The Importance of Being “Woke”: Charter Management Organizations and the Growth of Social Consciousness as a School Quality Marker

Abstract

Charter management organizations (CMOs) have increasingly had to respond to questions surrounding their organizations—particularly in the context of the broader social awakening around systemic injustices and evidence of their racially inequitable practices. This study investigated how CMOs counteracted criticisms and managed perception by characterizing their organizations as socially and racially conscious. It compared social media content for one CMO population during two time periods that surround the 2016 election: 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019. Findings suggest that the CMOs have increasingly characterized themselves as socially conscious, but their attentiveness to issues of race and racism remained temporally and topically bounded. The article concludes with a discussion of how CMOs’ evolving discourse may influence public perception and considers how CMOs perpetuate a form of neoliberal multiculturalism that normalizes market reform under the discursive cover of a bounded articulation of equity and racial justice.

Mechanisms of Exclusion: Group Homogenization and Deficit Thinking in Integrated Schools

“…It seems likely, however, that the findings are applicable to many other communities across the United States and elsewhere who are attempting to create inclusionary environments. Voluntary and intentional integration and school-based integration are on the rise (Potter & Burris, 2020), as are discussions of racial inequality and institutional racism, especially in the context of schools (Hernández, 2022). Furthermore, discussions of transgender youth’s rights and conflicts over gender-unlabeled bathrooms are increasingly prominent in public and educational discourse (Martino et al, 2019).…”

“…While we know a great deal about the exclusionary experiences of students of color and low-income students and their families in integrated schools and the structural underpinnings of these experiences, there is much to be learned, from both a theoretical and a practical perspective, about the mechanisms connecting racialized structures with exclusionary experiences, especially in the context of growing attention to racial inequality and the burgeoning of voluntary, bottom-up, school integration (Hernández, 2022; Potter & Burris, 2020).…”

The Money Chase: The Role of Racial Innuendo and Marketized Discourse in Courting Private Dollars

“…For example, studies show that in making the case for their schools, CMOs have been shown to derogate Black and Latinx communities by characterizing them as crisis-laden and suggest that students come to CMO schools with dispositions that require behavioral, cultural, and educational rehabilitation (Hernández, 2016). Conversely, studies show that CMOs increasingly characterize their organizations as socially conscious, though they project a bounded version of racial equity that provides cover for neoliberal reform to persist (Hernández, 2022b).…”

Rethinking School Improvement Organizations: Understanding their Variety, Benefits, Risks, and Future Directions

“…In the United Kingdom, for example, the Academies Programme managed 7,000 state-funded schools that did not have to hire teachers with Qualified Teacher Status (Martindale, 2019). Similar things happen in other countries like the friskolor in Sweden, charter management organizations in the United States, and voucher programs in Chile (Hernández, 2022;Hofflinger & von Hippel, 2020;Martindale, 2019). Panel C illustrates how direct support organizations and research/advocacy organizations receives funding from both private philanthropy and public education offices, a dynamic criticized for funneling taxpayer dollars away from traditional public institutions (i.e., neighborhood schools).…”

“…For organizations that directly support schools, we suggest a continuum between those that provide long-term wrap-around management services and those that provide ad hoc supports like annual trainings and professional development. Examples of organizations that more closely relate to the former include education or charter management organizations since they often have longterm contracts where they manage the operations in the school and scale practices among their schools (Hernández, 2022). Examples of organizations that relate to the latter include professional associations and leadership development trainings.…”