Speculative Charter School Growth in the Case of UNO Charter School Network in Chicago

Abstract

Charter school advocates see the infusion of market competition into the educational sector as a means to achieving greater efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Within this framework, consumer demand is understood to regulate the charter sector. This article challenges the adequacy of this premise, arguing that the structure of the financing of charter schools plays a decisive, if not determining, role in directing growth. Drawing on an analysis of the financing that enabled the dramatic growth of the UNO Charter School Network (UCSN) in Chicago during the 2000s, the article explores the implications of speculative borrowing and spiraling debt burdens on charter schools and on the functioning of the charter sector more broadly. The analysis reveals that (1) new debt was increasingly used to retire existing debt, (2) the structure of new financing assumed continued growth, and (3) schools within the network were yoked together as revenue from existing—and anticipated—schools was pledged to repay new debt.

Understanding site selection of for-profit educational management organization charter schools

“…Such relative importance of local spending on education primarily represents the way in which charter schools under for-profit business models chase money, in line with the latest finding that profit-oriented charter schools allocate a smaller portion of their expenses to instructional staff (Weber & Baker, in press). Apart from a high likelihood that students who reside in a wealthy school district have greater access to diverse school options, this study shows that the EMOs with the intent of generating satisfactory profit tend to maximize monetary resources through a large reliance on government funding earned by location selection, not through benefit from parent choice upon innovation and diversification in instruction-related activities (Lubienski, 2009;Lubienski & Lee, 2016;Renzulli, Barr, & Paino, 2015;Teresa & Good, in press; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). In other words, the uneven distribution of educational service providers partly demonstrates that competitiveness and marketability obtained through site selection has become instrumental in reinforcing geographical barriers to school access.…”

Educating Latinx and African American Students in Charter Schools: A Comparative Study from Chicago

“…There are several possible reasons behind the above trends. The difference in class size might come from the massive network of Latinx charter schools (Teresa & Good, 2018). In Chicago, Latinx immigrants came to the city with networks of families two decades ago, thus the enrollment of individual students in a charter school could bring other related Latinx students into the system (Kim & McKenry, 1998).…”

“…This preference for an intake of Latinx students could result from institutional and ethnic perspectives. Institutionally, although the cited article argued that the rapid expansion of Latinx charter schools with large cooperation networks might result in educational quality (Teresa & Good, 2018), years of Latinx investment in charter school networks have effectively improved the outcome for Latinx students. Historically, Latinx enrollments were largely influenced by ethnic ties (Tienda & Raijman, 2004).…”

“…We also aimed to compare the availability of educational resources, because Latinx and Black students may confront distinct educational environments even within the same charter school system. In particular, Latinx-dominant charter schools are usually in larger charter networks, whereas Black ones are more independently operated (Teresa & Good, 2018).…”

EDUCATION REFORM AND FINANCIALIZATION: Making the Fiscal Crisis of the Schools

“…School districts can sell or lease individual buildings to the private sector (for example, to charter operators). Conceived of as a portfolio, the idiosyncrasies of a single building will be overshadowed by the performance of the portfolio as a whole (Ascher, 2016; Teresa and Good, 2018). Ambitious capital plans also gain political cover from members of the growth machine, namely elected officials and powerful (white, male) building trades (in contrast to weakened and largely female and non‐white service‐sector staff and teachers unions) (Jenkins, 2021).…”