ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how school ethnographies have developed in response to maturing sociological theories. It examines how the education reform movement structures current educational policy around charter schools and Charter School Management Organizations (CMOs). The book then considers how neoliberal corporate practices have become embedded in charter school culture. The book focuses on the experience of teachers and their encounters with a "culture of exactness" which was made manifest through daily attention to urgency. It shows how students were actively socialized through institutional practices of "tough love" and "no excuses" using a complex and nuanced system of rewards and punishments. The book also shows how the entire CMO is able to adapt its practices to capitalize on the institutional habitus in order to ensure children of color living in poverty achieve some of the top scores on state-level exams.
