UC Berkeley

Alleviating racial inequity has remained a central yet elusive goal in education reform. As racial inequities have persisted, policymakers have instituted a variety of policies to address educational disparities. Most recently, reformers have advocated to scale up the number of high quality charter schools to improve educational opportunities for communities of color. While many endorse charters as a means to address inequities, politics, or the manner in which power is asserted in the charter context, may complicate the degree to which charters advance equity. As charters engage in strategic behaviors to secure resources, they persuade and interact with various stakeholders to build supportive coalitions. These behaviors occur within contexts characterized by unique political, economic, and racial dynamics that can affect how power and influence work at the local level. These strategic engagement behaviors and their intersection with racial and political contexts are less understood within the research base on charter schools.

This study focuses centrally on these coalition-building efforts. In this embedded case study, I employ an interdisciplinary framework synthesizing concepts from political science and sociology to explore the political and racial dimensions of efforts implemented by charter management organizations (CMOs)—nonprofits with the mission of replicating ‘what works’ across a network of schools. I analyze the engagement strategies of a population of 10 CMOs operating in one urban district in California alongside an in-depth analysis of three nested organizations who vary distinctively in their organizational status. I draw upon interview, observational, and documentary data to examine how national and local politics interact with CMO efforts, how CMOs engage and address the interests of various stakeholders, and how CMOs invoke race throughout the process. Through these questions, I investigate how race, competition, and legitimacy affect coalition-building strategies and CMO relationships with key stakeholders and racial groups.

My analysis reveals that racial politics complicate the degree to which the CMO population at the center of my study advances racial equity. The CMO leaders in the study engaged in both explicit and implicit race-based political efforts to sustain their organizations and manage stakeholder perceptions, yet, in doing so, faced new challenges in maintaining their equity orientations. Issues related to competition and the engagement of diverse stakeholders contributed to the challenges and opportunities that CMOs faced. On one hand, CMOs engaged in race-conscious strategies and messaging to counteract anticipated critiques of the sector’s systematic exclusion of the city’s Black community. They also used implicit racial appeals to politically and symbolically align their organizations with the advancement of racial equity for certain audiences. For others groups, especially stakeholders who maintained financial, political, or racial power, CMOs circulated deficit-laden messaging that reified negative understandings of racial groups to create a justification for their institutional presence or to secure increased funding. Overall, CMOs strategically used race and racial frames to garner support and to secure critical resources in the competitive charter landscape. To sell their brand to multiple audiences, CMOs crafted and conveyed subtle racial narratives that aligned with what they perceived as the racialized values and norms maintained by stakeholder groups.

Advancing these competing and incompatible frames has implications for CMOs’ equity commitments. On one hand, the circulation of deficit-laden characterizations of nondominant groups in any context reifies negative understandings of racial groups, which affects how the U.S. deals with race collectively. In addition, CMOs selectively deployed this discourse to sustain their organizations in a competitive landscape, revealing how competition can drive equity-oriented leaders to employ racialized tactics that undermine their intentions and further reify educational and racial inequity in the pursuit of organizational interest.

This research has theoretical, methodological, and practical implications. Few studies employing political frameworks incorporate an explicit theory of race in political analyses and thus fail to capture the multifaceted manner in which race operates in reform. By synthesizing tenets from political science and sociology, I examine race as an evolving and dynamic concept that can be investigated through both traditional political concepts like coalition governance and lesser-employed sociological concepts related to racial representation and discourse. Methodologically, my examination of messaging through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis also provides a unique contribution as discourse has been underexamined in political processes and sheds lights on how the often-subtle invocation of race-based frames may undermine engagement efforts and the advancement of educational and racial equity. Finally, this research has practical contributions for educational leaders and policymakers. This dissertation advances policy knowledge to inform broader understandings of CMOs and suggests new areas for reflection and culturally responsive practices that leaders can enact to enable strong partnerships with marginalized communities.