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Education Reform in
the Twenty-First
Century
The Marketization of Teaching
and Learning at a No-Excuses
Charter School
Erinn Brooks
Education Reform in the Twenty-First Century
“What happens when schools run like businesses? In this fascinating account,
Brooks goes undercover at Eclipse Prep, a for-profit charter school, to reveal
how ‘market-centered mania’ in education is transforming the work of teaching.
Richly detailed and engaging, this book takes us into a results-driven world where
teachers compete to climb the corporate educational ladder. The results may
surprise you.”
—Joanne Golann, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, Vanderbilt
University, USA, and Author of Scripting the Moves: Culture and Control in a
“No Excuses” School (2021)
“While much has been written about the education reform movement, few
studies offer the view from the inside that Erinn Brooks brings us in this amazing
book. And what a view! Brooks’ covert ethnography carefully documents the
contradictions between equity and control in a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, and
challenges the social justice rhetoric of education reform.”
—Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, Indiana University,
USA, and Author of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools
Outperform Private Schools (2013)
“In her fascinating ethnography of a network charter school, Erinn Brooks shows
us how market logic undermines quality teaching and hurts students. Anyone
who wants an inside look at the dangers of turning education over to profit-
seeking corporations will find this book indispensable.”
—Michael Schwalbe, Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University,
USA, and Author of Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in
Everyday Life (2008)
“In this ethnography of a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, Brooks provides a rare

glimpse from inside. Despite a mission that centers racial equity, the reality
behind-the-scenes is quite different. In this corporate environment, where reputa-
tion and career advancement mean everything, student learning suffers. Teachers
compete rather than collaborating to develop their craft. They control students
rather than educating them. This disturbing book reveals that market-based
education is not resolving inequities—it is indisputably compounding them.”
—Kristen Buras, Associate Professor, Georgia State University, USA, and Author
of Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets
Grassroots Resistance (2014)
“This is an important ‘must read’ book by anyone worried about the intru-
sion of for-profit market logics into the U.S. education system. Like Dorothy
unmasking the Wizard of Oz, Brooks’ insights into a large charter school corpo-
ration and the workings of one of its schools reveal a truly dark underbelly—an
underbelly wherein symbolic frames of inclusion and excellence often conceal
enhanced policing of students and terrible cut-throat competition, vulnerability,
and non-cooperative pressures among teachers.”
—Vincent J. Roscigno, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Sociology,
The Ohio State University, USA
“Erinn Brooks’s undercover immersion in one of the rapidly growing number of

no-excuses charter schools shines the light on the devastating impact of marke-
tization and misleading rhetoric on the macro school systems and the micro
everyday practices, particularly for the disenfranchised communities that they
purport to serve. This book is an important intervention for resisting the
dismantling of public education.”
—Kevin Kumashiro, Author of Surrendered: Why Progressives Are Losing the
Biggest Battles in Education (2020)
“Erinn Brooks’ new book is a unique contribution to the literature on education

reform. It provides a grounded, rich, ethnographic story detailing the reality
not the mythology of a charter school education. She carefully draws on the
literature and her data to evaluate the impact of charters’ policing of students,
business corporate model and restructuring of the teaching profession into a
metric driven, mechanized work. This granular analysis of the charter culture’s
impact on the teaching profession and Black and Brown students’ education is a
substantial contribution to the education literature.”
—Michael Fabricant, Professor, Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work at
City University of New York (CUNY), USA, and Author of Charter Schools
and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education (2012)
Erinn Brooks
Education Reform
in the Twenty-First
Century
The Marketization of Teaching and Learning at a
No-Excuses Charter School
Erinn Brooks
Sociology
St. Norbert College
De Pere, WI, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-61194-1 ISBN 978-3-030-61195-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61195-8
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Acknowledgments
Eclipse’s administrators and staff are the bedrock of this study. In spite
of my covert status, I will be forever grateful for the openness and dedi-
cation that so many of my supervisors and colleagues displayed. I experi-
enced firsthand the precarity of working in a marketized, no-excuses envi-
ronment, but I also felt the deep comradery that coworkers and friends
sometimes develop under duress. I dedicate this book to the overworked
and underappreciated teachers and school support staff at Eclipse and far
beyond.
This study began as a dissertation, which was partially funded by the
Myra Sadker Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Grant, as well as North
Carolina State University’s Dissertation Completion Grant. I am indebted
to the members of my dissertation committee, who provided invaluable
guidance and feedback from design to defense. They include Martha
Crowley (co-chair), Sinikka Elliott (co-chair), Kim Ebert, and Michael
Schwalbe.
Several undergraduate research assistants poured their hearts into
revising and editing this book. Sara VanCuyk and Mofe Wyse, thank you,
and I look forward to seeing what exciting adventures come next for each
of you. I am also deeply indebted to Corrine Wiborg; I remain beyond
impressed with your work and could not have gotten this book across the
finish line without you. I am also grateful for thoughtful feedback from
Lisa McManus and Amanda Wyant, as well as three anonymous Palgrave
reviewers.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Finally, I imagine very few book projects are completed without the
loving, loyal support of friends or family who patiently endure hours of
fieldwork, writing, venting, mulling, and more writing. Thank you to my
partner, Katy, for putting up with all of it. To my five daughters, I hope
for your sake that this book adds to the critique of what schooling is and
the dream of what it might be.
Contents
1 Market-Centered Mania and Network Charter Schools 1

1.1 A Brief History of Charter Schools 3
1.1.1 Types of Charter Schools 3
1.1.2 The No-Excuses Model 4
1.1.3 The No-Excuses Network Niche 6
1.2 Market-Centered Reform 8
1.2.1 Accountability 8
1.2.2 Accountability Among Charter Networks 9
1.2.3 Competition 10
1.2.4 Competition Among Charter Networks 11
1.2.5 Scale 12
1.2.6 Scale Among Charter Networks 13
1.3 Market Mania Meets the New Paternalism 14
1.4 Overview of the Book 15
References 19
2 Going Undercover at Eclipse 29

2.1 The AAG Network 31
2.1.1 Building the Brand 32
2.2 Eclipse Prep 35
2.2.1 Student Characteristics 35
2.2.2 Staff Characteristics 36
2.3 Data Collection 37
vii
viii CONTENTS
2.3.1 Data 37
References 39
3 AAG’s Frontstage 43
3.1 AAG’s Frontstage 45
3.1.1 Achieving Measurable Results 45
3.1.2 Marketing the AAG Brand 48
3.1.3 Recruiting and Retaining Customers 50
3.2 Marketization and Paternalism at Work 53
3.2.1 Staffing AAG Schools 53
3.2.2 Standardizing the Labor Process 56
3.2.3 Surveilling the Labor Process 60
3.3 Front and Center 62
References 63
4 Eclipse’s Backstage 65
4.1 Eclipse’s Backstage 66
4.1.1 Managing Student Behavior 66
4.1.2 Policing the Details 72
4.1.3 Inciting Fear Instead of Feeling Afraid 77
4.2 Discussion and Conclusion 79
References 83
5 Competing on AAG’s Career Ladder 87

5.1 Tracking the Teachers 89
5.2 Re-Conceptualizing the Teaching Profession 90
5.2.1 Promotion Track 91
5.2.2 Plateau Track 93
5.2.3 Turnover Track 95
5.3 Communicating Track Membership 96
5.3.1 Formal Methods 96
5.3.2 Informal Methods 97
5.4 Cultivating Track Investment 101
5.4.1 Resisting and Reinforcing Track Boundaries 103
5.5 Eliminating Nonperformers 105
5.6 The Consequences of Competition 109
References 112
CONTENTS ix
6 Complying Creatively with AAG’s Blueprint 115

6.1 Navigating Formal Policy on the Ground 116
6.1.1 Formal Policy: Keeping Kids in the Room 117
6.1.2 The Challenge of Keeping Kids in the Room 118
6.2 Complying Creatively 123
6.2.1 Creative Compliance: Matthews Sending
Students Out—For Pullouts 123
6.2.2 Failed Creative Compliance: Crosby Sending
Students Out—For Pullouts 127
6.2.3 Contested Creative Compliance: Neal Sending
Students Out—To Other Classrooms 130
6.2.4 Resigned Compliance: Daniels Sending
Students Out—To a VP 135
6.2.5 Noncompliance: Flynn Sending Students
Out—To the Hallway 139
6.3 Discussion and Conclusion 142
References 146
7 Covering AAG’s Tracks 149

7.1 Introducing Student Success Coaches 150
7.1.1 Classroom Coverage 150
7.1.2 Mutual Surveillance 154
7.2 TA Resistance 157
7.2.1 Claiming Hours and Protecting Time 158
7.2.2 Outsiders Within 160
7.3 Carrots and Sticks 162
References 163
8 AAG Dreams and Eclipse Realities 165

8.1 Implications 167
8.1.1 Re-Conceptualizing the Teaching Profession 167
8.1.2 Consequences 169
8.2 The Quality of Schooling Under Marketization 171
8.2.1 Organizational Instability 171
8.2.2 Social Reproduction 172
8.2.3 Equity-Conscious Discourse 175
8.3 Conclusion 176
References 179
x CONTENTS
Appendices 185
Index 193
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 AAG mailed advertisement excerpt 46

Fig. 3.2 AAG online advertisement excerpt 48
Fig. 4.1 The authority-care typology for managing behavior 80
Fig. 5.1 Informal Career Tracks 89
Fig. 6.1 Where cases fall in the authority-care typology 123
xi
List of Tables
Table 3.1 Eclipse salary differentials relative to local public school

districts 54
Table 3.2 Quarterly performance evaluation 58
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Market-Centered Mania and Network Charter

Schools
President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address featured a

special guest—Philadelphia fourth grader Janiyah Davis. When the Presi-
dent’s remarks turned to education, television cameras panned to her seat
in the Gallery. He proclaimed,
The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure

that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity
to achieve the American Dream. Yet, for too long, countless American
children have been trapped in failing government schools. To rescue these
students, 18 states have created school choice in the form of Opportu-
nity Scholarships. The programs are so popular that tens of thousands of
students remain on a waiting list. (Trump, 2020)
As Trump motioned to Janiyah and her mother, he made a surprise

announcement: an opportunity scholarship was now available, and she
could use it to enroll in the school of her choice. Subsequent press
coverage revealed that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would person-
ally fund the scholarship, but Janiyah already attended a well-regarded
charter school where she would likely stay (Richards, 2020). Despite the
caveats, the made-for-TV moment played nicely because it drew on a
familiar cultural script, alleging failure at “government” schools.
In the American popular imagination, public schools fail the nation’s
children in a myriad of ways.1 Politicians and philanthropists warn that US
© The Author(s) 2020 1

E. Brooks, Education Reform in the Twenty-First Century,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61195-8_1
2 E. BROOKS
students are losing ground in an international competition for academic

excellence and economic viability (Fabricant & Fine, 2015; Ravitch,
2013; Sanders, 2017). News media portray public schools—namely those
that serve low-income children of color—as not only underperforming
but also dangerous (Harper, 2015). Documentary films reveal footage
of dilapidated infrastructure, impenetrable bureaucracy, and negligent
teachers (Swalwell & Apple, 2011). As a result, everyday people tend
to characterize public schools as low quality and in crisis, even when
those same individuals report satisfaction with their own public schools
(Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Swift, 2017).
An increasingly popular solution to the nation’s so-called crisis of
school failure involves what I refer to as “market-centered reform.” Also
called corporate education reform (Ravitch, 2013) or neoliberal reform
(Bowles & Gintis, 1976), this approach promises that positive change will
materialize just as soon as policymakers and administrators apply business
principles to the world of schooling. In an education marketplace, they
argue, schools would compete for students, and teachers would compete
for jobs and raises (Buras, 2014; Fabricant & Fine, 2015; Hoxby, 2003;
Lubienski & Lubienski, 2014; Renzulli & Roscigno, 2007). Market-
centered reform touches all schools but is especially entrenched in
the charter-school sector. Over the last two decades, many state laws
have loosened restrictions on charters—publicly funded but privately
run schools—with the aim of marketizing education. Approximately 3.1
million students attended a charter school in the 2017 academic year.
This reflects a drastic increase over a relatively short period, given that
fewer than a half million students attended charters in 2000 (Hussar et al.,
2020).
The current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, aims to expand
school choice initiatives, which hinge on the proliferation of competing
charter schools (Kaplan & Owings, 2018). Charters infuse the public-
school landscape with competition, as they attract students (via open
enrollment policies) who would otherwise attend traditional public
schools (Archbald, 2004). On the ground, many charters implement busi-
ness practices that transform the nature of teaching and schooling. This
book critically examines market-centered education reform by unpacking
everyday life at one charter school belonging to a for-profit network. I
explore how, why, and with what consequences the network marketizes
teaching and learning. This chapter provides a brief history of charter
schooling and synthesizes existing research on market-centered reform in
1 MARKET-CENTERED MANIA AND NETWORK CHARTER SCHOOLS 3
the charter sector. I illustrate that market-centered reformers selectively

emulate business principles by centering accountability, competition, and
scale. These principles inform organizational structures, employment poli-
cies, and labor processes, transforming the nature of schooling and the
work of teaching. I conclude with an overview of the book.
1.1 A Brief History of Charter Schools

1.1.1 Types of Charter Schools
Charter schools emerged in the early 1990s as a middle ground between
the public and private education spheres. Charters are publicly funded
but privately run schools, which can employ a for-profit or nonprofit
status. Technically classified as public, charters are free and open to all
students. Some seek out grant monies or private contributions, but all
charters receive government funding calculated on the basis of student
enrollment numbers (Green, Baker, & Oluwole, 2008; Vergari, 2007).
Any group of citizens can apply for a charter. These groups often include
some combination of parents, teachers, business leaders, and reformers.
If local boards approve their plans, the groups receive state and federal
funds, which they use to design and manage schools as they see fit (Kena
et al., 2014). Charter schools enjoy operational autonomy historically
reserved for private schools alone. While they must report student enroll-
ment and achievement data to the state, charters can design curriculum
and culture, not to mention operational and managerial policies, indepen-
dent of school boards and teachers’ unions (Bulkley & Wohlstetter, 2004;
Gawlik, 2007).
Following the emergence of the first charter school in 1991, charters
appeared in 42 states. They now account for 7% of all public schools—
up from only 2% in 2000 (Hussar et al., 2020). Advocates initially saw
charters as experimental school environments, where educators could test
out innovative techniques (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014). Contemporary
charter schools display diverse structures, but generally operate in one of
three forms: start-ups, conversions, or networks. Independent, start-up
schools were the originators of the charter movement. Inspired by specific
approaches to instruction, curriculum, or governance, groups launch and
operate these schools autonomously (Buddin & Zimmer, 2005). The
second charter type, conversion schools, emerged during the George W.
Bush accountability era that began in 2002. The name highlights the
4 E. BROOKS
process: traditional, public schools are “converted,” or transformed, into

charter schools.2 This often occurs because the government deems a
traditional, public school “failed” (Buddin & Zimmer, 2005).
Network schools are the third type of charter and the subject of this
book. Operating 43% of the nation’s charter schools (David, 2017),
networks are professional, franchise-like organizations that open many
start-up schools under a single management structure (Lacireno-Paquet
et al., 2002; Miron, 2007). For-profit, Education Management Orga-
nizations (EMOs) emerged soon after charter legislation took hold,
as entrepreneurs identified new avenues for profit. Nonprofit, Charter
Management Organizations (CMOs), followed soon after (Abrams,
2016). I refer to both as “networks” because they demonstrate remark-
ably similar operational styles.3 Both EMOs and CMOs function as
commercial enterprises, typically under the leadership of individuals with
business backgrounds. Instead of building single, local charter schools,
they take on mass education like the big-box stores of the schooling
world. They enroll large numbers of students and open new schools
each year, leaning on marketing efforts to recruit new students. Every
school in a charter network is virtually identical in terms of infrastructure,
policy, curriculum, and pedagogy (Lacireno-Paquet et al., 2002; Miron
& Urschel, 2010).
The largest networks operate 50 or more schools, often across multiple
states. KIPP topped CMOs during the 2016 academic year: 169 KIPP
schools enrolled close to 80,000 students in 21 states and the District
of Columbia. Academica led EMOs with 130 schools, enrolling almost
76,000 students in five states and the District of Columbia. Although
the vast majority of networks operate fewer than 15 schools, the biggest
networks enjoy enormous market share. The ten largest networks serve
42.9% of network students or 18.3% of all charter students (David, 2017).
Even among smaller networks, the aim of scale often makes their growth
fast and frequent (Farrell, Wohlstetter, & Smith, 2012; Quinn, Oelberger,
& Meyerson, 2016).
1.1.2 The No-Excuses Model

KIPP founders Michael Feinberg and David Levin created the “no
excuses” schooling model in the mid-1990s. The namesake is rooted
in a potentially radical notion, which professes that schools ought
to accept no excuses for race- and class-based achievement gaps
(Ellison & Iqtadar, 2020; Golann & Torres, 2018). In pursuit of their
college-for-all missions, no-excuses schools take militaristic approaches to
both instruction and discipline. Academically, they implement extended
school days and years, often minimizing time spent on activities other
than direct instruction. They deploy a rigid curriculum that emphasizes
students’ abilities to recite correct answers on demand, using extrinsic
motivators to cultivate student compliance (Lamboy & Lu, 2017). School
leaders demand that staff maintain the highest expectations for student
achievement, contending that any challenges related to poverty, racism,
and the like can be overcome by steadfast allegiance to the no-excuses
model (Horn, 2016). Together, instructional practices are meant to
produce continuous student growth on standardized tests—growth on
which teachers’ jobs often depends.
Disciplinarily, no-excuses schools prioritize order and obedience,
policing every detail of student appearance and behavior (Golann &
Torres, 2018; Whitman, 2008). This approach is rooted in a belief that
“sweating the small stuff” is a necessary precursor to academic success
(Whitman, 2008). In a synthesis of qualitative studies on no-excuses
schools, Ellison and Iqtadar (2020) noted the meticulousness with which
teachers monitored student behavior:
Teachers are expected to monitor the positioning and movement of

students in class by requiring them to follow the SLANT or STAR method
(which stands for Sit up, Listen, Ask and Answer questions, Nod your
head, and Track the speaker or Sit up straight, Track the speaker, Ask and
Answer questions, and R aise a silent hand) depending on the school and
enforce compliance through a behaviorist system of rewards and punish-
ments (such as a demerit or paycheck system). Classrooms are expected to
be efficient and orderly with students speaking only when directed to do
so by the teacher. Likewise, students are expected to move between classes
by following painted lines on the floor in single file and in silence. (p. 13)
As this portrait suggests, no-excuses schools insist that teachers implement

a detailed behavioral code within each classroom. Teachers must specify
clear, school-wide expectations then comprehensively monitor student
compliance. School leaders charge teachers with calling out even the
smallest transgressions, which are met with concrete consequences in
behaviorist fashion (Golann & Torres, 2018).
6 E. BROOKS
Does the no-excuses model work? Most quantitative research suggests

that students at no-excuses schools demonstrate a slight edge on stan-
dardized exams (Cheng, Hitt, Kisida, & Mills, 2017; Clark, Gleason,
Tuttle, & Silverberg, 2015; Spees & Lauen, 2019; West et al., 2016).
However, critics note that these studies contain important methodological
limitations, such as selection bias and attrition (Abrams, 2016, pp. 87–
88; Ertas & Roch, 2014; Jennings, 2010; Lacireno-Paquet, Holyoke,
Moser, & Henig, 2002; Spees & Lauen, 2019), as well as the inability
to isolate which characteristics of the no-excuses model contribute to
achievement gains (Gleason, 2017; Lamboy & Lu, 2017). Further,
the 100-percent-college-acceptance rates that high-profile, no-excuses
schools publicize contain important caveats. Estimates suggest that only
35–65% of students who enroll in network schools finish their education
there (Lewis, 2017); college acceptance rates thus capture a cross-section
of graduating students without regard for the leavers. College acceptance
rates also omit matriculation and graduation rates.
Qualitative studies raise important concerns about the no-excuses
approach, particularly because the underlying promise of the college-for-
all ethos is social mobility and political empowerment (Ellison & Iqtadar,
2020). In her ethnography of one charter school, Golann (2015) revealed
how the no-excuses model produces “worker-learners,” or students who
are disciplined and deferent but not at all prepared to think critically,
creatively, and collaboratively. Further, no-excuses schools fail to effec-
tively address non-academic outcomes, such as motivation, regulation,
engagement, and character. Emerging evidence suggests that the no-
excuses approach can even undermine students’ development in these
areas (Golann & Torres, 2018) and impart additional trauma (Lamboy &
Lu, 2017). Overall, existing evidence suggests that no-excuses schooling
actually reinforces inequality, rather than disrupting it. These schools
adapt Bowles and Gintis’s (1976) “correspondence principle,” whereby
students’ social location shapes their schooling experiences and occupa-
tional outcomes.
1.1.3 The No-Excuses Network Niche

The no-excuses model emerges most often among charters and appears
especially common among networks (Cheng et al., 2017). Charters’
college-for-all missions likely invite the no-excuses model, especially
as new schools emulate existing organizational practices that appear
successful (Renzulli & Roscigno, 2005). However, there is more to the

story. Successful implementation of the no-excuses approach requires that
schools possess the power to compel compliance; charters enjoy just that.4
By law, charters are open to all students and use lotteries when demand
outweighs capacity (Chabrier, Cohodes, & Oreopoulos, 2016). In prac-
tice, though, some research documents creaming5 during the enrollment
process, as well as subtle pushout mechanisms throughout the school year
(Golann, 2015; Jennings, 2010; Lacireno-Paquet et al., 2002; Stovall,
2017; Waitoller, Nguyen, & Super, 2019). The power to choose which
students enter and stay makes charters uniquely ripe for the no-excuses
model; they can select for families that agree to comply, then expel those
that violate the compact. In fact, suspension and expulsion rates are
shockingly high at some charter schools (Lamboy & Lu, 2017; Sanders,
2017)—a potentially systemic problem difficult to examine empirically
because of charters’ operational autonomy. Traditional public schools, of
course, are bound by law to provide a free and appropriate education to
all students, including those who leave nearby charters mid-year.
Whether for-profit or nonprofit, charter networks have emerged as
the headliners of market-centered reform. Beyond composing 43% of the
nation’s charter schools (David, 2017), they wield enormous influence on
local, state, and federal policy. This power derives from the philanthropic
foundations, advocacy organizations, and multinational corporations that
champion networks’ efforts, both politically and fiscally (Abrams, 2016;
Fabricant & Fine, 2015; Kretchmar, Sondal, & Ferrare, 2014; Kropp &
Zimmer, 2005; Scott, 2009). Network schools have likely seeped into the
popular imagination as reform exemplars as a result of incredibly favor-
able media coverage. Journalist Jay Mathews, for example, covered the
KIPP network for years (e.g., Mathews, 2009), gaining unprecedented
access to the organization that has eluded researchers. Even for those less
attuned to education news, human-interest stories that feature charter
schools frequent news programs and talk shows (e.g., Winfrey, 2006).
An image of low-income children of color adorned in khaki pants and
polo shirts, reciting inspirational mottos, and working hard to overcome
poverty is a familiar one.
While many in the traditional public-school sector fiercely resist
market-centered reform (Buras, 2014; Hartney & Flavin, 2011; Weiner
& Compton, 2008), journalistic evidence suggests that those at no-
excuses networks embrace it (Mathews, 2009; Moskiwitz & Lavinia,
2012; Tough, 2009; Whitman, 2008). Networks fundamentally shift
8 E. BROOKS
teachers’ employment terms and work structures. Networks often hire

and fire at will, eliminate collective grievance processes, and replace
seniority protections with bonus pay and promotion structures (Abrams,
2016; Malloy & Wohlstetter, 2003). Market-centered reformers argue
that these changes facilitate quality teaching by enabling competition and
demanding accountability. However, research suggests that similar work
structures in other sectors undermine job quality and coworker collab-
oration, as well as organizational stability (Crowley & Hodson, 2014).
Few studies speak to on-the-ground realities of work at network char-
ters (Bancroft, 2008; Golann, 2015; Ingersoll, 2001). Scholars do know
that their teacher turnover rates greatly exceed those at traditional public
schools (Renzulli, Parrott, & Beattie, 2011). This suggests that there is
far more to learn about how market-centered reforms shape the work of
teaching, as well as the realities of learning.
1.2 Market-Centered Reform

At the turn of the century, market-centered reforms began garnering
enthusiastic, bipartisan support as silver-bullet solutions. Although federal
and state governments continue to oversee and fund public schools,
market-centered logic now informs much policy and practice. Reformers
push to transform practices at traditional public schools, while simul-
taneously advocating for deregulation via school choice (e.g., open
enrollment, charters, private schools, vouchers). In what follows, I argue
that market-centered reforms selectively emulate business principles,6
including accountability, competition, and scale. I describe how these
principles play out in contemporary US schools, demonstrating that each
is exemplified in network charter schools.
1.2.1 Accountability
Accountability refers to a widespread belief underpinning contempo-
rary education policy: schools and teachers must be held responsible, in
concrete ways, for achieving measurable results. The preoccupation with
quantification takes its inspiration from the corporate world, but it is
fueled by policies that demand schools demonstrate progress and access
funding on the basis of their data.7 This logic now informs the work
of teaching. In the most marketized environments, accountability means
that schools hire teachers as at-will employees, supervise them closely, and
evaluate them largely based on their students’ test scores (Abrams, 2016).
Even in school districts constrained by collective bargaining agreements,
states or private entities sometimes put teachers’ data on public display in
efforts to foster accountability.8
1.2.2 Accountability Among Charter Networks

When it comes to accountability, no-excuses charter networks promise to
facilitate high-quality teaching through transformed employment terms
and managerial strategies. Network staff find themselves subject to
increased layers of regulative control, since they are accountable to not
only national, state, and district requirements, but also network demands
(Gawlik, 2007). Networks use performance metrics extensively—and
indeed pride themselves on doing so. These classification systems allow
administrators to measure teacher performance in concrete, quantifiable
ways (Colyvas, 2012; Ellison & Iqtadar, 2020). For example, networks
might dole out rewards and sanctions based on the proportion of a
teacher’s students scoring “proficient” on a standardized exam. Similarly,
no-excuses schools are known for demanding that each teacher’s students
achieve more than a year’s worth of growth during a single grade level
(Whitman, 2008); one’s job may depend on the ability to achieve a 125%
rate of student academic growth on average.
In a no-excuses network context, accountability also involves policing
allegiance to a network’s schooling model. Employers have long sought
to control workers by surveilling the labor process—monitoring worker
behavior, as well as structuring work in ways that encourage employees
to monitor themselves and each other (Sewell & Wilkinson, 1992).
Some organizations implement technological surveillance, using cameras,
location trackers, or real-time electronic logs to regulate work (e.g.,
Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2011). Others use employees themselves as
surveillance tools by creating work teams that foster peer accountability
(e.g., Leidner, 1993). In service-based organizations, employers even
enlist customers in monitoring employees (e.g., Williams, 2005). While
little empirical evidence speaks to how surveillance operates in charter
networks,9 journalistic accounts of no-excuses schools (e.g., Mathews,
2009; Tough, 2009; Whitman, 2008) praise many of these techniques
as effective ways to demand excellence from teachers. While traditional
public schools must achieve some degree of transparency for how they
define, facilitate, enforce, and evaluate good teaching, charter networks
10 E. BROOKS
manage at-will employees with complete autonomy. Combined with a

business ethos, this discretion likely facilitates forms of worker control
that traditional public-school teachers have long contested. Simply put,
charter networks are ideally positioned to control employment terms and
labor processes however they please at the expense of the State.
Critics point out that performance metrics create a fixation with
student test scores and undermine teachers’ development over time,
for instance reducing morale and sparking attrition at the highest need
schools (Finnigan & Gross, 2007). Accountability-based pressure can
have unintended consequences, when staff teach to the test or system-
atically cheat on tests (Amrein-Beardsley, Berliner, & Rideau, 2010;
Menken, 2006; Nichols & Berliner, 2007) in order to meet performance
targets. The stakes become especially high when performance metrics are
attached to pay and job security (Goldhaber & Hansen, 2010; Podgursky
& Sprigner, 2007).
1.2.3 Competition
Market-centered education reform also centers on the principle of compe-
tition. Legislators, reformers, and school leaders who embrace marketiza-
tion argue that an absence of competition in the education sector drives
down school and teacher quality. Opening an otherwise closed market to
competition, they assert, improves efficiency and performance by forcing
schools to compete for students and teachers to compete for jobs (Buckley
& Schneider, 2009; Buras, 2014; Fabricant & Fine, 2015; Hoxby, 2002,
2003). Market-centered logic that prizes competition began on the far
right (Berliner & Biddle, 1995), but it now finds enormous support
among progressives. For instance, President Barack Obama’s 2009 Race
to the Top initiative (RTT) created a national grant competition, encour-
aging states to propose innovative education reforms for funding. RTT
channeled schools’ efforts in a marketized direction. Eligibility hinged on
states lifting caps on the number of charter schools allowed, plus elimi-
nating barriers to evaluating teachers based on test scores (Fabricant &
Fine, 2015). The vast majority of grant winners then incorporated two
staples of market-centered reform in their proposals: accountability via
performance-based teacher evaluations and competition through charter
school expansion (McGuinn, 2012).
1.2.4 Competition Among Charter Networks

When it comes to competition, charter networks utilize hiring and firing
flexibility. Compared to public schools, they retain an unusual amount
of autonomy when hiring new employees and terminating existing staff.
All charters can hire teachers with non-traditional training and creden-
tials (Hoxby, 2002). This means that they can pull from a broad pool
of potential employees, rather than being restricted to individuals who
completed university-based teacher preparation programs and obtained
state-issued teaching licenses. Networks often supplement hiring flexibility
with short-term contracts, which offer teachers one-year positions with
conditional renewal. These contracts provide firing flexibility, acting as
a built-in mechanism for networks to dismiss teachers at the conclusion
of any given school year (Burian-Fitzgerald, Luekens, & Strizek, 2003).
According to market logic, networks’ hiring and firing flexibility results
in high-quality teaching because schools can recruit and retain teachers
committed to their visions and willing to implement them. Critics note
that schools gain the ability to weed out teachers without due process
(Fabricant & Fine, 2016).
Second, charter networks typically eliminate collective bargaining and
limit unionization. Even where states allow collective bargaining, indi-
vidual charter schools decide whether to institute collective bargaining
rights (Bulkley & Fisler, 2002). The vast majority of networks prohibit
collective bargaining, and only one network10 is unionized (Malloy
& Wohlstetter, 2003). Following the initial hiring process, many
charter networks implement bonus pay and promotion structures, which
encourage teachers to think of themselves as individuals engaged in a
competitive endeavor. About half of charters offer merit pay, awarding
performance-based bonuses rather than paying according to salary sched-
ules (Podgursky & Ballou, 2001). Advocates argue that merit pay attracts
excellent teachers and rewards their work. It also eliminates the possi-
bility that talented new teachers will be terminated during lay-offs simply
because they lack seniority at a school (Hoxby, 2002).
Critics interpret networks’ competitive work structures as atomizing,
meaning they isolate workers as individuals in an effort to exert top-down
control over the labor process. Pinpointing teachers as solely respon-
sible for educational inequity lays the ideological foundation necessary
for making radical changes to the profession and even attacking public
sector workers more broadly (Fabricant & Fine, 2016). An emerging
12 E. BROOKS
literature in the sociology of work suggests negative consequences result

from the very workplace policies that network charters implement. Specif-
ically, sociologists warn that atomization degrades job quality, undermines
collegiality, and catalyzes organizational instability (Crowley & Hodson,
2014). In the education sector, scholars note that the growing emphasis
on competition between teachers undermines collaboration. This is
concerning because education scholars and practitioners find that teacher
collaboration is essential for effective teaching and quality schooling
(Darling-Hammond, 2013; Goddard, Goddard, & Tschannen-Moran,
2007; Jackson & Bruegmann, 2009; Neal, 2008; Ravitch, 2010).
1.2.5 Scale
Finally, market-centered reform hinges on scale. “Scaling up” describes
the growth or transformation achieved when supposedly excellent models
of schooling are replicated and proliferated across the nation’s educa-
tion landscape. The principle of scale operates at an organizational level
when districts or governments identify best practices then scale up by
implementing them in a number of schools. For example, the recent
adoption of common-core standards reflected a scaling up of a certain
set of learning outcomes (Tampio, 2018). Scale also applies to school
culture, particularly when it comes to the no-excuses model. In his book-
length profile of six inner-city schools, journalist David Whitman (2008)
praises the aim of scale in the no-excuses world. He explains,
The modern-day “no excuses” schools are thus unlike most of the high-
achieving, one-of-a-kind urban schools of earlier decades. They consciously
seek to copy themselves and spread a reform gospel, a message that runs
counter to the defeatist view that underlying social inequalities have to be
redressed before low-income minority students can do well. (p. 9)
Whitman lauds no-excuses schools as uniquely successful and there-

fore replication-worthy, even touting their brand of reform as “gospel.”
Like his allies in market-centered education reform, he rebuffs potential
critiques of scaling up as “defeatist” excuses that defend low expectations.
The concept of scale also applies to the work of teaching. Just
as outstanding schools can and should be replicated, market-centered
logic suggests that excellent teaching is rather straightforward. Organi-
zations can standardize and script best practices to be deployed, often
by highly motivated but untraditionally trained teachers—in other words,

committed novices. Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach For America,11
summarized this approach in her book, A Chance to Make History (2011):
Successful teaching in urban and rural areas requires all the same
approaches that transformational leadership in any setting requires. It
requires extraordinary energy, discipline, and hard work. What is encour-
aging is that there is nothing elusive about it. We can replicate and spread
success. By deepening our understanding of what differentiates the most
successful teachers and feeding those lessons into strategies for selection,
training, and professional development, we can increase the number of
highly successful teachers. (p. 33)
Kopp asserts—and indeed, the TFA model operates on the assumption—

that caring individuals can distill the characteristics and practices essential
to good teaching in order to standardize and replicate it. Some readers
might find this unsurprising, assuming similar aims among traditional,
university-based teacher preparation programs. But critical differences
underlie the marketized version of scale. Individuals with no particular
educational expertise (but often political will and economic interest)
create the model. They then deploy it to train green college graduates
for the purpose of short-term careers in the classroom. Or, the standard-
ized model supplants the professional autonomy of traditionally trained
teachers. In either scenario, the advertised goal is scale, or replicating what
works (Abrams, 2016; Berliner & Biddle, 1995).
1.2.6 Scale Among Charter Networks

Charter networks unabashedly claim to develop uniquely effective models
of schooling and teaching. Rather than function as niche schools,12 poli-
cymakers and school operators specifically design networks to standardize
and distribute an educational service on a mass scale (Farrell et al., 2012;
Quinn et al., 2016). These networks maintain formal contracts with each
school in their organizations. Contracts usually stipulate that the network
will implement a school design model, plus control major decisions
(DiMartino, 2014). In practice, this arrangement shapes both schooling
and teaching. At any school in a network, visitors confront school build-
ings, classroom routines, student uniforms, and catchy mottos that are
virtually identical. Similarly, network teachers encounter standardized
14 E. BROOKS
behavioral codes and curriculum that school leaders expect them to

deliver scrupulously.
Although networks profess to grow in order to meet need, scaling up
is a means to profit. Funding streams hinge on enrollment numbers, and
networks can use preestablished managerial models, infrastructure plans,
and prepackaged curriculum in each new school that they open. Networks
promise to grow without bounds, and they are empowered to do so
because they occupy an advantaged position in a protected market. Public
schools must serve all children, but charters can implement subtle selec-
tivity. Scale allows them to exploit new markets for profit without taking
on the same risks and obligations as traditional public schools. Meanwhile,
neighborhood schools face cuts to their enrollment numbers and funding
streams yet remain responsible for the students who charter schools leave
behind.
1.3 Market Mania Meets the New Paternalism

Market-centered transformations of schooling and teaching reflect a
dramatic shift in public understanding. Over a short time period, marke-
tization became common sense because it was shrouded in an ideology—
paternalism—that appeals to large segments of the US populace. In
his seminal volume advocating the “New Paternalism,” editor Lawrence
Mead (1997, p. 2) writes,
Paternalism means social policies aimed at the poor that attempt to reduce
poverty and other social problems by directive and supervisory means.
Programs based on these policies help the needy but also require that they
meet certain behavioral requirements, which the programs enforce through
close supervision. These measures assume that the people concerned need
assistance but that they also need direction if they are to live constructively.
Policies and programs that take a new paternalist approach offer tempo-
rary aid conditioned on recipients’ demonstration of prescribed behaviors.
Those providing assistance define the expected behaviors and monitor
participants closely, revoking help when outcomes are not met. This
approach gave rise to—and justifies—a host of recent changes to the US
social safety net, including the 1990s welfare reforms (Hays, 2003) and
broken-windows-style policing (Wilson & Kelling, 1998).
US Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn Jr. remains a promi-

nent advocate of paternalism in education. In a foreword to a book
praising no-excuses schools, Finn lauds this style of schooling as exem-
plifying the New Paternalism:
It’s undeniable that these schools aim to change the lifestyles of those
who attend them. They teach inner-city teenagers to embrace middle-class
values, to aspire to college, to behave properly, and to reject the culture of
the street. And they do all this by offering explicitly instruction in how to
behave, what to aim for, and how to get there. (Whitman, 2008, p. xiii)
What Finn proposes is a widespread application of “purposeful pater-

nalism,” or using rewards and sanctions to carefully manipulate students’
behavior toward desired outcomes.
No-excuses schools exemplify the New Paternalism as they stress
obedience, discipline, and supervision. While school leaders present these
characteristics as key to students’ success, critics note that students learn
to embody cultural capital better suited to service sector jobs and precar-
ious economic outcomes (Golann, 2015; Ray, 2018). Most existing
scholarship on paternalistic education policy examines its consequences
among students. Another aim of paternalism, which I attempt to center
in this book, is to control teachers’ work. In a paternalistic educational
model, students are not the only ones whose every move must be scripted
and supervised; teachers occupy a strikingly similar position. They must
be told what to do and monitored closely, with pay and job security
contingent on cooperation.
1.4 Overview of the Book

Is educational equity the civil rights issue of our generation? And, is
market-centered reform the solution that bipartisan policymakers, philan-
thropists, and publics can get behind? It is tempting to interpret the
declaration of a public education crisis and the drastic solutions proposed
as long-overdue moves in the right direction. Grounded in my ethnog-
raphy of Eclipse Preparatory School, I illustrate that we are instead
bearing witness to a marketization of public education that exacerbates
inequality under the guise of eliminating it. A number of dangerous
assumptions undergird marketization in education. For the purpose of
this book, some of the most important to consider are those about
16 E. BROOKS
teachers and their work. A market ethos sees teachers—particularly orga-

nized teachers—as labor power to be classified and controlled. Like the
overall rhetoric surrounding educational inequity and public-school crises,
the notion that teachers should be marked as high- or low-performing,
then treated accordingly, now seems like common sense. But this frame-
work represents a novel framework for understanding teachers’ work, and
it has monstrous implications. If teachers are naturally good or bad, they
should be categorized, rather than developed; they must be managed
with supervision, rather than trusted with autonomy. This approach runs
counter to a century of professionalization efforts among teachers in the
US (Apple & Teitelbaum, 1986), and it also defies the professional status
and autonomy awarded to teachers in countries that reformers often laud
as exemplars (Abrams, 2016, pp. 280–300; Collinson & Ono, 2001).
While the principles of accountability, competition, and scale now
shape schooling across the educational landscape, charter networks
present an especially compelling case study in market-centered reform.
This book adds to the critique of no-excuses schools as reproducing
inequality, but it also—and primarily—illustrates how marketization trans-
forms teachers’ work. Market-centered reforms frame these changes
to teaching as empowering transformations for students and teachers
alike. I demonstrate, however, that succeeding as a teacher in a hyper-
competitive environment has very little to do with obtaining the measur-
able results featured so prominently in the justifications for marketization.
Instead, teachers must amass insider information, distance themselves
from colleagues, and comply creatively with organizational mandates in
order to survive.
Chapter 2 introduces the study setting and research methodology.
I outline the Academic Achievement Group’s (AAG’s) organizational
layout, sketching the network’s office structures and staff hierarchies.
Modeled after for-profit companies in other industries, AAG employs
hundreds of workers at a national hub. It operates schools in a multi-
tude of states, opening new spokes each year with the help of strategic
branding and marketing. Eclipse Prep—one school in AAG’s network—
served as the setting for my covert ethnography. Working as a teacher’s
assistant (TA) provided a rare window into the inner workings of a setting,
to which few researchers have enjoyed unfettered access.
Chapter 3 examines AAG’s public persona. The network claims to
achieve outstanding results among underserved student populations by
holding schools and staff accountable for performance. This account-

ability results from workplace policies uncommon among conventional
public schools. The network closely monitors teachers, conducting weekly
supervisor evaluations, and tracking student achievement. Chapter 4
contrasts AAG’s frontstage rhetoric with Eclipse’s backstage definitions
of success. Despite AAG’s achievement-centered rhetoric, staff members’
first—and sometimes only—task is to manage student behavior with
steadfast authority. The focus on policing the details to compel obedi-
ence parallels practices at other no-excuses charter schools (e.g., Golann,
2015) and is rooted in the broader agenda of New Paternalism (Horn,
2016). Because it is couched in a results-oriented narrative, AAG can
frame its paternalist agenda as a radical challenge to the status quo, while
exacerbating social inequalities among both students and teachers.
Chapter 5 illustrates the competitive nature of teaching at Eclipse and
explores consequences for teachers’ everyday realities. I found evidence
of informal career tracks (promotion, plateau, turnover), which emerged
as a way for administrators to motivate some staff and drive out others.
Although some employees resist tracking, many become invested and
actively police boundaries. Competing teachers resist collaboration, prior-
itizing short-term performance just to be promoted out of the classroom.
In Chapter 6, I examine how teachers navigate an AAG policy where
organizational marketing, customer satisfaction, and student discipline
intersect. “Keeping kids in the room” is designed to reduce send-outs,
suspensions, and expulsions (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Morris,
2016; Morris & Perry, 2017). While many networks claim to eradicate
the discipline gap, my data demonstrate that practices at Eclipse simply
disguise it. Well-networked teachers worked together to remove students
from the classroom without attracting administrators’ attention. They
utilized a strategy I call creative compliance to maintain upward career
trajectories. The most successful utilized a results-oriented narrative that
resonates with AAG’s blueprint.
Chapter 7 explores the work of teacher’s assistants (TAs). Although
Eclipse TAs earned a relatively low hourly wage and remained blocked
from AAG’s seductive internal labor market, they boasted longer tenures
than most traditional teachers. Their jobs were fraught with insecurity,
but many TAs displayed an intriguing ability to both persist and resist in
the face of intensification. Yet, coping with everyday stressors often meant
participating in the policing of teachers’ tracks. For example, Eclipse
administrators enlisted TAs in teacher surveillance. The network also used
18 E. BROOKS
nebulous TA positions to undercut the security and longevity of teachers,

who could be replaced by a TA for a fraction of the cost.
In Chapter 8, I offer conclusions and implications. This study adds to
the burgeoning body of literature illustrating that market-centered educa-
tion reforms not only fail to challenge an unequal status quo, but they
further disguise and entrench social reproduction processes. My analyses
demonstrate that teachers compete, prioritizing short-term performance,
strategically sharing information, and selectively offering assistance. I also
offer a concept—what I call equity-conscious discourse—which captures
a particular framing of educational inequity that rationalizes market-
centered reform as in the best interest of marginalized children. Equity-
conscious discourse legitimizes a fundamental restructuring of teachers’
work in ways that prioritize private profit over public good.
Notes
1. Widespread concern about underperforming teachers and failing schools
was not always a given in the public education landscape. An elite narra-
tive mercilessly paints public schools and their teachers as at fault for not
only inefficient, low-quality education generally, but race- and class-based
achievement gaps specifically (Johnston, 2014). The Reagan and H.W.
Bush White Houses institutionalized criticism of public schooling and
teachers in unprecedented ways (Berliner & Biddle, 1995).
2. After a school is converted, the same students continue to populate the
same facilities, but instructional techniques and organizational patterns
change. Until recently, the same faculty stayed on as schools were
converted to charters (Buddin & Zimmer, 2005). It is increasingly
common for conversion schools to fire a significant proportion of—if not
all—staff (e.g., Buras, 2014).
3. One crucial difference is that CMOs have far outpaced EMOs in gener-
ating enormous enthusiasm and loyalty among teachers and leaders
(Abrams, 2016, pp. 186–187). For a detailed comparison of EMOs and
CMOs, see Abrams (2016, pp. 190–221).
4. Even before considering enrollment in a charter, families possess unequal
information and resources when it comes to choosing non-assigned
schools for their children (Fuller, Elmore, & Orfield, 1996; Lareau &
Goyette, 2014).
5. “Creaming” describes selective recruitment and enrollment practices, for
example when schools recruit more educationally favorable students that
will be potentially less costly to educate (Lacireno-Paquet et al., 2002).
6. See Abrams (2016, pp. 288–289) for a discussion of the business

principles that these schools ignore.
7. Beyond well-known issues with standardized test scores (Ravitch 2010),
many charter schools use college acceptance as the standard for success.
This is problematic because it ignores students’ attrition prior to college
application, plus overlooks college matriculation, retention, and gradu-
ation. The college-for-all standard also equates college graduation with
social mobility in overly simplistic ways given higher education differentia-
tion (Mcmillan Cottom, 2017). Nevertheless, charter schools can promote
100% college acceptance rates as proof of their unique success.
8. In addition, these data are increasingly accessible to the public, as news
outlets, such as The Los Angeles Times, publish databases that allow anyone
to search for and analyze the test scores attached to individual teachers
(Buddin, 2016).
9. Historically, surveillance of traditional public school teachers most often
occurs on a broad scale. Bushnell (2003) describes, “Schooling can be
mapped as a panopticon in which teachers are in their cells, observed and
monitored. Their regulators are administrators, parents, politicians, and
boards of education.” Foucault’s (1979) panopticon is an apt metaphor,
since teachers face increasing forms of surveillance from each of the
aforementioned audiences (Case, Case, & Catling, 2000; Hassrick &
Schneider, 2009; Hazi & Rucinski, 2009; Jones, 2004; Zeichner, 2010).
10. Green Dot Public Schools, a nonprofit network, is the standout excep-
tion. Importantly, Green Dot’s union contract includes a “no tenure or
seniority preference” clause (Green Dot 2015). This suggests that the
union either takes a market-centered approach or—at the very least—has
agreed to one under pressure.
11. Teach For America is a nonprofit organization that recruits “corps
members” who agree to teach for two years in schools that serve low-
income students. Please see Brooks and Greene (2013) for a more
extensive review of this program, as well as critical reflections on my
participation in it.
12. Please see Kahlenberg and Potter (2014) for a discussion of charter
schools’ original aims.
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CHAPTER 2
Going Undercover at Eclipse
Phoenix was a seventh grader with a big personality. Kind eyes softened
the smirk that often graced his face, but this depth was hard to notice at
first. Hard because, during the typical class period, Phoenix was cracking
jokes with one classmate and tirelessly teasing another. He was also a
familiar face in the hallway—a common destination for students whom
teachers decided to send out for misbehavior. As a teacher’s assistant (TA)
charged with remediating students in reading and math, I quickly learned
that Phoenix was confronting pre-Algebra coursework with the math skills
of a third grader. I hoped that I could help in some small way and tried to
build trust with him, first through short conversations, and later by slip-
ping him a pack of multiplication flashcards along with a nightly practice
log. It was especially heartbreaking, then, when Phoenix wandered to the
back of a classroom to chat with me one afternoon. We had known one
another for a few months now, and he asked, “Are you gonna be here
next year?” When I affirmed and asked why, he downplayed the question:
“I just wanted to know.” When I pressed him, he admitted, “People are
always leaving, so I just wanted to know.”
Phoenix’s question reveals a largely unspoken understanding at Eclipse
Prep: people and relationships are temporary. Mirroring other no-excuses
charter schools where annual teacher attrition can reach 50% (e.g., Torres
& Golann, 2018; Horn, 2016), Eclipse teachers come and go. Some of
this churn is rather tidy, occurring at the end of a school year, on good
terms, as a result of a move or a promotion, perhaps accompanied by
© The Author(s) 2020 29

E. Brooks, Education Reform in the Twenty-First Century,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61195-8_2
30 E. BROOKS
tearful goodbyes. Other separations are messier, unfolding mid-year or

even midday, occurring because of burnout or termination, followed by
whispers instead of closure. Students come and go, too. After the influx
of new faces at the beginning of each school year, students trickle in
throughout the fall and spring. More concerning for a charter school
whose funding is tied to enrollment numbers are the students who leave.
Some dissatisfied parents, for example, withdraw their children mid-year,
rerouting them to neighborhood schools.
Even to a casual observer, the constant churn of Eclipse staff
and students invites concern. Charter networks enjoy unprecedented
autonomy because they make bold promises, namely eliminating educa-
tional inequity for an ever-growing proportion of historically underserved
students (Fabricant & Fine, 2015; Johnston, 2014; Kumashiro, 2012;
Ravitch, 2010). Yet, scholars are only beginning to understand how
networks’ bold promises unfold. An emerging literature in the sociology
of work suggests negative consequences result from the very workplace
policies that network charters implement (Crowley & Hodson, 2014;
Hays, 2003; Kalleberg, 2012; Reich, 2005). Specifically, sociologists warn
that, in other workplaces, market-centered policies degrade job quality,
undermine collegiality, and catalyze organizational instability (Crowley &
Hodson, 2014). These outcomes would be particularly concerning in an
educational context; however, scholars have yet to study these processes
in network charter schools.
This book explores how the Academic Achievement Group (AAG)1
network marketizes teaching and learning. In this chapter, I intro-
duce the study setting and research methodology. Since little empirical
evidence—even at a descriptive level—speaks to the innerworkings of
no-excuses networks, I introduce the setting at length. I outline AAG’s
organizational layout, sketching the network’s office structures and staff
hierarchies. Modeled after for-profit companies in other industries, AAG
employs hundreds of workers at a national hub. It operates schools in
a multitude of states, opening new spokes each year with the help of
strategic branding and marketing. I then introduce Eclipse Prep (one
school in AAG’s network), describing the building, as well as the students
and staff who populate it. Finally, I outline the procedures for data
collection and analysis that I utilized as a covert workplace ethnographer.
2 GOING UNDERCOVER AT ECLIPSE 31
2.1 The AAG Network

The Academic Achievement Group (AAG) is a long-standing, for-profit
network that has been in operation for about two decades. The organiza-
tion runs approximately one hundred charter schools nationally, and the
number of schools under its management grows each year. AAG is based
out of a national headquarters, where the organization employs hundreds
of individuals in a wide variety of administrative positions. Mirroring
large corporations in other industries, AAG appoints people to divisions
in accounting and finance, board relations, business intelligence, facili-
ties, grants and fundraising, human resources, information technology,
measurement and accountability, marketing, and talent acquisition. The
organization also contains education-specific departments, such as admis-
sions, curriculum and assessment, coaching and learning, and school
quality.
Outside of national headquarters, AAG opens and manages schools in
a variety of states. AAG’s business plan involves creating a prototype of
schooling then “scaling up,” or opening new, identical network schools
each year. Because charter-school laws are state-specific, management
organizations such as AAG open many schools in states with laws and
conditions favorable to charter expansion (Renzulli & Roscigno, 2005).
Multiple network schools surface in each state to which the network
expands. AAG argues that by scaling up, it rises to meet parents’ demand
for high-quality education. This is particularly important in historically
underserved communities, where low-income students of color have long
attended underperforming public schools. According to the network,
clusters of AAG schools emerge in urban areas to meet high demand
for improved schooling quality. Critics point out that low-income neigh-
borhoods offer cheap rent and revitalization incentives, as well as a
marginalized customer base (Singer, 2017).
For AAG, organizational growth includes both increasing the number
of schools in the network and increasing the number of students at each
school. All AAG schools enroll students in kindergarten through eighth
grade (K-8). Upon their founding, however, network schools often serve
only a cluster of elementary grades. AAG then adds one grade per year
until the school reaches a K-8 structure. A principal runs each AAG
school, and the principal supervises three or more vice principals (VPs).
Each VP oversees a particular group of teachers or teachers’ assistants
(TAs). For instance, an AAG school might appoint a middle school VP,
32 E. BROOKS
who oversees operations and supervises teachers and TAs for grades six
through eight.
Because AAG manages each school in its network, high-level admin-
istrators from national headquarters or regional hubs frequently visit
schools. AAG surveillance feels ubiquitous not only because higher-ups
visit often, but also because they sometimes drop by unexpectedly. Staff
become most familiar with regional directors, who schedule day-long
visits at least monthly. Regional directors oversee a handful of AAG
schools in a bounded geographic area. In addition to overseeing school
quality, they directly supervise principals. National directors’ visits occur
less often but draw more careful preparations and staging. National
directors oversee all network schools, and they supervise regional direc-
tors. Depending on a school’s location, they may fly in for visits. As
a result, principals and VPs structure a school day—sometimes a series
of days—around their presence. On the day of a national director’s
arrival, one-third of classrooms might be staffed by substitute teachers2 to
allow for standout teachers to participate in evaluative and developmental
meetings.
AAG maintains a vast internal labor market, and the organization both
allows and encourages staff to move between positions frequently. Occa-
sionally, movement is lateral. More often, staff achieve upward mobility
within the organization. This is by design. AAG runs specific training
programs, through which staff obtain the certification necessary to qualify
for higher-level administrative positions. Employees typically move up
one level at a time; teachers become VPs, VPs become principals, prin-
cipals become regional directors, and regional directors become national
directors. Variations of this promotion path allow teachers and VPs
to pursue educational specialties instead of school leadership positions.
For example, employees might become specialists (later directors) of
curriculum, instruction, or assessment. Later in this chapter, I discuss how
AAG positions its internal labor market as a counterbalance to relatively
low teacher salaries.
2.1.1 Building the Brand

Companies use branding to distinguish their products and services to
customers and other audiences. Brands include aesthetic elements, such as
recognizable names, logos, symbols, and slogans. For organizations that
offer services, brands also include experiences (Keller & Lehmann, 2006).
2 GOING UNDERCOVER AT ECLIPSE 33
When one steps into any AAG school, certain commonalities produce a
particular experience. This is intentional; each school is an extension of
AAG and therefore a reflection of the brand. Physically, AAG schools
appear almost identical. Although building structures differ somewhat,
floors in any AAG school are carpeted with maroon, indoor-outdoor
rugs and tiled with beige, vinyl squares. In empty hallways, two stripes
on either side of the floor draw one’s eye. Each 12-inch stripe spans
the length of the hallway and squeezes groups of students into straight
lines as they transition between classrooms. AAG paint colors, signage,
logos, and mottos are consistent across network schools. Visitors immedi-
ately confront walls decorated with the AAG color palette: maroon, slate,
teal, and beige. These colors also appear on AAG’s website and in its
printed material. At Eclipse’s main entrance, bold block letters proclaim
AAG students as “super scholars.” A nearby wall of well-known univer-
sity mascots reminds visitors of the network’s goal for its students: college
readiness.
A main office lies at the forefront of each AAG school. Two front
doors house the Eclipse office—one providing a first stop for visitors and
the second providing office access for those already inside the building.
Immediately inside the main office stand two, expansive L-shaped desks.
Arranged side-to-side with only a small entryway between them, they
create a customer-service counter of sorts. The counter displays business
cards for its occupants—the administrative assistant, Ms. Thomas, who is
a white woman in her fifties, and the admissions coordinator, Ms. White,
who is a black woman in her forties. On the customer side of the counter,
upholstered maroon chairs line the wall, interrupted by a coffee table
displaying AAG literature and Eclipse printouts. Thomas registers visitors
by checking their licenses and noting a destination on hand-printed name
badges.
Beyond the customer greeting area, a shared wall hides a teacher
resource space. A crowded copy machine radiates heat, opposite a counter
with dwindling office supplies and a row of locked cabinets. In the far
corner of the resource space stands a skinny wooden table. On Eclipse’s
most put-together days, this table holds four, evenly spaced laptops. A
laminated sign on AAG letterhead declares it a “Customer Work Station,”
where parents can complete online satisfaction surveys by an approaching
deadline. To the left of the resource area stand two offices, which house
the Eclipse principal and one of four VPs.
Another random document with
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Jahrhundert vor Chr.
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17. Wu-I-Hsien, Regensturm, China, um 1400
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Orco bei Corneto. 4. Jahrhundert vor Chr. Aus „Der
Schöne Mensch im Altertum“ von Heinr. Bulle (G.
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Education Reform in the Twenty-First

Century: The Marketization of Teaching

“In this ethnography of a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, Brooks provides a rare

“Erinn Brooks’s undercover immersion in one of the rapidly growing number of

“Erinn Brooks’ new book is a unique contribution to the literature on education

ISBN 978-3-030-61194-1 ISBN 978-3-030-61195-8 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com

1 Market-Centered Mania and Network Charter Schools 1

2 Going Undercover at Eclipse 29

5 Competing on AAG’s Career Ladder 87

6 Complying Creatively with AAG’s Blueprint 115

7 Covering AAG’s Tracks 149

8 AAG Dreams and Eclipse Realities 165

Fig. 3.1 AAG mailed advertisement excerpt 46

Table 3.1 Eclipse salary differentials relative to local public school

Market-Centered Mania and Network Charter

President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address featured a

The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure

As Trump motioned to Janiyah and her mother, he made a surprise

© The Author(s) 2020 1

students are losing ground in an international competition for academic

the charter sector. I illustrate that market-centered reformers selectively

1.1 A Brief History of Charter Schools

process: traditional, public schools are “converted,” or transformed, into

1.1.2 The No-Excuses Model

Teachers are expected to monitor the positioning and movement of

As this portrait suggests, no-excuses schools insist that teachers implement

Does the no-excuses model work? Most quantitative research suggests

1.1.3 The No-Excuses Network Niche

successful (Renzulli & Roscigno, 2005). However, there is more to the

teachers’ employment terms and work structures. Networks often hire

1.2 Market-Centered Reform

1.2.2 Accountability Among Charter Networks

manage at-will employees with complete autonomy. Combined with a

1.2.4 Competition Among Charter Networks

literature in the sociology of work suggests negative consequences result

Whitman lauds no-excuses schools as uniquely successful and there-

by highly motivated but untraditionally trained teachers—in other words,

Kopp asserts—and indeed, the TFA model operates on the assumption—

1.2.6 Scale Among Charter Networks

behavioral codes and curriculum that school leaders expect them to

1.3 Market Mania Meets the New Paternalism

US Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn Jr. remains a promi-

What Finn proposes is a widespread application of “purposeful pater-

1.4 Overview of the Book

teachers and their work. A market ethos sees teachers—particularly orga-

holding schools and staff accountable for performance. This account-

nebulous TA positions to undercut the security and longevity of teachers,

6. See Abrams (2016, pp. 288–289) for a discussion of the business

Clake, A. M., Gleason, M. P., Tuttle, C. C., & Silverberg, K. M. (2015). Do

Hoxby, C. M. (2003). School Choice and School Productivity. The Economics of

Lacireno-Paquet, N., Holyoke, T. T., Moser, M., & Henig, J. R. (2002).

Scott, J. (2009). The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy

Going Undercover at Eclipse

© The Author(s) 2020 29

tearful goodbyes. Other separations are messier, unfolding mid-year or

2.1 The AAG Network

2.1.1 Building the Brand

23. Sarkophagfiguren, etruskisch. 6. Jahrhundert vor Chr.

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