Working Without a Safety Net: How Charter School Leaders Can Best Survive on the High Wire

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September 2008
Christine Campbell, Betheny Gross

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When charter school directors step into the job, they step onto a high wire with no safety net below them. Though they take on a broader set of responsibilities than traditional public school leaders, charter directors rarely have the “back office” administrative support of a district central office. Instead, it is up to them to secure and manage facilities, recruit students and teachers, raise and manage funds, and coordinate curriculum and instruction.

How are charter school leaders facing this challenge? In Working Without a Safety Net: How Charter School Leaders Can Best Survive on the High Wire, authors Christine Campbell and Betheny Gross explain that today’s charter school directors, though deeply motivated by their school’s mission and the students they serve, can have their confidence shaken by many of the extras they face.

Drawing from a six-state survey, the authors find that, like traditional public school principals, today’s charter school directors often come to their positions from other jobs in education and with training from schools of education. However, charter school leaders tend to be younger and newer to leadership positions; many have only a couple years of experience in school administration.

While confident that they can establish a culture of high expectations that is focused and student-centered, charter school directors are less confident in securing facilities, managing finances, hiring teachers, and leading strategic planning—some of the most serious issues for charter schools and ones not faced by traditional public school directors. And experience matters. Directors in their first and second years are least confident and report a high incidence of problems in nearly every issue probed.

Looking to the future, there is significant need to plan for smooth leadership transitions in the charter sector. Within the next five years, over 70 percent of today’s directors expect to leave their current jobs, with only a handful expecting to take on a director position in a different charter school. Almost half of charter school leaders reported that their schools have no plan for leadership succession.

To meet the needs of up-and-coming directors, the authors call for a comprehensive pre-service and in-service training and support system. National organizations should expand charter-specific training programs and support meaningful internships. States and cities should provide peer-mentoring opportunities that will allow new leaders to learn from the experienced. At the school level, directors should distribute certain administrative responsibilities, either with others in the school or through participation in management organizations. Charter boards should prepare their schools to survive future leadership transitions.

Working Without a Safety Net was produced by the National Charter School Research Project’s (NCSRP) Inside Charter Schools (ICS) initiative. A summary of this research also appears in Education Week’s annual “Leading for Learning” report, released September 8, 2008. See “The High-Wire Job of Charter School Leadership,” by Christine Campbell, Betheny Gross, and Robin Lake.