charter schools can lose access to facilities, teacher candidates, coaches, professional development opportunities, and
other resources.
Charter schools do not have to cut
themselves off from the outside world.
Horizons, an urban charter high school
that sought to provide a college-preparatory curriculum for all, established a close working relationship with
its local district. That relationship
included a contract for the district to
provide special education services at
the school, opportunities for staff to
participate in districtwide professional
development, and access to job candidates and student applicants.
At the same time, to better manage
the school’s relationship with the
district, the principal needed to know
the laws and regulations on charter
schools far better than the district did.
For example, when district administrators asked the principal to explain why
the school’s accountability report noted
that “most” of the school’s curricular
material was on the approved list, the
principal knew the district was overstepping its authority and simply
replied, “It means most are on the list.”
However, to strengthen his hand in
negotiations with the district, the principal also helped establish a network
among the local charter schools so they
could work together to advocate for
common needs—such as access to facilities, personnel, and other resources—
and respond collectively to some of the
pressures they faced. As the principal
put it, “[The charter schools] were able
to agree…that we really did need to
work together even if there was some
competition between us. So we started
sharing projects.”
These kinds of collaborative relationships provide the social capital that
comes from what the principal called a
“strength-in-numbers approach.”
Without such support from a network
of allies—which also may include
organized blocs of voting parents—both
charter schools and more traditional
public schools have limited chances to
develop their autonomy and flexibility.
who have access to different kinds of
information, expertise, and authority
and who can come together to pursue
their interests in many different ways.
How to Manage the Environment
Schools that distribute the work, scan
and seed the environment, cultivate
networks of allies, and thoughtfully
work to reshape demands put themselves in a strong position to deal with
changing conditions in the external environment. The power and social capital
that comes with managing external
demands, however, suggests several key
strategies for school leaders.
Improve the External Environment
Managing the environment outside the
school is closely intertwined with the
work of making improvements inside
the school. Schools that can carry out
three key internal practices—developing
a shared understanding and a common
theory of action, effectively dealing with
hiring and turnover, and fostering a
productive staff work environment—are
in a much better position to manage the
Collaborative relationships provide
the social capital that comes from
a “strength-in-numbers approach.”
Envision a New Organizational Chart
Although managing the environment
depends on identifying those who are
outside the school and figuring out how
to deal with them, in some ways schools
can draw their own boundaries. The
traditional organizational chart listing
those who report to the principal or
school leader formally defines who
counts as being inside the organization,
but schools can also draw in parents,
community members, district administrators, and other educators to develop a
larger school community.
Instead of treating these groups as
outsiders with whom they have to deal,
schools can treat them as insiders who
have useful information and expertise,
can take on key roles and responsibilities, and can help the school expand its
network. Rather than treating schools
as part of a system in which control and
authority are clearly defined, it may
make more sense to view the system as
a collection of diverse constituencies
external environment than are other
schools (Hatch, 2009).
This circular relationship between
internal and external practices helps
explain why it takes capacity to build
capacity and why it is so hard to help
schools that do not already have some
capacity to manage external demands
(Elmore, 2002; Hatch, 2001). Given this
problem, efforts to make improvements
in the schools that struggle the most may
be more successful if they begin with
work on the external environment.
From this perspective, some of the
funds designated for “failing” schools—
focusing on hiring consultants, developing new strategic plans, and implementing new programs—are likely to be
better spent on thoughtful improvements to libraries, playgrounds, or other
aspects of the physical environment that
can serve both the neighborhood and
the school community. Similarly, efforts
to establish new day-care or after-school
programs can serve community needs,
