision-making.

One of the main differences in how citizens are represented in district schools
versus charter schools is, of course, the difference in the election process. District
respondents note that although turnout in school elections is typically quite low, district
board members indicate a much broader scope of responsibility than their charter school
counterparts. One district board member said his responsibility is to the school, its
neighborhood, and ultimately to the entire district community. Another district board
member indicated that in her view district board representation must be city-wide in order
that the district does not become divided over neighborhood issues. In one sense, then,
one board member’s view of representation aligns more closely to the idea of

associational autonomy than another. If representation were by wards, it is likely that

153

board members would act in ways to advocate the interests of their neighborhoods over
the interest of the district.

The idea of associational representation is as present in the district as it is in the
charter school. ICE’S principal in particular exemplifies the notion of a school
representing an underserved population. By taking her advocacy beyond the limits of the
inner city neighborhood and out to the greater city community, the ICE principal’s efforts
to represent the needs of the inner city neighborhood extended firrther than that of the
charter school that also exhibited a sense of associational representation. SEE’s work to
represent the various needs of the school neighborhood, including those of transient
students and non-English speaking families, also indicates a level of associational
representation.

Unlike charter schools, the school district disseminates information to the
community-at-large and district respondents say the district leaders work hard to keep the
community informed. Media coverage and ongoing television broadcasts of district board
meetings, quarterly newsletters that go to all residents of the city, and a well maintained
and comprehensive Web site make information about the district and its schools
relatively easy to come by. The charter schools in the study, in contrast, make little
information available to residents of the neighborhoods in which the schools reside, let
alone the city’s community-at-large.

There were stark differences in the way board meetings are conducted in the
district schools and charter schools. The district school board meeting was truly open to
anyone who walked through the district office doors. The doors were unlocked, the

entrance was well-lit, and all materials for the meeting were laid out for anyone to take.

154

More than 65 citizens attended the meeting, and many of those in attendance spoke up
during the public comment section of the meeting. The presence of the citizenry and the
media creates a level of responsiveness for district board members that does not exist in
the charter schools. Given that the district serves a city of more than 100,000, with a
school population of about 25,0000, it is expected that more citizens would tum-out for a
district board meeting than a single-school charter board meeting. However, the
accessibility to the meeting and the freedom of board information was a notable
difference in how expression and information is handled in a public school district versus
a public charter school.

Data from the district board meeting also indicated, however, that while citizens
are given the right to speak, what they have to say may or may not be adequately
addressed. District board respondents acknowledged the difficulty in adequately
addressing individual concerns. Part of the problem, they said, is the need to weigh the
benefits of the individual over the benefit of the many. Such was the case with the
woman who hoped the district would provide busing for her child, a service she said she
was entitled to by law. The board responded to her request for a copy of the district
policy, but the superintendent told the woman not to expect the decision of the district to
change, because he said, “we’re doing what everyone else is doing.” While charter school
data indicates the charter schools get very few statements of concern from their
constituencies, there appeared to be a greater attention paid to such concerns. This
difference in responsiveness is likely a function of the size of the school and the size of
the communities the charter schools represent (Dahl, 1998; Mintrom, 2001). However, it

is clear that the structures for democratic representation are more comprehensive and

155

systematic in the district school system than in the charter schools. How well those

structures are used is a matter for consideration.

156

Chapter 6

Community Response

In order to understand the school-community relationship and more specifically
citizens views of how they are represented in school decision-making, it was necessary
to capture the voice of the citizen. The city in which this study takes place is one that has
a network of neighborhood associations run neighborhood association directors who are
employed by the city. The directors are responsible for addressing residents’ interests and
concerns, particularly those related to the city’s public services. I talked with directors of
three of the city’s neighborhood associations. All of them consider the neighborhood
school crucial to the health of the neighborhood. Director Terry serves the downtown and
inner city area. The Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA) hosts SCA and serves
residents who attend ICA, which is housed near the border of DNA but does not sit
within its geographic designation. Director Carrie serves the southeast area (SNA) that
houses CA, and Director Rachel serves the South West (SWNA) area, which houses
REA. Each of the neighborhoods has different characteristics that lead to differing needs,
but all of them identify the school-community relationship as a priority of their work.
DNA
The Downtown Neighborhood Association serves the area that was the city’s first
neighborhood. There are 1300 structures in the neighborhood and approximately 4,000
households. It is a high rental area. It encompasses the neighborhood that houses the
Secondary Charter Academy (SCA) and Inner City Elementary (ICE). Inner City

Academy (ICA) sits just outside its border. In addition, the neighborhood houses a

157

district middle school, two district high schools and one child development center. Terry
has been working with DNA for 20 years.

The work of the DNA in large part is to preserve the historical character of the
neighborhood. The DNA was started in 1968 when the area was marked for demolition
under an urban renewal initiative. Explained Terry:

“It was out with the old, you know. They wanted to build nice single story homes

with a lot of green space. A few neighbors got angry because they couldn’t get

mortgages on their homes. There was one woman who lived in one of the two

Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the neighborhood and no banks would lend her a

mortgage. She was furious. So she talked to more and more neighbors and she

rallied about 125 people who formed DNA.”
Terry noted the city’s long-time mayor, before he was mayor, was one of the initial
neighbors fighting for the preservation of the neighborhood. The downtown
neighborhood eventually was designated an historical neighborhood and was spared from
the urban renewal project.
SNA
The South East Neighborhood Association serves 5,500 households and houses four city
elementary schools including South East Elementary (SEE). It also houses Conversion
Academy (CA). SNA’S Director Carrie noted that the neighborhood is divided into ethnic
communities with various needs.

“The needs of this neighborhood are needs of a lot of new immigrants and people

with changing relationships because the neighborhood has changed so

significantly demographically. Over here you have a highly Afiican American

158

population. And the needs there are different than the highly Hispanic population.
And over here it becomes more and more white middle class. So how peOple view
their schools is different based on their socioeconomic needs and their language
needs.”
Carrie works as the president of the area’s non-profit development corporation, and in the
summer of 2004 signed on as the SNA’S executive director.
SWNA
The South West Neighborhood Association serves 16,000 residents, the majority
of whom live in multi-family homes. Director Rachel said the rise of multi-family homes
has been problematic in the neighborhood because it puts a lot of people into small
spaces.
“The neighborhood went on decline after they put in the two highways right
through the middle of the neighborhood and destroyed a lot of family networks
and a lot of school relationships and neighborhood bonds. Then it became
profitable to convert what were once single family homes into multifamily homes.
So we have a lot of small homes with small yards with a lot of people living in it.
So it has proven to be a problem in the neighborhood.”
Rachel began her position with SWNA in January 2004. The organization itself has been
around for 30 years.
The School-Community Relationship:
The community respondents see it as their job to foster school-community
relationships particularly with the district schools in their neighborhood. The relationship

between community and school is very important, noted SWNA’s Rachel:

159

“There are three things that make up a really good neighborhood, and that’s
having a healthy business district, really good schools, and active neighbors,
residents. And so even if you don’t have kids in the schools, having good schools
increases your property value, and it betters the neighborhood as a whole. It’s an
important key. Kids going to school and doing well is of benefit to the
neighborhood.”
The respondents see the charter schools as independent schools with little tie to
the neighborhoods, but at least two respondents noted that the district schools are not

particularly responsive to neighborhood needs either. These respondents noted that the

 

charter schools have been good neighbors, and in some ways more accessible than their
district counterparts. Stated SWNA’S Rachel: “I think it’s easier for a charter school to
respond in that they have a lot less bureaucracy to go through. So their ability to make
decisions is a lot quicker and a lot less watered down from the top.”

Community respondents reported that the bureaucratic, top—down management of
the district in large part dictates how the neighborhood school leaders will relate to the
local neighbors. Terry noted, for example, that the relationship between the neighborhood
and the district had been very tense, but is getting better with the new superintendent. “A
whole new day has started here.” Rachel noted that the previous superintendent was more
responsive to her neighborhood’s needs than the current administrator, who placed a
neighborhood school back on the chopping block after the neighbors fought for its
survival with the previous superintendent. All in all, both said it is difficult to have a

relationship with the local neighborhood schools. Said Terry: “Schools are fairly closed.

160

You know, ‘we are the educators and we know what we’re doing.’ They pat you on your
head and be of . “

SNA’S Carrie said she sees both the charter and district schools as open to
relationships with the neighborhood, but in different ways. For example, the
administrator of the charter school in her neighborhood regularly attends the business
association meetings of the neighborhood, primarily looking to establish service-leaming
partnerships for students. While the administrators of the local district schools rarely
attend neighborhood meetings, the administrators provide access to the district schools to
the neighborhood for meetings and events. “When we need to have a meeting, those
schools are willing to open their doors to us. They are more open to be community
centers.”

Carrie noted some fundamental differences in the way district schools and charter
schools relate to community. District schools, she said, have traditionally played a role in
being a gathering place for community, “a safe place for kids and families to be.” With
charters, she said, that tradition does not exist. She noted it is the mission of the charter
school - not the expectations of community - that is more likely to establish how it relates
to the community. “ It’s very much school to school how a charter school would (act)
versus the mindset of what a public school is supposed to be.” She also said the focus of
charter schools is on the student as an individual whereas the focus of district schools is
on children as a part of the community. “I think there’s a reciprocal relationship expected
where (schools) open the doors to you and you help with our children.”

Terry also provided evidence that the neighborhood schools open their facilities

up to the community. “I live right next door to the (district) child development center and

161

that is for sure the neighborhood playground. It’s wonderful to see every generation
including my daughter who has used that playground. The (district) looks at their
playgrounds for neighborhood use.” She also said, however, that the SCA, the charter
school in her neighborhood, also provided space for DNA meetings, though the space
was not very conducive to the organization’s needs.

While Teny said SCA administrators are more accessible than district school
administrators, she said the relationship she has with the charter school is less substantial
than her relationship with the district school, in part because the charter school draws
students from all parts of the city and is not focused on servicing the neighborhood like
the local district school. Terry told the story of how the SCA board and staff were upset
with the neighborhood’s opposition to the sale of a district school in the neighborhood:

“They were taking it personally when in fact we just really supported keeping the
district in control of that school (for future use). There are 500 new households
going into that area and we believed it could be a good elementary for this new
neighborhood. There’s not a whole lot of kids from DNA that go to SCA. And
that really changes the relationship between a school and its neighborhood.”

The district schools, said SN A’s Carrie, cater to the needs of the community more
than the charter schools. Two of the area’s district elementary schools, for example, have
a health clinic in the school. “So they’re there to meet the social needs of the families, not
just the education (of the students)” Carrie said both the district schools and charter
schools are obligated to the parents and students they serve, but the district schools,
because they are neighborhood based, also serve the needs of the neighborhood. The

differences between how the charter school and the district school relate to the

162

community may be more related to the changing face of community in society, noted
Carrie. She explained:
“Our organizing efforts become efforts that are a few blocks (wide) because we
can make a lot more success than a broad stroke approach that used to work back
15-20 years ago. I think that carries in the whole thing with schools and how
people are very individual. We have people we communicate with on the Internet
halfway across the world and we talk to them just as much or more than we might
talk to our neighbor.”
Representation

The community respondents noted that while community representation in charter
school decision-making is rare, representation in district decisions is not as strong as they
would like it to be. Rachel noted that her neighborhood is represented on the district
school board by one resident who has little say on the school board. “And so for her to
make a change on the board and get them to steer in a leadership that she feels is
important it’s proven difficult for her.” Rachel also noted that residents in her
neighborhood sense that neither the district schools nor the charter schools feel an
obligation to the neighborhood. She explained:

“The (district schools) have an obligation to the city as a whole to provide certain
services; they don’t feel like they have an obligation to meet the needs of a
specific neighborhood. But the neighborhood feels like, “Wait a minute, we
deserve to have local elementary schools where we can walk our kids to school

and not have to bus them across.’ And the ones that are near, we feel like they

163

have an obligation to get these schools up to par. And if there’s something we

can do to help, let us know.”

The charter school, she said, is obligated to its target market: the students and parents it
serves, and to its donors. “If they grew out of that building, they could pick up and leave
and go to somebody else’s neighborhood.” Rachel noted, however, the district schools
with the recent school closings have done the same thing.

DN A’s Terry said that the district board has been frustrating to deal with and she
said people in her neighborhood often feel as if they are not well represented. She also
said neighbors do have the power to change the board through voting, and in fact the
neighborhood has organized board campaigns successfully in the past. Said Teny:

“We’ve just come through hell, quite frankly. Under the previous administration it

was an absolute nightmare. The whole closing of so many schools for political

reasons and trying to get information and access to decision-makers was
impossible. And the school board was virtually a rubber stamp. I worked hard

with the school board and I had no idea of the culture of school boards, and I

quickly realized that school boards are really just the rubber stamp of the

superintendent. “

Terry, who has worked with five superintendents over the years, noted that the
short term of superintendents gives the superintendents “hit people” status, where they
have to have “grandiose plans” to get hired and then they’re given free reign by their
boards. “Then there’s no history,” said Terry, “because they get everybody mad at them,
then you have a change, and somebody new comes in with a new vision. It’s just a crazy

system.”

164

Freedom of Expression
When it comes to building relationships in community, Terry and Rachel noted
that their focus has been on relationships with the city schools, and those relations have
not been the easiest to foster in large part because the bureaucratic, top-down
management style of the district limit the amount of voice neighbors have in school
decisions. The district’s school closings in the past couple of years have left a dramatic
and negative mark on the neighborhoods. When the respondents talked about the school-
community relationship they inevitably speak in terms of the school closings. Stated
Rachel:
“We have three public elementary schools in our neighborhood—or did at least.
They closed the one school that was an exemplary—it was a successful school.
And the other two were what many consider a failing school or less than par - a
school that a good parent probably would not want to use as a first choice to send
their kids to. The school that was doing really well and was nationally recognized
they closed because it didn’t have the required square footage that they felt was
justified to keep open. So that was a large rift in the community. The (neighbors)
fought really hard. When (the previous superintendent) was here they put that on
the closing list and the neighborhood successful fought to keep it open. Then
when the administration switched over, they put it back and then they did
officially close it. It has been closed for a year and a half, and it was devastating.“
Rachel said after two years, they are re-opening the school as a pre-school program,

which does in fact meet a neighborhood need. “We’re excited about that,” she said.

165

What may be most frustrating for the neighbors Rachel noted is that the residents do not
have a sense that they had a say in the closing of the school. Stated Rachel:

“We try (to have a say) but - I mean, they closed the Community Ed Center which

is right here. And we have a neighborhood where people don’t have cars so they

have to walk. And we also have a large Hispanic population of new immigrants.

And so with the ESL program that they had there and with adults being able to

walk to that school, it was really important to the neighborhood - you know, in

the neighborhood that really needs those types of services. So it has proven
difficult to work with the public schools.”

Rachel said the district is incorporating a community engagement model in the
schools that aims to create more neighborhood connections to the schools, but she said
the initiative is in its early stages and she is unsure how it will work. The charter school,
she said, has been more inviting to the neighborhood association.

“They’ve called us. They’ve invited us to come out and take a look. They’ve

given us a tour of their facility. They post our newsletter. And they’ve asked us

to help them with some fund raising in the community. They’ve been much more
involved. And I think they’ve taken the effort to develop a relationship. It’s the
only school in the neighborhood where I feel like I can call the principal and say,

Hey there’s a problem or I see an issue or something like that.”

Rachel noted that the neighborhood association and the residents have not been involved
in the charter school as advocates, but she said that is partly due to the fact that it is seen
as a good program and advocacy is not needed. “I mean it’s a great asset. And we’re glad

that they’re here.” She also said the types of things they would advocate for — growth

166

concerns, environmental concerns — are not an issue in the school’s current location. Her
only concern with the school, she said, is that it takes students from everywhere, and she
would like to see it more available to the students in the neighborhood.

Although Rachel said SWNA has a good relationship with REA, she would like to
see more avenues for neighborhood input. Part of the issue, she said, is the way board
members are appointed to the charter school. She said: “I think it hinders the ability of
the neighborhood to have a stronger impact (on the school)” However, Rachel said it is
not necessary to have an elected board to accomplish greater representation, but a more
open process for deliberation with the charter school board, possibly appointing a
neighborhood resident or SWNA representative as a member of the charter school board.

Terry also noted that the charter school administrators are more accessible than
the district school administrators in large part because they are small independent
schools. “They don’t have the major bureaucracy to jump through. It’s just more direct
lines of communication.” During the period when the district was looking at closing a
neighborhood school, Terry said the principal, who always had a good relationship with
the neighbors and was fighting hard to save the school, had to walk a fine line between
the district and the neighborhood. “Principals were not supposed to be involved in this
whole school closing. They were to walk the administration line.”

The new district administration is more open, however, said Teny. She said she
can call the superintendent any day and expect to receive a call back from him within an
hour if not sooner. “I could never get through to the (previous) superintendent). And ifI
tried talking to her, it didn’t matter what I would say, she’d tell me what I needed to

know or what I needed to do. There was no public influence on the administration, and

167

again that’s what it is. The relationship of the public schools is solely based on the
superintendent.”
Freedom of Information

Little information flows to the neighborhood association directors from either
district schools or charter schools, although the neighborhood associations do receive the
quarterly district newsletters and are able to access information on district activities
through the district Web site and local media. DNA’s Terry said, however, that the
media’s portrayal of the district contributes to the poor reputation of the district, even
though the district, she said, has some excellent programs. She said: “The stuff you read
in the paper — it’s always the bad stuff. So I think neighbors have a really low opinion of
the capabilities of the (district) schools.” The lack of information to neighbors about
charter schools also has negative implications. SWNA’s Rachel noted that the lack of
information residents receive about charter schools contributes to misconceptions about
the school. She said, “They don’t realize that this is free to community and that it is not a
religious affiliation.” Part of the misconception Rachel said comes from the fact that the
school is housed in a Catholic school that has a long history in the neighborhood as a
private, religious school.

The neighborhood association directors noted that the charter school
administrators are receptive to bringing information from the neighborhood association
into the school. Rachel said, for example, REA has regularly posts the SWNA’s
newsletter on the school bulletin board. SNA’S Carrie said she receives little information
from either the district school or the charter school, but she has more contact with the

charter school administrator because he frequently attends the business association

168

meetings in the neighborhood to let the businesses know what the students are doing and
what kinds of service-leaming projects opportunities are available at the school.
However, neighborhood association directors said there is very little information—sharing
that goes on between the local schools and the neighborhood, although the directors said
they do get more information about the district schools and the neighbors have a better
understanding of the role of the district schools in the community.

Inclusive Representation

The culture of the district has not been one that has welcomed citizen input or
involvement. Community respondents said that while there have been some good
principals in some of the neighborhood schools, the bureaucratic, top-down management
of the schools has prevented the inclusion of residents in school decision-making.
Furthermore, Terry noted that the culture of the district has been closed to outside
influences for so long that there is a disinvestrnent from neighbors as a result. She said
she sees the culture changing. “I think they are finally realizing that they have to open up
their doors, invite people in, embrace every partner, every support they can to make the
schools the real center.”

None of the community respondents indicated that any of the public schools in
their neighborhoods exclude students from services, although all of them pointed out that
few of the neighborhood children attend the charter schools, and that the practice of
pulling students from all over the city to attend the charter schools does not help develop
a neighborhood connection to the charter schools.

The fact that the charter school boards have few if any representatives from the

neighborhoods also is a concern for the community respondents. Rachel noted that

169

having a SWNA representative on the charter school board could help bring the issues of
the neighborhood to the school board and vice verse. “I would strongly encourage the
charter schools to consider having a neighborhood organization representative be on their
board. That way if there are issues surrounding the neighborhood where that school is
located, then the association could help address those.” Rachel also noted that while
several of her residents attend district board meetings regularly, no one she knows of in
her neighborhood attends the charter school board meetings.
Although the community respondents noted that having choice for students can be
a good result of having a charter school in the neighborhood, the prevalence of too much
choice and too much competition can destroy the cohesive nature of the neighborhood.
DN A’s Terry noted that the city has always had a choice environment with private school
options, but the addition of charter schools has added to the difficulty. She explained:
“You have such competing forces here You have this huge Christian school
network that there are parents who regardless of how great the public schools or
other schools are around, they’re going to send their kids to the Christian schools.
The Catholic schools, people are going to send their kids to the Catholic schools
regardless of what other choice they have based purely on beliefs. So you’ve
always had a large population going to the Christian and Catholic schools. And
now you have a new element with the charter schools. So you’re offering yet
another alternative. So the city schools have to compete with a lot of other
schools, and that has been difficult for them. And it is a very difficult issue to
organize around because parents with options are not going to go down and fight

the administration of the district. They will write a check and go to a private

170

school. Or they will pull their kids out and go to charter schools and provide

transportation. . . .Parents with choices - underline, underline, underline — parents

with choices will do whatever they can for their children.”

Terry said school choice has not been “all bad” for the neighborhood, though.
Schools of choice, She said, have been responsible for keeping families in the city, and
when the district opens their doors to inter-district transfers, that helps, too. “When the
transfer policy is an open policy, that’s when more and more people stay in the city.
When they close the door, people leave the district.”

Associational Autonomy

All of the community respondents recognized the autonomous nature of public
charter schools, although none of the respondents spoke in terms of the charter schools
representing a particular group of people. On the contrary, they spoke more in terms of
charter school independence as taking away from the needs and interests of the
neighborhood. As Terry noted, charter schools divide the resources for public schools
with little accountability for public funds. She stated:

“All you’re doing is splitting resources. You can talk about large bureaucracies

and the difficulty of it, but I just feel like here we’re really splitting off into and

dividing up resources and who decides what charter schools should or should not
be. Where is the oversight? I haven’t seen any documentation.”
What she has seen - namely MEAP scores - She said has not convinced her of the need
for a competing set of public schools. “The district has pretty low MEAP scores, and
SCA is half of what the district scores are. So immediately, you go, well then why are we

competing with these resources when they are so limited right now?

171

The respondents however noted elements of associational representation in the
local district schools. SN A’s Carrie said the schools in her neighborhood association
boundaries serve very different ethnic communities and aim to meet the needs of those
different neighborhoods. DNA’s Terry noted that one of the schools in her area is the
Inner City Elementary that serves almost all inner city African American children, with a
few inner city Hispanic children. She said the needs of the school are so different that it is
impossible to attract a different population to that school. The principal at ICE, Terry
noted, advocates for the needs of the inner city, sometimes at the expense of turning off
other parents.

“ICE is a totally isolated school. I mean you’re talking about 99 percent racial

minority. It had an 80 percent transitory rate for both teachers and kids. We had

many, many meetings at the school and having parents who were - you know
tears flowing — talking about how they graduated from ICE, their children had
graduated from there and so many of them are just functionally illiterate. And we
had really very little influence. But the needs are so great that the principal’s
number one priority was washing machines because she said the kids really need
to feel good about themselves. And they need to be able to come and wash their
clothes. Well that isn’t a need of my child. So why would people who don’t need
that help subject themselves to that school? That’s where school (choice) can be
so difficult because parents are very, very protective of their children.”

Findings: Comparisons and Contrasts
Data from the community respondents shed light on issues raised by both charter

school and district school respondents. While the neighborhood association directors

172

noted that the charter school administrators are more accessible and easier to work with
than their district counterparts, they did not substantiate the level of relationship that
some of the charter school respondents indicated existed between the charter schools and
the neighborhood associations. In several of the charter schools, respondents indicated
that those relationships are just beginning to develop so it may be that the charter school
respondents have an idea of the kind of relationship they would like to develop, but it has
not happened yet. The other possibility is that what the charter schools define as a
“relationship” may be much different than what the neighborhood directors envision. The
neighborhood directors, for example, are used to working with entities in their own
communities for the benefit of their own residents. While they see the charter schools as
good neighbors, they do not seem them as integral parts of the neighborhood community.
As Rachel noted: “They can get up and leave if they want.”

Rachel made the same observation of the district schools, underscoring the point
that the district schools represent the district at-large and not necessarily individual
neighborhoods. When schools need to be closed, therefore, the district looks at the grand
plan, putting the district — not the neighborhood — first. This issue also emerged from the
district data; the board president sees a need to be more representative of neighborhoods
and another board members says neighborhood representation will be too divisive for the
district. The focus on the district and not the neighborhood contributes to the
inaccessibility of district school administrators.

The district’s inaccessibility also comes from the top-down management style of
district superintendents, report community respondents. The fact that residents are treated

as individuals who “need to know information” about the school and not as individuals

173

who should have a say in decisions about the district is frustrating for residents. Terry’s
observation that the district administrators come across as the experts in school decision-
making leads to a lack of effective voice among residents. It may be that the professional
decision-making model is what led to the unresponsiveness of districts that Chubb and
Moe (1990) identified in their study. Deborah Stone (1993) calls this type of leadership
clinical authority, or the prescription of a solution by an expert — much like a doctor
might prescribe medicine. The problem with clinical authority in social issues is that
there are always competing issues and interests to consider. Using clinical authority to
resolve these types of issues, she said, is “anti-democratic,” because it excludes the
consideration of some interests when it autocratically focuses on other interests,

The fact that the charter schools administrators are seen as accessible indicates
that small, independent schools do in fact create more access to school authority. Data
from charter school respondents also indicate that the when autonomy exists, it is the
mission and vision of the school leaders that dictate in large degree the school’s efforts to
connect to the broader community. So while the autonomy that the charter schools have
to develop programs that potentially could improve education for the larger community,
how those programs are disseminated, how information is shared among community
members, how citizen voice and interests are incorporated into school decision and the
level of inclusiveness of citizens in the school decision-making process is left up to the
individuals that serve as charter school board members. Who these board members are,
then, greatly affects how the public interests of public schooling will be represented in

charter school decision-making.

174

From this study, it is clear that if the public is to be represented in the decisions of
all public schools, as many scholars recommend and as Michigan citizens prefer, the
autonomy that may create accessible innovative programs must be balanced by the
authority to maintain representation of public interests in school decision-making.
Findings from the study indicate that while the district system has the structures in place
that attempt to preserve citizen representation. In contrast, charter schools have the ability
to create a more open, accessible environment for potential deliberation of citizen
interests. Both of these systems of schooling fall short on their responsiveness to citizens
in school decision-making, however (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Matrix of Schools on Dimensions of Representation

 

 

 

 

 

 

School — SCA REA ICA CA ICE SEE District*
Dimensionsl

Choice in J _ ./. _ ,/ ,/ +
Representation

Freedom of w/ \l— w/-— \/— \7+ \/+ +
Information

Freedom of x/ — x/- _ J... J +
Expression

Associational \/ — x/ J— + J... +
Autonomy

Inclusive \/ — \/ — + + +
Representation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

+ Very Strong; \/+ Strong; \/ Fair; \/- Weak; - Evidence contrary to representation
*Ratings for the district are shown for comparison sake. As can be seen, the political
institutions of representation operate more fully on the district level than the school level.

As can be seen in Figure 3, the evidence for representation on the five dimensions

varies across charter schools and across district schools. While the district, for the most

part, has a system of representation that aligns to Dahl’s criteria, these schools could do

175

more to create a more open system representative of the citizens in the school
neighborhood. For example, even though district board members are represented, data
indicates that the representation of elected board members is not distributed evenly across
neighborhoods. The private-conversion school shows the least evidence of representation,
due to the school’s all-parent board and meetings conducted behind locked doors. A more
extensive version of this matrix with a more complete account of evidence for the ratings

by school can be found in Appendix A.

176

Chapter 7

 

Representation in the Age of Choice: Implications for Policy and Research

It can be said that a function of public policy in a democracy is to ensure the
democratic aims of society are upheld in the public sphere. Public policy in the past has
created structures in the public school system that pressure school leaders to resist
excluding the voice of citizens from the school decision-making process and in essence
oblige schools to be responsible to the public they serve. The opportunity for citizens to
vote on school issues casts all citizens as stakeholders in the public school system and
makes all citizens important to school leaders. Keeping all citizens well informed through
regular newsletters, open door policies, media coverage, school television programming,
and visible and accessible open meetings also preserve avenues for citizen representation
in public school decision-making by making the governance of public schools transparent
to its public stakeholders.

The study of representation in the four charter schools and two district schools in
one city is a small glimpse into how public school policy, and specifically charter school
policy, can affect public representation in school decision-making. The data set in this
study is small and the data are not generalizable. However, evidence from the interviews,
observations, and document review suggests that charter school policies that do not
explicitly oblige authorities to be responsive to the broader community may not be
sufficient in protecting the public interest in charter school decision-making. When the
pressures that force responsiveness are lifted, as they have been through the Michigan

Revised School Code for Public School Academics, the responsiveness of schools to the

177

 

larger community depends almost entirely on the individual interests of the individual
school boards. As can be seen from this study, the mission of these boards in relation to
the broader community is variable, and consequently so is their level of responsiveness to
the community-at-large. Findings from this study also indicate that the structures of
representation present in a public school district may be diluted when filtered through a
large, top-down, bureaucratic system. Information flow to citizens in the public school
district, for example, was strong at the district level, but little information about the local
school was distributed to citizens in the neighborhood. This chapter discusses the
implications for policy aimed at preserving the representation of public interests in public
school decision-making, whether that decision-making takes place in a school district or a
public charter school.

Based on evidence from this study, it is possible that Chubb and Moe (1990) were
right that the large, bureaucratic systems of urban public school districts curtail
responsive to parents, or citizens for that matter. When neighborhood schools closed in
the district, respondents indicated that it was the interests of the district as a whole - not
the interest of the neighborhood — that influenced the decisions regarding which schools
to close. Furthermore, respondents noted that the voice of citizens regarding their local
schools was either ignored or placated during meetings with school authorities. However,
data from the study also indicate that neighborhood school leaders. take seriously their
responsibility to the neighborhood in which the school is located. That responsibility
includes the education of all of the neighborhood children, the care of the neighborhood
school and property, and the provision of community services such as the Food Truck for

senior citizens ICE provides or the language services that SEE provides.

178

Data indicate that charter school leaders do not have the same sense of obligation
to the neighborhood in which their schools are located. With a focus on autonomy,
Michigan’s charter school policy lessens the requirement of charter schools to be
responsive to the broader community. Charter school boards are accountable to a charter
school authorizer, not the local electorate. As a result, charter school boards experience
more freedom to operate as they see fit, nominating their own board members and
running meetings in accordance to the needs of the school. While the charter school
policy aims to provide more autonomy to charter schools in part to spur innovation and
responsiveness to parents, the policy does not eliminate charter schools’ responsibility to
the public-at-large. The Michigan Revised School Code for Public School Academics
maintains the requirement for open and accessible board meetings. However, data from
this study indicate that the autonomy the charter school policy provides may overshadow
the responsibility charter schools have to the larger public. For example, there were
boards in this study that conducted their board meetings in locked school buildings, and
charter school board respondents noted how their own charter school boards acted more
like private boards than public boards, with little connection to the public-at-large.

It is the autonomy of charter schools, however, that allows them to create schools
that address specific student needs. In this way, data indicate that public charter schools
have the potential to serve as “associational democracies,” representing public interests
that have gone under-represented in large school districts where the majority rule (Smith,
2001). Yet, data from the study indicate that there is a temptation to focus on the interests
of only those students and parents enrolled in a school, once the school has reached its

capacity. This is a danger Mintrom (2001) noted when he discussed the democratic

179

potential of charter schools and the possible threats to democracy that these schools may
pose. Protecting public interests in public schooling may require more than good will or
good intentions on the part of charter founders and board members; it might require
policies aimed at ensuring public institutions like public schools maintain a sense of
responsibility to the public. Ensuring that public schools adhere to a set of criteria, like
the dimensions of representation as defined in this study, may be a good start. Public
schools that provide choice in representation, the free flow of information, avenues for
expression, ability for associational representation, and representation that is inclusive
may do a better job representing and responding to the interests of the broader public by
creating closer ties to the public-at-large.

On one hand, then, we have independent public schools that because of their
small size and site-based governance may be more accessible and potentially more
innovative than their district counterparts. On the other hand, these schools lack the sense
of obligation to the public that district schools face. Dahl notes that our democratic and
market structures co-exist in a sort of contemptuous but inseparable relationship. He
writes: “Democracy and market-capitalism are like two persons bound in a tempestuous
marriage that is riven by conflict and yet endures because neither partner wishes to
separate from the other” (p. 166). The problem, writes Dahl, is that market-capitalism
creates inequalities that require “government intervention and regulation to alter its
harmful effects” (176). One way to deal with the balance of democratic representation
and choice in public schooling is to consider policies that provide a mix of site-based

governance and democratic accountability.

180

Chicago Public Schools implemented such a mix in 1988.28 Empirical evidence
from these reforms (Bryk, et a1; Fung, 2003) suggests that such a mix can lead to positive
outcomes for the community and its children by effectively increasing public
participation in school decision-making and consequently increasing public support and
investment in the success of the public schools. Fung writes: “Subsequently, (the
councils) devised and implemented creative strategies and plans that were probably more
effective than what school officials and policy makers would have accomplished on their
own,“ (p. 137). Observe Bryk et al: “The embrace of democratic localism promoted an
expanded equality whereby teachers, parents, and community members could bring
improvement proposals to the table AS a result, the number of channels by which new
ideas might enter schools literally exploded,” (p. 255).

One of the successful aspects of the Chicago reform, note Bryk et al, is the
provision for a significant amount of choice. The mix of choice with increased local
voice is important, they say, because it protects minorities and the under-represented
from oppression by majorities in the local communities. This recommendation aligns
with Dahl’s (1998) conception of democracy and the market as a mutually contemptuous
but necessary relationship. The issue policy makers need to consider, as articulated by
respondents in the River City study, is that choice may be a vehicle for freedom for the
oppressed only if choice is accessible to all. It is the structures of democratic

representation that help to ensure that public services like public schooling are delivered

 

2” In 1988, the city of Chicago instituted a large school governance reform that created
both more autonomy and more community representation through elected site-based
governance councils made up of educators, parents, and community members. The local
councils have autonomy over a number of decisions that affect staffing, discretionary
funding, and strategic planning.

181

in fair and equitable ways, and in a manner that meets the needs and interests of the
citizens they aim to serve.
A focus on mlicy

Michigan’s policies governing public charter schools were designed to give the
emerging schools autonomy in decision-making without much concern for the harm that
might occur from the lack of representation of citizen interests in charter school decision-
making. Data from the study indicate that when public interests in school decision-
making are not considered, the community as a whole suffers, and the tensions between

the community and the schools increase to the point of community “disinvestrnent,” as

 

one respondent put it. Such a disinvestrnent is most noticeable when it affects public
schools that are clearly part of community infrastructure. While public charter schools are
less visible as a piece of the community infrastructure than public district schools, the
fact that charter schools depend on public resources for their operation and aim to serve
all students who choose to attend these schools makes charter schools not only a
community entity but an important part of the public sphere. Stone et al (2001) contend
that community engagement in public school decision-making is necessary to ensure that
the equity goals of public education are adequately addressed. Evidence from this study
suggests Stone et al are right.

Whether it is to ensure equity of service, public accountability for public dollars,
or to honor the value that Michigan citizens place on democratic representation in public
school decision-making, the representation of community interests in public school
decision-making is an important and necessary component of public policy. It is apparent

from this study that the variability in charter school missions and boards leads to

 

182

variability in how charter schools address issues of representation. However, the overall,
systematic representation of public interests in public charter schools likely will not
happen without formal policies in place that oblige school authorities to be responsible
and responsive to a larger community than the students and parents they directly serve.

Data from this study is far from conclusive. However, the picture of
representation gathered from these schools illustrates the need to further consider the
issue of citizen representation in public charter school decision-making, possibly
exploring ways representation can be increased while maintaining the kind of autonomy
that could lead to innovation and greater responsiveness to student needs. Likewise, more
work could be done to examine ways that district school leaders could embrace the
structures of representation that are built into the traditional school district, potentially
increasing citizens’ access to authority and information at the school level. Below are a
few possibilities:

Implications for charter schools:

0 Increase representation of the public interest in school decisions by requiring
public school academies to have some level of community representation on their school
boards, which might be determined through an open, democratic process. Public school
academies might, for example, advertise for board positions in the local community as
well as in regional or state newspapers. To increase the democratic nature of board
appointments, authorizers could take a more active role in the appointment process. For
example, authorizers could provide written criteria for public charter school board
members that includes the expectation that board members will serve not only the

mission of the school but represent the public interests of public schooling. Criteria for

183

 

boards, as data for this study indicate, should also include an expectation of diversity in
representation among board members so boards are not made up primarily of parents or a
single entity.

0 Increase the flow of information to the larger community by requiring quarterly
reports be published and distributed to the community at-large. Even public choice
theorists recognize a key weakness of the market strategy lies in the fact that consumers
often have imperfect information. Increasing information flow between public school
academies and the neighborhoods in which they reside will provide citizens the
opportunity to examine what these schools are, what benefits they provide the
community, and who are the school leaders citizens can contact with questions or
concerns regarding the school.

0 Increase access to public meetings and thereby increase opportunities for
expression by obliging public charter schools to conduct all meetings in Open and
accessible buildings. All public schools in Michigan are subject to the Open Meetings
Act, and as such all public school board meetings are required by law to be open to all
citizens. While the public school academics in this study all attempt to follow the Open
Meetings requirement, at least two of the four public charter schools in the study
conducted their meetings behind locked doors. The doors were locked primarily because
of safety concerns - a lack of security during the evening - but it is important that citizens
who may want to attend these meetings are not barred from doing so because they cannot
get in the door. Meetings could be held in rooms close to the school entrance so there is a
better watch on who comes in the building, or it may be incumbent on each school to hire

a staff member to monitor the open doors.

184

0 Increase inclusiveness of public school academies by ensuring that all schools
comply with existing laws, and charter school boards and their authorizers are held
responsible for the failure of schools to comply with these laws. REA, for example, by
law should have been required to address the issue of egress before opening its doors four
years ago. Disabled citizens who want to attend the school’s board meetings are not able
to because there is no access to the board meeting room on the second floor.
Implications for public school districts:

0 Increase citizen voice in public school decision-making through the
development of site-based governance councils made up of community and school
leaders, which oversee decisions that affect the school-community relationship. A board
that is made up of school and community leaders may increase the level of
responsiveness by shifting the focus of decision-making away from the “professional” or
“clinical” model of decision-making to a more democratic model. Community boards
provide citizens more input into the decision-making process and provide citizens an
opportunity to share the concerns and interests of the local community.

- Increase the flow of information from neighborhood schools to residents in the
schools’ service areas by requiring local schools to share information with residents
either through regular open forums, printed material, or programs like ICE’S Friday Food
Truck that brings the community and the school together.

0 Increase the inclusiveness of representation by encouraging local school leaders
to engage in community decision-making that might affect the school, such as attending
local neighborhood association meetings. The interaction of school leaders with

community leaders at community events may level the territorial playing field, dissolve

185

 

the reputation of school leaders as inaccessible experts, and provide Opportunities for
educators to understand issues from a more community-based perspective.

0 Increase the inclusiveness of representation by encouraging cooperative
arrangements between local school districts and local public charter schools. A more
cohesive system of public schooling will result in better use of taxpayer dollars and
community resources. The growth of public charter schools indicates that school choice
is a welcomed policy among a significant number of stakeholders. Education policies
need to consider ways to decrease the tensions between public school districts and public
charter schools for the benefit of the community stakeholder.

Implications for research:

The research from this study is only an indication of how public charter school
policy affects the school-community relationship and potentially the ability of citizens to
engage in school decisions that affect their lives. More empirical research is needed to
surface the reality of the charter school-community relationship and the possible
innovations that could contribute to a more responsive and more representative system of
public schooling. Questions for further research include:

0 How do district and state policies attempt to balance the tensions between the

democratic and market-based aims of public schooling?

0 How can autonomy that fosters flexibility, innovation, and an ability to respond

to market pressure be balanced with regulations that protect equity goals for

public schooling?

0 How does a shift toward more market-based schooling affect the fundamental

ideals of public schooling in a democratic society?

186

0 How does such a shift affect the school-community relationship?

Answers to these questions could help us better understand the changing
relationships between school and community in the age of choice. Choice policies
attempt to break down the expert-led, bureaucratic system of schooling that is sometimes
impenetrable by the community members the system is designed to serve, but the
autonomy charter school policies provide also threatens the public nature of public
education. By removing charter schools’ responsibility to represent the interests of the
public-at—large, we risk the removal of public schooling from the public sphere.
Consequently, we risk increasing the inequities that result when the full spectrum of
public interests are not represented in public decision-making. Finally, public school
policies that foster autonomous schools may also foster a loss of interest and support by
local citizens, dissolving what has proven to be one of the most important links to the

success of a school: the school’s relationship to the community in which it resides.

187

APPENDIX A

Extended table of representation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School _ SCA REA ICA CA ICE SEE
Dimension l
Choice \/ Diverse - Insular I Diverse -Insular, all J Elected s/ Elected
In board; board; board; parent by district by district
Representation community board- board- board, not not
input into chosen chosen board- neighbor- neighbor-
board- nominees nominees chosen hood hood
chosen nominees
nominees
Information ‘7 Informs \l— Informs \l- ‘/- Informs J-I- Informs w/+ Informs
local school Distributes partners, residents residents
businesses partners, enrollment some through through
and invited brochures; interaction newsletters, newsletters,
agencies community some with media; media;
members control neighbor- little little
exerted by hood school- school-
EMO association level level
information information
Expression 7Access - Access to sl-Access to - Access to x/+ w/
to authority authority authority authority Meetings Meetings
through limited; through limited; accessible, accessible,
open meetings open meetings open; more open;
meetings, held in meetings, held in empowered authority,
public does locked information locked leader top—down
not attend; building; more building
little media controlled
coverage
Associational \7 Serves \/- Serves as \/ Serves J-Offers + Serves \/+ Serves
Autonomy downtown lab school; inner city specific needs of needs of
interest; innovation youth curriculum, inner city, neighbor-
aimed for not yet enrolled in no specific includes hood, no
innovation, shared the school; population whole advocacy
but no served; neighbor- beyond
innovation innovation innovation hood, but
not shared shared not shared advocates
beyond
Inclusion \l - Represents x/ - + Whole + Whole
Represents enrolled Represents Represents neighbor- neighbor-
students families, inner city families hood hood
and some school youth, who agree represented represented
downtown partners; not particularly to rules of
school accessible to those partici-
partners all enrolled in pation
the school

 

+ Very Strong; \/+ Strong; \/ Fair; \/- Weak; — Evidence contrary to representation

188

 

REFERENCES

Arsen, D., Plank, D.N. & Sykes, G. (1999). School Choice Policies in Michigan: The
Rules Matter. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University.

Beneviste, L., Camoy, M., & Rothstein, R. (2003). All Else Equal: Are Public and
Private Schools Different? New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Bryk, A.S., Sebring, P.B., Kerbow, D., Rollow, S. & Easton, I. Q. (2002). Charting
Chicago School Reform: Democratic Localism as a Lever for Change. Colorado:
Westview Press.

Bryk, A. & Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for School Reform.
Educational Leadership, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 40-45.

Boyd, W.L. (2003). Public Education’s Crisis of Performance and Legitimacy:
Introduction and Overview of the Yearbook. In American Governance on Trial:
Change and Challenges. National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago,
Illinois: University of Chicago, pp 1-19.

Chubb, J. E. & Moe, T. M. (1990). Politics, markets, and America ’s schools.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.

Conley, D. (2003). Who Governs Our Schools: Changing Roles and Responsibilities.
New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University.

Dahl, RA. (1998). On Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Denzin, N. & Liconoln, Y. (2000). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks,
California: Sage Publications.

Elmore, R. (1983). Complexity and control: What legislators and administrators can do
about implementing public policy. In Handbook of teaching and policy, L.
Shulman and G. Sykes, eds. New York: Longman, pp. 32-369.

Fiske, E. B. & Ladd, HF. (2000). When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale.
Washington DC: Brookings.

Fuller, B. (2004). Education Policy Under Cultural Pluralism. Education Researcher,
Vol. 32. No. 9.

F ung, A. (2003). Deliberative Democracy, Chicago Style: Grass-roots Governance in
Policing and Public Education, in Deepening Democracy: Institutional
Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, Archon Fung & Erik Olin
Wright (eds.). New York: Verso.

189

 

Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology,
78: 1360--1380.

Gutmann, A. (1987). Democratic Education. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Hess, F. (1999). Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform. Washington.

Hirota, J .M. & Jacobs, LE. (2003). Vital Voices: Building Constituencies for Public
School Reform. A Report for the Ford Foundation. New York Academy for
Educational Development, Chapin Hill Center for Children.

Hirschmann, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms,
organizations, and states. Cambridget, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ingram, H. & Schneider, A. (1993). Constructing Citizenship: The Subtle
Messages of Policy Design. In Public Policy for Democracy, Helen Ingram
and Steven Rathgeb Smith (eds.). Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, pp. 68-
94.

Labaree, D.F. (Spring 1997). Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over
Educational Goals. American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp.
39-81.

Labaree, DP. (2000). Resisting Educational Standards. Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 82, No.
1, pp. 28-83.

Land, D. (2002). Local School Boards Under Review: Their Role and Effectiveness in
Relation to Students’ Academic Achievement. Review of Educational Research,
Summer 2002, Vol. 72, No. 2, pp. 229-278.

Landy, M. (1993). Public Policy and Citizenship. In Public Policy for Democracy, Helen
Ingram and Steven Rathgeb Smith (eds.), Washington, DC: Brookings Institute,
pp. 19-44.

Levin, H. (2000). The Public-Private Nexus in Education. National Center for the Study
of Privatization in Education. Teachers College, Columbia University.

Lubienski, C. (2003). “School Competition and Promotion: Substantive and Symbolic
Differences in Local Education Markets.” Occasional Paper No. 80. Columbia
University: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.
www.ncspe.org

Lutz, F. & Iannaconne, L. (1978). Public Participation in School Decision Making.
Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books.

190

 

 

 

Lutz, F. W., & Merz, C. (1992). The Politics of School / Community Relations. New
York: Teachers College Press, Sage Publications.

McCarthy, M. (1997). “School privatization: friendly or hostile takeover?” In Expertise
versus Responsiveness in Children ’s Worlds: Politics in School, Home and
Community Relationships. The Politics of Education Association Yearbook.
Maureen McClure and Jane Clark Lindle, (eds.), New York: RoutledgeFalmer,
pp. 61-69.

Meier, K. (2002). A Research Agenda on Elections and Education. Educational Policy,
vol. 16, no. 1:219-230.

Meier, K. J. & Gonzalez, J. (October 2003). “Electoral Structure and the Quality of
Representation: The Policy Consequences of School Board Elections.” Paper
presented at the School Board Politics Conference, John F. Kennedy School of
Governance, Cambridge, Mass. www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/SBPapershtm

Miller-Kahn, L. & Smith, M. L. (November 2001). School Choice Policies in the
Political Spectacle. Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 9, NO. 50.
epaa.asu.edu.

Mintrom, M. (November 2001). Educational Governance and Democratic Practice.
Educational Policy, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 615-643.

Mintrom, M. (March 2003). Market Organizations and Deliberative Democracy: Choice
and Voice in Public Service Delivery. Administration & Society, Vol. 35., No. 1,
pp. 52-8 1 .

Miron and Nelson (2000). What’s public about charter schools: Lessons Learned About
Choice and Accountability. California: Corwin Press.

Plank, D.N. & Boyd, W. L. (Summer 1994). Antipolitics, Education, and Institutional
Choice: The Flight from Democracy. American Educational Research Journal,
vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 263-281.

Plank, D.N. (1997). Dreams of Community. In Expertise versus Responsiveness in
Children ’s Worlds: Politics in School, Home and Community Relationships. The
Politics of Education Association Yearbook. Maureen McClure and Jane Clark
Lindle, (eds.), New York: RoutledgeFalmer, pp.13-20.

Posner, RA (2003). Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University.

Putnam, J. (2004). “Charter Schools: 10 Years of Success and Failure.” Lansing,
Michigan: Lansing State Journal.

Putnam, R. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. New

191

 

Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Richardson, H. S. (2002). Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of
Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Smith, S. (2001). The Democratic Potential of Charter Schools. New York: Peter Lang.

Stone, C.N.; Henig, J. R.; Jones. B.D; Pierannunzi, C. (2001). Building Civic Capacity:
The Politics of Reforming Urban Schools. Kansas: The University
Press of Kansas.

Stone, D. (1993). Clinical Authority in the Construction of Citizenship. In
Public Policy for Democracy, Helen Ingram & Steven Rathgeb Smith (eds),
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, pp. 45-64.

Tyack, D. (1974). The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. 1

Tyack, D. & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School
Reform. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Voke, H.M. “Charter Schools: Particularlistic, Pluralistic, and Participatory?” Philosophy
of Education 1998 Yearbook (1999): 140-144.

Williams, M. (1998). Voice, Trust and Memory: Marginalized groups and the failings of
liberal representation. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Yin, R. (1994). Case study research, design and methods. Beverly Hills CA; Sage.

192

   

llllllllllll1111