A Comparison of Public and Charter School Board Governance in Three States

• Date: 01 June 2015
• Author: Douglas M. Ihrke,Michael R. Ford
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21133

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N M  L, vol. 25, no. 4, Summer 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21133

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence: Michael R. Ford, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Public Administration, 800 Algoma Blvd.,

Oshkosh, WI 54901. E-mail: fordm@uwosh.edu.

A Comparison of Public and Charter

School Board Governance

in  ree States

Michael R. Ford,1 Douglas M. Ihrke2

1University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 2University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

In this article we compare the governance behaviors and preferences of nonprofit charter

school board members with traditional elected public school board members in Michigan,

Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Using originally collected survey data, we find that nonprofit

charter school board members are less likely to place emphasis on relations with the public,

engage in conflict, be ideologically diverse, and perceive the executive as responsible for

key governance tasks than traditionally elected public school board members. The findings

provide new information for policymakers weighing the potential benefits of education

privatization through the use of nonprofit charter schools against the potential loss of demo-

cratic board accountability.

Keywords: governance, charter schools, nonprofit boards

WHAT IS A CHARTER SCHOOL? Ask multiple people this question and it would not be

surprising to get many diff erent answers. Nor would it be unreasonable. According to the

National Alliance for Public School Charter Schools, a national advocacy group, forty-two

US states have charter school laws. However, these laws differ dramatically by, and even

within, states (Renzulli and Roscigno 2005). For example, the State of Wisconsin has three

distinct types of charter schools:

1. Instrumentality charter schools authorized by public school boards and staff ed by school

district employees

2. Non-instrumentality charter schools authorized by public school boards and staff ed by

non-district (and non-unionized) employees, and

3. Non-instrumentality independent charter schools authorized by the city of Milwaukee, the

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside1

 e general concept behind charter schools, however, is common across diff erent states and

types (Mintrom 1997). Charter schools are public schools that are given a degree of free-

dom from school district and state policies in exchange for meeting performance targets