ABSTRACT
As we reach the 25th anniversary of the opening of the first charter school in Minnesota in 1992, it is instructive to take stock of the origins of charter schools, how the reform was implemented, and how policy feedback led to new laws and policies. This chapter reviews research on charter schools and identifies three major challenges to its implementation. First is the notion that proponents of charter schools anticipated that school-by-school change would ultimately produce system change. But this did not happen until the philanthropic community invested heavily in networks of charter schools to speed up system change. The second implementation challenge relates to charter schools as engines of innovation. However, charter schools have not experimented much with innovation, and as a result, traditional models of education prevail. Finally, contrary to the vision of charter schools attracting diverse groups of students, many charter school populations are, by design, homogeneous in terms of race, socioeconomic status, and parents’ educational attainment. We discuss the three challenges which ultimately laid the foundation for new policy demands in response to the backfires and unintended consequences during early implementation of the charter school movement. We suggest that these new policies redefined charter schools in ways that returned the movement to its roots—schools that use their decision-making authority to design innovative practices to educate students from diverse backgrounds and experiences.
