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Notes on Organizational Environments and the Emergence of Charter Schools in the United States

General information about the article


The teacher of our class says that this article is a nice demonstration of how multiple theories can be brought to bear on a case
This article will show how the early stages in school formation are embedded in an organizational and institutional context Three organizational theories are used: Neoinstitutional, population ecology and resource dependence

Charter Schools are a new and unique type of elementary and secondary public schools
Unique because they can be created by groups of laypeople They still have to follow the state an local regulations for safety, health and nondiscrimination, But they are free on how to manage and organize They are the fastest-growing type of school, but there were none before 1990, and in 2004, there were charter schools in 41 states, the DC and in more than 350 school districts (increase of 14% since 20002) There has been a lot of research on Charter Schools, but very little on how is the environment when they are formed National studies show that autonomy is a primary motivation for the founders of charter schools Creators report that they opened the school because they wanted to create alternative curriculum and instructional approach Steps if you want to create a Charter Schools File an application If approved, then the school receives state funds Many are not approved, for political or ideological reasons This article will examine the submission of applications and try to infere how the waters were when the school was forming Only when the application is accepted, then a process starts: the organization passes through several formative stages before it becomes operational. This is the process that has been extensively studied, ignoring the application process that this article is going to study :-)

A simplistic view will say that charter schools should emerge in all places that need them, but that approach ignores the incorporation of organizational and institutional forces
The results of the research in the article, show that the environments are key in the process of creating charter schools Nonreligious private school increase the submission of charter applications The saturation of charter schools decrease the submission of applications Local political environments and legislative support matter as well It is not always social need who drives the proliferation of charter schools; Sometimes it is the sociopolitical environment In this article, the writer identifies the organizational and institutional conditions under which people submit charter school applications She uses the three organization theories She suggests that other factors have an impact on the formation of charter schools beyond other districtlevel factors Organizational landscape Institutional support Potential resources Attributes of the school
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Notes on Organizational Environments and the Emergence of Charter Schools in the United States

How organizational environments matter


Neoinstitutional theory
Organizations are shaped in part by political and social forces in their environment When regulatory agencies legitimate an action, it becomes more sociopolitically legitimate, and has access to resources Charter schools are authorized only in states with charter school legislation. The author has three hypotheses on how the environment can affect the birth of charter schools 1. Districts in states where the charter school legislation is considered strong, will have more charter schools submissions than will districts in states in which the legislation is considered weak 2. There is a positive relationship between the number of charter school initiations and the length of time the state has had charter legislation 3. Highly bureaucratic districts can be so annoying, that fed up people would be more biased towards creating their own schools just to avoid all that school bureaucracy

Population ecology
These analysts measure density and its connection to cognitive legitimacy and competition The function is an inverted U-Shape curve and works like this 1. If there is little competition and higher legitimacy, then there are going to be more organization births 2. When more and more new organizations are born, legitimacy is not a problem, but competition becomes higher Some authors think that legitimacy makes more and more births, so density is higher Others think the contrary: you have to start measuring the density, and if it is high, then legitimacy is higher 3. At that point, the U-shape starts to go to lower values, as there is more competition and less legitimacy, therefore, fewer births This author's hypothesis 1. The number of charter schools that exist at a given moment, will affect the initiation of new charter schools 2. The geographic space is important in understanding the relationship between density and initiation If the population is low density, then the competition is harder and then the inverted U-Shape will be affected when it is going up However, Charter schools are highly local, so the total number of charter schools in one state may not affect the initiation of charter schools, because these schools are highly micro-local 3. If there is a wide variety of other types of schools, then the initiation of charter schools is affected because charter schools may not be competitive in such an environment However, studies show that people tend to change to a charter school more when they are in a private school than when they are in a public school This suggests that a greater number of private schools should lead to a greater number of charter school submissions

Resource dependence
The resources available for schools may be influential, because potential founders of a new charter school will only send and application if they think it will be successful Founders may be more likely to submit applications in districts with high-levels of per-pupil funding Therefore, districts with greater per-pupil expenditure may be more likely to have a greater number of charter school submissions

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Notes on Organizational Environments and the Emergence of Charter Schools in the United States

The authors research


Method
Data and measurement District, county and state-level measures Multiple sources Dependent variable Publicly available information 29 states and DC Dependent variable: The number of charter school applications in a district each year (count) Independent variable Legislative strength Charter law exposure Number of district administrators Controls Number of special education students in a district Percentage of low income students Percentage of nonwhite students

Analytic Strategy
Counts Negative binomial model Random-effects modeling

Results
It is possible to find support for all the hypotheses Charter school initiation can be understood better when the three theories are used to study it

Conclusion
The story of educational need per se is not sufficient to explain the initiation of charter schools The characteristics of the organizational landscape and institutional environment affect charter school initiation The population status also affects the initiation of charter schools

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