The prevalence of charter management organizations (CMOs)--networks of charter schools overseen by a home office--has exploded in recent years but there is a paucity of research into how CMOs approach growth and the factors that influence their growth plans. In this qualitative study, we examine how a set of 25 older, more established CMOs…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report findings from an exploratory study of New York's Children First Networks (CFNs); to examine what is known about the CFNs thus far, drawing on new empirical research, as well as document review and analysis of secondary sources. Design/methodology/approach: Organizational learning theory guided this…

This document presents findings of the Assessment of School-Based Management Study, which identified the conditions in schools that promote high performance through school-based management (SBM). The study's conceptual framework was based on Edward E. Lawler's (1986) model. The high-involvement framework posits that four resources must spread…

There has been a rapid increase over the past 5 years in both the number of charter schools in the United States and the enthusiasm for the concept. Most research about charter schools has not addressed how charter schools create and sustain high-quality learning communities. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated how learning…

The School-Based Management Project was designed to determine how School-Based Management (SBM), when combined with curriculum and instruction reform, could work to improve the performance of schools. This report presents findings of a study that examined American, Canadian, and Australian schools that exhibited a range of success in restructuring…

Data from an evaluation of the Annenberg Challenge in Los Angeles, a reform effort that experimented with school networks as a vehicle for improving schools, revealed that when school networks created structures that decentralized power and distributed organizational resources throughout the network, they also enhanced school capacity for reform.…