The Process and Politics of Educational Governance Change in New Orleans,Los Angeles,and Denver

How Do PMM Systems Vary?

While there are some common foundational elements of the PMM idea, there are also early findings around core variations in implementation. First, systems have varied in how they enact the core “mechanisms” noted above (Bulkley, Henig, & Levin, 2010; McEachin et al., 2016). For example, Lake et al. (2016) found that some districts have moved toward the idealized PMM overall, while others have adopted some but not all PMM mechanisms; they found that performance-based accountability, changes around human resource strategies, and enhanced choice are most frequently implemented.

Second, PMMs have varied in scope, ranging from structural change across a whole system to more narrow strategies in which some schools enact some mechanisms (i.e., choice and autonomy) while other schools maintain a more top-down, neighborhood school structure (Hashim et al., 2018; Levin et al., 2010; Marsh et al., 2013). Third, PMMs have varied in terms of who is operating schools, including reliance on governmental versus nongovernment school operators and local versus more national providers (e.g., EMOs managing schools in multiple states such as the Knowledge is Power Program (Bulkley & Henig, 2015). As we examine governance change in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Denver, we draw on this extant research to attend not only to the evolution of PMMs but also to the variation in the forms these models take.

Crises

All three districts faced crises of persistent low performance in federal/state policy environments that were ramping up testing-and-accountability regimes. Consistent with Flink’s (2017) research on school district budgeting, this low performance may have triggered policy feedback indicating that more than the usual incremental changes were needed. For example, Los Angeles faced lingering low performance of district schools and the failure of highly publicized internal reforms to improve students’ achievement. In 2001–2002, 70% of first-time 9th graders scored below or far below “basic” on state standardized tests in math or ELA, and only 48% graduated 4 years later (Saunders et al., 2008). Kerchner et al. (2008) observed, “As LEARN and LAAMP came to an end [in 2000], LAUSD was declared to be in crisis and the reform programs were declared dead. Civic attention switched to an attempt to take over the school board” (p. 9).

In Denver, a compounding crisis resulted from Colorado’s interdistrict choice policy. In 2005, as a result of this state policy, Denver’s schools were significantly underenrolled as students living within the city enrolled in neighboring districts, creating serious financial concerns and leaving the district with numerous underutilized facilities (e.g., according to Osborne, 2016, 31,000 of 98,000 seats were empty in 2005). As a result of this well-publicized crisis—described by one advocacy leader as “the district . . . bleeding kids to surrounding school districts”—Superintendent Michael Bennet began actively recruiting students. The abundance of empty facilities made it easier to open new schools from alternate providers. While a more incrementalist view might characterize enrollment and performance problems in Denver and Los Angeles as conditions endemic to districts at any time, the PET view suggests that the media attention elevating these conditions as political crises may have helped instigate deeper structural changes, creating information signals that leaders could no longer ignore.

In New Orleans, a compounding crisis of the highest magnitude was Hurricane Katrina. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, destroying 80% of its schools and displacing the majority of employees and families (Perry et al., 2015). This natural disaster was perhaps the most visible and significant trigger across the three cities, expediting reform of New Orleans public schools. Politically, Katrina created a substantial vacuum weakening local democratic control: The storm left few individuals with the authority or capital to mobilize against the changes coming from the top. Logistically, under new state law (Act 35) enacted soon after the hurricane, the Recovery School District (RSD) assumed control of more than 100 schools in Orleans parish, leaving OPSB with oversight of merely 17 schools (Cowen Institute, 2011). Yet even before this external crises, OPSB schools faced considerable internal crises that contributed to the dramatic transformation. The system was plagued by not only corruption and mismanagement (including well-publicized FBI indictments of district leaders for criminal offenses in 2004) but also poor performance: In 2004, OPSB schools ranked 67 out of 68 state districts in reading and mathematics test scores (Perry et al., 2015).

Venue Changes ¹⁰

In all three cities, state legislative changes played critical roles in dislodging the power of former “elites” running the system and overcoming institutional friction. ¹¹ Releasing pressure for change accumulated over the years, these triggers account in part for the deeper structural changes, as they make it more difficult for districts to revert to prior systems as higher level, legal constraints have now been placed on them. In Denver and New Orleans, state laws reconfigured the role of the state and district central office in operating schools. In New Orleans, Act 9 (2003) created the RSD, enabling the state to take control of schools with four consecutive years of “academically unacceptable” performance. Changes in 2005 (Act 35), after Hurricane Katrina, altered the definition of failing schools (and districts) in a way that shifted governance of almost all the district’s schools to the state. Many noted this legislation “broke” the United Teachers of New Orleans, as the shift to the state meant that the teachers’ union contract no longer applied and the unions would have an uphill climb trying to reunionize the emergent takeover charter schools. While only a few schools had been placed under RSD’s control prior to the storm, the stage had been set allowing for drastic transformation post-Katrina.

In Denver, the state Innovation Schools Act (2008) gave districts authority to grant schools additional autonomy over personnel, calendar, and budget decisions. Along with a new state accountability policy (2009), which gave the state board of education power to reconstitute and close low-performing schools, and changes in teacher evaluation policy (2010), the Innovation Act limited the power of the teachers’ union and gave additional authority to reformers to innovate: “The Innovation law itself passing was clearly a catalyst,” said one state leader, “. . . I think that was a huge game changer for districts like Denver Public Schools. We’ve seen that—they’ve increasingly used it.” According to several interviewees, DPS leaders had lobbied for the passage of these policies, recognizing that they would provide useful “cover” and “leverage” for difficult reforms to the system.

Changes to the state charter school law provided a critical trigger in Los Angeles, paving the way for a rapid expansion of a parallel charter sector. In 1998 and 1999, state legislators increased the cap on the number of charter schools allowed statewide and strengthened their independence and accountability—including expanded authorizing and appeals power. Instead of just district school boards, charter petitioners could now go to the state or county for approval, greatly increasing growth opportunities for charters: “We have a charter law in California that allows relatively “easy” growth of charters,” explained one foundation leader. Others have noted that this legislation “stoked” a “fresh generation of civic elites” who chose to pursue new charter schools instead of seeking change within LAUSD (Fuller, 2018). “By incenting activists and inventive educators to create charter schools, winning public funding with little central regulation,” observed Fuller (2018), “many new players hopped onto the civic stage.” Also, at this time, a voter-approved initiative, Proposition 39, created new opportunities for charters to “co-locate” on traditional public school campuses where there was unused space, providing another avenue for charter expansion.

New Leadership and Actors

A final, albeit less significant, trigger evident across the cities was shifting actors. The emergence of new leadership “policy entrepreneurs” (Kingdon, 1995) was perhaps the most important trigger initiating change in Denver. In 2005, Michael Bennet became superintendent, followed by his deputy, Tom Boasberg in 2009 (who remained in office at the time of data collection). These leaders brought consistent commitment to portfolio reform, marshalling support from external actors and advocating for state policy venue changes to apply pressure and enable systemic change. According to Osborne (2016),

DPS was so dysfunctional, Bennet concluded, that he could not fix it without significant outside pressure. So he asked several foundation leaders to create an organization of civic leaders, chaired by two former mayors, to push for change and support the board when it promoted reform. They called the initiative A+ Denver, and it has championed the portfolio strategy, along with the Piton, Donnell-Kay, and Gates Family foundations. (p. 4)

In the 2009 school board election, with the active engagement of the nonprofit Democrats for Education Reform Colorado, supporters of portfolio reforms gained a 4–3 majority and shifted power away from union-backed supporters of the traditional district model (Osborne, 2016). Subsequent elections cemented the proreform majority (7–0 majority in 2015; 5–2 majority in 2017; Asmar, 2017).

The emergence of reform-oriented policy entrepreneurs in Los Angeles also triggered change. Reportedly hand selected by then mayor Richard Riordan, Caprice Young was elected to the school board in 1999 and “spearheaded rapid approval of new charter schools” (Fuller, 2018, chap. 3, p. 1). In 2005, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was elected and, while his attempts to take over the district were ultimately thwarted in court, he challenged district elites such as the teachers’ union to advance reform (Marsh, 2016). “He would unite Latino neighborhood activists and big-money Democrats to accelerate the spread of charter schools and create dozens of largely autonomous pilot schools,” observed Fuller (2018). These “pilots” provided another within-district school option to the growing portfolio of schools. New leaders also began to emerge in the charter sector itself. In 2004, many of the former leaders of LEARN and LAAMP formed a charter management organization (CMO) called the “Alliance,” with the goal of opening 100 new schools in the city and pressuring the district for change (Kerchner et al., 2008). Throughout the city, a “new generation of LA activists—parents, ethnic leaders, young teachers, and self-confident foundation staffers” emerged (Fuller, 2018, p. 20). As one such activist and current board member explained,

L.A. Unified has back-doored itself into a portfolio model. It has not done it through policy. . . . It did it through the fact that the outside was pushing in. Charter operators like myself said, “We want difference for our kids in our neighborhood, so we’re going to do something different.”

In New Orleans, key leadership came from both the leaders of the RSD (Paul Vallas and John White) as well as business executive, Leslie Jacobs, who was widely cited as the visionary and architect behind the transformation of the school system. One consultant and community advocate called her “the harbormaster,” noting that this is “a private, typically rich citizen, who can steward funds through philanthropy, to influence policy.” Jacobs also recruited a “reform family” of charter, nonprofit, and RSD officials who worked mostly “behind closed doors” to advance poststorm reform through new legislation and fundraising (Harris, 2020). As Harris (2020) recounted,

Within the span of just a few months, the state took over almost all of the city’s schools, the teachers were fired, the teacher union’s contract was eliminated, and schools were opened up to parental choice. Within the first five to seven years . . . state and local agencies also turned over operation of the vast majority of schools to nonprofit charter school operators, working under performance-based contracts, and turned over key responsibilities to a new network of nonprofit organizations. (p. 49)

In all three cities, a common set of national reform players and funders also facilitated reform. Most notably, foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (active in all three cities) and the Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation (in Denver and Los Angeles) provided capital support for charter schools and nonprofits. From 2006–2007 to the 2012–2013 school year, charter schools in New Orleans received almost $77 million in philanthropic contributions and donations (Buerger & Harris, 2017). In Denver, as mentioned above, Superintendent Bennet and former mayors organized foundations and civic leaders to form the nonprofit organization A+ Denver (A+ Colorado, 2015b), which has advocated for portfolio reform in Denver and received funding from the Gates and Walton foundations (A+ Colorado, 2015a; Osborne, 2016). As noted, all three cities had worked with leading portfolio advocates (CRPE and Paul Hill) and New Orleans and Los Angeles received federal funds that supported portfolio reform.

New Orleans—Rapid Transformation to a Managed Market

Following the hurricane, the RSD, governed by the state’s elected board of education (Board of Elementary and Secondary Education), took control of more than 100 of the city’s (lowest performing) public schools and chartered almost all of them, while a handful (highest performing) remained under the governance of OPSB (Cowen Institute, 2010). At this time, OPSB fired most of its 8,500 employees (Perry et al., 2015) and, in mid-2006, let the collective bargaining agreement expire. The U.S. Department of Education also provided close to $21 million to help reopen these schools (Burns & Thomas, 2015). Families now had the choice to attend RSD and OPSB charters, and if eligible, a few direct-run OPSB schools.

Of course, not everyone agreed with this rapid transformation. For example, Buras (2014), in studying the changes, argued that “Flooding New Orleans with charter schools has been disastrous” (p. 23). As we return to later, many—including some reform advocates—viewed the punctuation as a displacement of local communities, including Black community leaders.

By the 2009–2010 school year, the New Orleans system had been transformed and a new deep structure emerged. The new elites in charge consisted of two portfolio managers: the state-run RSD overseeing the vast majority of schools and the locally elected OPSB overseeing a small set of charter and direct-run schools (with less autonomy). During the transformation, strategically minded “reformers” had advanced a narrative of saving a failing school system from terrible teachers, corrupt district leaders, and a bureaucratic system that sought to maintain the status quo. “Our schools are more gritty, more entrepreneurial,” explained an RSD leader, “. . . we’re trying new things. We’re trying to turn around a ship that was once sinking . . . or if not sinking, headed in the wrong direction.” Charter advocates argued that this entrepreneurial system addressed problems of the pre-Katrina school system under OPSB, characterized by some as an “educational cartel” or “employment regime” in which “entrenched local actors tried to prevent private actors, the state and federal governments, and new members of the school board from altering education politics and policies” (Burns & Thomas, 2015, p. 77).

Under the new control systems, RSD and OPSB provided schools with significant autonomies in exchange for oversight based on a strict performance-based accountability system. To complement the lean RSD, the organizational structure expanded to include a set of nonprofit organizations that came to or emerged within New Orleans to run charter schools and provide the infrastructure for this transformation, such as transportation, food, afterschool activities, school improvement support, talent recruitment, and training to address “gaps in the system that were not being addressed by a decentralized system,” as one foundation leader explained. Major organizations included New Schools for New Orleans, Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, New Leaders for New Schools, and TeachNOLA (Buras, 2014; Burns & Thomas, 2015; Harris, 2020).

The power of the teachers’ union was essentially decimated, and school choice, autonomy and decentralization emerged as the new core values in the New Orleans system. “One size doesn’t fit all,” explained an OPSB board member, “to break it up and to give schools autonomy gives them the opportunity to succeed in a very small basis. If this school fails, that’s only that school, it’s not the whole system.” A former RSD staffer touted the value of “empowering school leaders and teachers to drive more local decisions in a non-bureaucratic way” and allowing the system “to be more responsive to communities.” But in the early post-Katrina years, it became clear that the strategy of decentralization required some limitations on autonomy to advance equity and protect student rights. New policies were adopted governing enrollment (the majority of schools participate in a centralized application system enacted in 2012), funding (a common formula is used across RSD and OPSB schools), expulsions (all schools adhere to the same code of conduct for expulsions), and Special Education services (Babineau et al., 2017; Rossmeier, 2016). As RSD began to regulate its portfolio more, the system developed into more of a “managed,” not free, market.

The data presented in Figure 2 reflects this evolution. In New Orleans, in 2004, there was one school (out of approximately 127) under the authority of the RSD and only five charter schools; as of 2011, the RSD had 69 schools, while the OPSB, the original district, had only 16. By 2012, 59 out of the 81 schools were charters. By 2016, 93% of public school students attended charter schools, representing the largest share of any district in the country (Babineau et al., 2017). ¹³

Denver: Quick and Steady Change to a Centralized Portfolio

From 2005 to 2012, Denver witnessed a dramatic shift to an integrated system overseeing a variety of school options: direct-run schools (which have considerable freedom over educational programming, assessment, and professional development), semiautonomous innovation schools (which can opt out of district or collectively bargained policies), and charter schools (including standalone and networked schools). For example, in a highly charged move in 2010, the district reconstituted a set of schools in the far northeast of the city and replaced them with a set of innovation and charter schools. The district later formalized a school-opening process through the “Call for Quality Schools,” an annual request for new school proposals based on needs identified in a strategic regional analysis. The call was open to both charter and noncharter operators.

The new elite actors consisted of reform-oriented school board members (reformers retained the majority on the board for several consecutive elections), superintendent, central office staff, and advocates (including those involved in A+ Denver). Charter operators, particularly, the two largest networks, DSST Public Schools and STRIVE Preparatory Schools, also gained influence while the teachers’ union saw a greatly diminished role. As one foundation leader explained,

I think the Innovation Act in 2008 totally unwound the union, and you had school after school . . . we have 50 innovation schools now or close to—I mean when you had that many schools basically opting out of the contract and teachers had to vote basically—and they did. I think that took a huge toll on membership.

The core values and strategies of the new system focused on multiple school providers with a commitment to neutrality and equality in school oversight. Rather than express a preference for particular governance models, accountability policies were to be applied equally to all school types with an understanding that in exchange for autonomy and the ability to innovate, schools had to meet performance expectations. Superintendent Bennet and the board made clear that

The district should “no longer function as a one-size-fits-all, centralized, industrial age enterprise making choices that schools, principals, teachers, and . . . most important, parents are in a much better position to make for themselves.” Instead, it should “function more like a partner, building capacity and leadership at the school level and serving as an incubator for innovation.” (Osborne, 2016, p. 4)

Leaders also embraced a new control system that many described as “holding tight and letting loose.” The district balanced school-level autonomy with centralization around several core areas—such as a common enrollment system to prevent “cream skimming” (including rules about setting aside seats for late arrivals) and an accountability system holding all schools to the same performance criteria (test scores, academic growth, engagement, enrollment, and parent satisfaction). All charter and noncharter schools were provided support around Special Education and had access to common professional development. And while charter schools were offered district-run facilities, their acceptance required agreement to take all children, including at times offering specific programs needed by the district overall for students with disabilities, and to operate under several centralized policies. Finally, the district values and organizational structure advanced cross-sector collaboration and a commitment to ensuring a voice for charters in district decisions. This is best exemplified by a District-Charter Collaborative Council that one advocacy leader described as

a committee that included both district leaders and charter school leaders that are elected among their peers to be able to serve on a council to say, “How do we continue to work together as one district even when we’re a group of autonomous leaders?”

The new subsystem in Denver was one of a centralized portfolio and, according to many interviewees, provided an alternative to the previous “industrial age enterprise” of district-run schools. “It came with a real belief that monopoly is not the best way to do this, to deliver education,” said one district leader,

that having multiple providers offering schools to our kids is better . . . That to have other providers who will come in and innovate, who will bring talent, who will bring different perspectives, new ways of doing things, is very important.

While many changes at this time might be best described as incremental (e.g., allowing traditional school models more autonomy over certain decisions such as curriculum and budgeting), several deeper structural changes (e.g., common choice-based enrollment systems, state-authorized decentralization in innovation and charter schools) reflect more of a punctuated shift.

Once again, changes in school types over time illustrate the evolution in Denver (Figure 3). In the early 2000s, following major state reform legislation and the emergence of the new Superintendent Boasberg and the reform school board, DPS experienced a dramatic increase in the number of innovation and charter schools, and a similar decline in the number of traditional public schools. In 2004, there were just 10 charter and no innovations schools (out of 152 total); by 2015, there were 48 charter and 44 innovation schools, representing 45% of the 205 total schools in Denver. During this period, traditional public schools decreased from 136 to 100.

Los Angeles—Gradual Emergence of Competing Systems

The Los Angeles evolution contrasted sharply with the other two cities and was best characterized by the emergence of a parallel charter system alongside a traditional district experimenting with different school options. While charter school growth started in the city as conversions of existing schools (often in wealthier communities), civic leaders and new activists soon organized around the opening of new charter schools, particularly, in low-income communities (Fuller, 2018). As noted earlier, these charter school leaders (new elite actors in the charter sector) believed that their only hope for change rested in the idea of working outside of the system. Reflecting on the formation of the CMO called Alliance, one leader explained,

Some people said, well, [LAUSD is] unchangeable. It’s hopeless. It’s just not going to change. Others said it is changeable, but you can’t incent people. You have to absolutely threaten their existence. Their existence there is [average daily attendance]. Right? They’re always going to say that it’s not possible. That it’s too big, that it’s too difficult, that it’s poverty, that it’s the parents, that it’s whatever. Unless you prove something different. That’s how the Alliance started. . . . If we proved that this could be done, that there would be sufficient public pressure on the district to change or force the district to do something different . . . because that was the first organization that first articulated using chartering as a lever for reform . . . we’re going to prove that we can in order to push on the system. . . . At that point, nobody had a vision of bringing down the district. That was not the outcome. Nobody could possibly imagine that we would get to 267 [charter] schools.

To compete with the growing charter sector and occasional threats of mayoral takeover, the district’s new strategy was to introduce some innovative and more autonomous school models—including pilot schools (introduced in 2006 and expanded over time), partnership schools (started in 2008 with Mayor Villaraigosa’s Partnership for LA Schools), and magnet schools (initially started in the 1970s and 1980s, but expanded in times of intense competition and threat). The expansion of these district-run school models represent incremental changes within the district, as LAUSD’s organizational structure remained largely vertical and bureaucratic with a centralized approach to school management in the 2000s and 2010s. Within the traditional district-run system of schools, union leaders remained elite in status, with considerable leverage tied to collective bargaining.

However, in 2009, LAUSD district leaders spearheaded reforms that appeared to signal a renewed strategy to be more competitive with charter schools by bringing a greater variety of school choices within the LAUSD portfolio. Under a district turnaround reform, the Public School Choice Initiative (PSCI), leaders allowed internal and external teams to apply to operate the lowest performing schools and a set of newly constructed schools under a variety of governance models (see, Marsh et al., 2013; Strunk et al., 2016, for details on this reform). In the first 2 years of this initiative, charter school operators/nonprofits were eligible to apply (and were not obligated to adhere to the district’s collective bargaining agreement) and a diverse set of schools emerged: Of the 70 schools involved, 14 were charter, 20 were pilots, 14 were other semiautonomous models, and 22 were traditional. During this period, a reform-oriented board and Superintendent Deasy explicitly used the language of “portfolio management,” secured federal Investing in Innovation funds to support the expanded portfolio, and reorganized schools into regional networks to advance this work. PSCI and other semiautonomous schools belonged to a smaller, non-geographic-based region designed to provide targeted support and facilitate learning across schools. Yet after 2 years and mounting political pushback, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the union significantly altered PSCI. The MOU required all employees of schools participating in PSCI to work within the collective bargaining agreement—thus, curtailing the growth of externally operated schools. None of the 61 schools participating in PSCI in later years were operated by charters.

Thus, despite Superintendent Deasy’s efforts, the parallel systems of an independent charter sector and a traditional school district remained intact, resisting expansion of a more formal PMM. Soon after the PSCI MOU, Deasy resigned. Under three subsequent superintendents (one interim), the district ultimately reorganized and schools returned to geographic regional networks. District leaders have continued to invest in within-district options for families, in what many characterize as a “defensive”strategy to counter charter expansion. For instance, when threatened by a 2015 leaked plan written by foundation leaders and spearheaded by the Broad Foundation to expand charter schools in Los Angeles, the district visibly promoted and expanded magnet schools. According to a central office administrator, the Broad plan was interpreted as “someone’s organizing against the district” and within-district options were the best strategy to “combat” this threat.

Ultimately, the emergent subsystem in Los Angeles was one of two competing systems. The first was a highly centralized bureaucratic district overseeing a set of traditional public schools with some semiautonomous school options that experienced typical incremental changes from actors “muddling through.” One community leader described the central office as “the Death Star,” while another noted a “dangerous culture” that is “super vertical” with “ten or more layers between a teacher and a superintendent.” Despite a variety of school types, many characterized the district as more of a “scrapbook” or a collection of a lot of things without an overarching set of coherent policies. The second system represented deeper structural change: the rapidly expanding charter sector that included both networks and individual schools authorized primarily by the school board. These schools retained primary control over their internal operations, including hiring, budget, and curriculum. Most observers agreed that there was little to no integration or interaction across these two sectors. Efforts to create a unified enrollment system, for example, gained little traction. One CMO leader explained, “I would not want to turn my enrollment process to them. I wouldn’t trust that they would get any of it right.”“The walls are so high up though,” said one reform leader,

that the idea that both sectors could be porous and learn from each other and become networked, it’s not—they certainly don’t trust LA Unified to be that glue at all. They don’t even trust each other, right? It’s that polarized.

Trends in the number and types of schools over time mirror the emergence of competing systems in Los Angeles (Figure 4). Gradual changes occurred around 2001 when the state charter law revisions took effect and early internal reforms came to an end, resulting in a steady increase in charter schools and other school types operating under varying levels of autonomy (Marsh et al., 2013; Strunk et al., 2014). By 2016, there were 232 charter schools representing 23% of the more than 1,000 public schools in Los Angeles, with an additional 175 within-district semiautonomous schools (17%). At this same time, however, the number of traditional public schools remained fairly steady (with a slight decline at the end of this period) due to a massive school construction program that built 130 new facilities from 2000 to 2015. Thus, while the number of schools in the district increased overall, the percentage of students in traditional public schools (not including semiautonomous and magnet) decreased from 70% in 2003–2004 to 57% in 2015–2016.

In summary, the evolution and nature of the school systems differed greatly. New Orleans experienced rapid and deep transformation to a system made up of primarily charter schools, with minimal centralized control over schools. Denver witnessed a quick but steady shift to an integrated system with oversight over traditional and nontraditional school options. In Los Angeles, while traditional elite actors retained centralized control over a range of district-run schools, the punctuation is reflected in the creation of a new, separate system of charter schools alongside more incremental change within the core district structure.

State Context

At the state level, the strength of the state teachers’ association, the nature of labor laws, and the design of charter school laws differed greatly across the three cases. Reports of union strength—based on membership/resources, scope of bargaining, and involvement in politics (e.g., financial contributions)—have consistently ranked California as having one of the strongest teachers’ unions in the country, compared with Louisiana (one of the weakest and a right-to-work state) and Colorado (stronger than in Louisiana but still weak; Winkler et al., 2012). The weak union in Louisiana factored into the post-Katrina New Orleans reforms, removing a common source of institutional friction and enabling reform leaders to terminate the teachers’ contract and shift to school choice without effective, organized opposition. ¹⁴ In contrast, the strength of the California Teachers Association may have fueled some of the polarization of education politics around charter schools and the competing systems in Los Angeles. Several respondents believed that strong state labor laws drove charter expansion and the desire for less restrictive options for school operations, particularly around staffing. One state leader noted that state code requiring collective bargaining to alter personnel policies made it difficult to initiate change within the traditional system,

I think it’s really problematic because it does require some strength at the local level to move beyond the sort of rigidity of the state system when it comes to staffing. . . . The fact that there is the default salary schedule. . . . Any sort of change to the pay scale would have to happen through the bargaining agreement. Barring that, the default is too rigid to really do anything.

Differences in state charter school laws also contributed to the varied processes in the three cities. Notably, under Colorado law, DPS was the only authorizer of charter schools in its jurisdiction, giving it considerable control as a “portfolio manager.” Moreover, in Colorado, charters were not their own Local Education Agencies as they were in the other two states. As a result, DPS had greater legal responsibility for compliance issues regarding charter schools, which may have contributed to the greater centralization of its control systems compared with the other cities. A DPS administrator noted,

New Orleans has the challenge that everybody’s their own individual actor. . . . I think we’ve had some advantages that we began, we’re the LEA for both the district run and charter schools. . . . We have a chance to build coherent regional strategies. I don’t need three autism programs in the region; I need one. Then, how do I think about which school is the best one to have that program? I think we have some natural advantages, just in terms of set up.

In contrast, California allowed for multiple authorizers, which may have contributed to the lack of a coherent portfolio approach. If the LAUSD school board rejected a charter petition, the operator could go to the county or state for approval, leaving the board with less control over deciding which schools operate within their geographic boundaries. Similar to California, under Louisiana law, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and local school districts have the authority to authorize charter schools. However, according to one former OPSB staff member, OPSB “didn’t have the ability to authorize [charter] schools, for most of the time [from 2005–2011]. That was taken away from them because of their . . . failure status.”

Thus, while external triggers of new state laws were present in all three cities, the nature of those particular laws and the state-level union context contributed to variations in how these triggers ultimately shaped local governance change.

Local Context

Much like the state context, local environmental characteristics—including relationships between teachers’ unions and school boards, system leadership, enrollment, and system size—factored heavily in the dynamics of governance change. “You can’t really get very far in the discussion without understanding where the political winds are” said a national foundation leader reflecting on our three case study cities, “Union strength, right, Denver is not a strong union town. LA is a very strong union town.” The United Teachers of Los Angeles, for example, played a significant role in defending the traditional public school system and resisting efforts to weaken collective bargaining in the district in the wake of the PSCI (Marsh, 2016). In contrast, many identified a weak union in Denver with reform leaders’ ability to advance their PMM strategy of managing schools based on outcomes and to increase the number of innovation schools. “The union has gotten weaker over time in Denver,” said one local foundation leader, “They’ve both lost membership which means they’ve lost money. They’ve lost political power and influence at the district level. Part of that is by sheer numbers of losing members.”

In New Orleans, interviewees discussed the diminished (nearly nonexistent) role of the union in a heavily charter district; one union-affiliated respondent noted, “It’s a big problem to try to come in and get involved with the schools because every school’s like its own school district. They’re all at-will employees. It’s very hard to get a contract.” This, then, further strengthened the ability of reformers to enact system-level changes in deep structures.

Leadership stability (or lack thereof) also appeared to shape the change processes in the three cities. In contrast to the “revolving door of superintendents” typical in years past, several observers believed that the consistency of two superintendents with very similar orientations toward change in Denver from 2005 to 2018 contributed to sustaining the centralized control systems of its PMM. In contrast, leadership turnover in Los Angeles echoed the patterns of reform: a period of portfolio-like reforms, during a period of weak union power, flourished under Superintendent Deasy, but these were quickly dismantled by his successors. Interviewees repeatedly commented on these rapid shifts: from Deasy who was seen as “toxic” and “a lightning rod” and a board “perceived as being progressive . . . pro-reform” to a set of interim and new superintendents coming in to “calm everything down,” work for “incremental change,” and “fertilize the ground for collaboration at the bargaining table.” Thus, while new reform-oriented leaders emerged in both Los Angeles and Denver, they only became true and lasting triggers of deep structural reform in Denver due in part to the consistently weak union environment and their long tenure.

Enrollment patterns created other important local conditions reinforcing or overcoming institutional friction. Declining enrollment in Los Angeles appeared to contribute to the defensive posturing against the growth of charter schools (a condition that existed in pre-Katrina New Orleans as well) and against efforts to implement a more coherent strategy of managing charters and noncharters under one umbrella. In contrast, increasing enrollment in Denver made the strategy of expanding other school types and the introduction of a coherent PMM structure less threatening. Rapid increases in population and enrollment spurred DPS to continue opening new schools. One central office leader observed,

because enrollment was growing so fast, people didn’t feel as threatened by things like charter schools as they have in other cities. It wasn’t about taking their kids necessarily. It was that we have buildings that have been empty, and now we need to put schools in them, because of enrollment growth. I think that’s allowed us to get fairly far without the level of dissent, potentially, that’s been in other cities.

Finally, the difference in system size was also germane to the evolution of the three systems. Many described LAUSD as a “behemoth” or a bureaucracy protecting the status quo and resisting deep structural changes. “It’s the way the enterprise is built,” said one community leader, referring to LAUSD’s large middle-management, “it’s designed to continue to do what it did yesterday really well. . . . It’s not designed to change.” The relatively smaller size of the other two cities and systems may have made it easier to overcome institutional friction and for new actors to introduce deep structural change. In sum, characteristics of the local environment—be it the size of the organization, the enrollment profile, union strength, or leadership stability—shaped the ways in which triggers initiated change in the three cities.

Inequity and Elite Policy Actors

Several interviewees in both New Orleans and Denver indicated that the elite policy actors dominating the emergent political system failed to represent the voices of communities of color and other marginalized groups. In New Orleans, we heard lingering concerns about the power imbalance and racial dynamics of post-Katrina reforms, particularly, those related to the teachers and leaders in the new charter schools. Some explicitly called out the racialized aspects of this evolution and the displacement of Black educators. A White leader of a charter advocacy organization commented,

There are people that had dedicated their professional careers to education in New Orleans. They feel they were completely disrespected. It’s hurtful. . . . And while we have celebrated our academic progress here and give much credit to organizations like Teach For America, that just adds fuel to the, “Oh, so it’s taking the young White girl from the farms of Minnesota to come make things better.”

Consistent with our data, scholars have long documented the racialized dynamics of the early New Orleans reforms. For example, Harris (2020) recounted racial politics in school authorization and closure decisions:

The reformers, mostly White, got what they wanted. Black educators, already reeling from losing their jobs and homes, were mostly rejected yet again, this time through the authorization process. Most of those approved by local Black educators were also among those that were eventually shut down. (p. 14)

Dixson et al. (2015) noted the broader impact of this shift in the racial makeup of the faculty and leaders in New Orleans:

[T]he firing of all 7500 of the employees in the Orleans Parish School District, a majority of whom were Black teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals, had a devastating effect on the racial balance of not only the education community in New Orleans but also the Black middle class. The displaced teachers and administrators were replaced by young and predominantly White transplants from “education reform” organizations like Teach for America (TFA), New Leaders for New Schools, and the New Teacher Project. These organizations spawned other education “non-profits” that were founded and staffed mostly by young White transplants. Indeed, the “color” of reform in New Orleans is White. (p. 289)

Concerns about exclusion and bias in decision making also surfaced in Denver. A union leader, for example, commented on the politicization of school board races and the fact that these leaders no longer included average community members, due in large part to the high cost of running for office:

Who is on the board? . . . one just left, but two of the people that were on our board were former city council members. Another person had been our lieutenant governor. Nobody was just a mom and pop kinda thing.

The interviewee implied board members advanced moneyed interests over local ones.

Others noted that Denver’s elite policy actors—including central office leadership and the heads of large charter networks—were predominantly White men. ¹⁵ One nonprofit leader described Denver as “a kind of guy’s club” in which the predominantly White and male leaders of large charter networks “box everyone else out.” A district leader acknowledged that this dynamic, “like most things, relate to power and access,” adding,

On one hand, it makes all the sense in the world that those organizations that have come to scale in larger percentages of students end up with greater access to the superintendent, to board members. . . . On the other hand, it certainly can reinforce some power dynamics and particularly in our ecosystem, because our CMO leaders are predominantly male and predominantly White—maybe exclusively White, not exclusively male—but that creates a real race and gender conversation.

Once again, interviewees questioned the underlying values of a system run by leaders who they believed did not represent the true interests of the diverse community.

Inequity and Organizational Structures and Values

In all three districts, we heard concerns that the new systems were exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequities in students’ educational experiences. These respondents suggested that core values of the system were inherently unjust or that the new organizational structures were flawed and did not achieve equity goals.

In New Orleans, interviewees suggested that the displacement of local, Black educators, as described above, reflected the absence of core values related to representing and serving the Black community. Many argued that the predominantly White, nonlocal educators who dominated the new system—and came to the city via new recruitment and training programs run by nonprofit organizations—lacked the cultural competency needed to support Black students. One Black community advocate noted the importance of “young people seeing folks from their communities who understand when they walk in the school door . . . what they’re experiencing at home, what’s happening in the local context, [and] what their history is.” He concluded, “One of the most aggravating elements of a post Katrina environment is this notion that we have no history, and if we do, it’s all bad. Which is terrible.” Others decried the high rate of turnover among out-of-state teachers who go through alternative certification programs such as Teach for America. In the words of one nonprofit leader,

There are cultural competency issues. There are retention issues. When you bring in a bunch of people who are not from New Orleans to do this job that’s incredibly hard, they can love New Orleans all they want, but a lot of ‘em are gonna decide to go to law school and leave.

As such, many questioned the underlying core values of the new system and its failure to honor the history and culture of the district’s predominantly Black student population.

Relatedly, in Denver, our data revealed critiques regarding the racial makeup of the district’s majority-White teaching force. “Not unlike a lot of other parts of the country,” explained one White advocacy organization leader,

we have a lot of inability to recruit teachers of color. There has been a state or city district partnership to try and increase that, but, at the same time, we started hearing a lot of feedback from the teachers of color we already have saying, “We don’t really feel welcome here . . . you’re not running culturally sensitive education.”

As in New Orleans, this critique suggested that the core values of Denver’s new system failed to ensure inclusion of communities of color.

Interviewees in Denver also expressed concern that the district’s prioritization of large CMOs limited the variety of school options in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. A White charter organization leader told us,

I think we need to get away from using that language of no excuses . . . that has translated into is a similar model of school across many of our impacted communities. I think our communities are pushing back on that. I have an African American friend who said “Why is it that my community needs to have one more no excuses model? . . . I would like a dual language Montessori in my community. I would like an expeditionary learning school in my community. Why is it that these external adults are making the decision about what’s best for my kids?”

These interviewees suggested that Denver’s organizational structures, which give greater power to large networks (who could more easily demonstrate a proven track record) instead of standalone charter schools, perpetuated racial and socioeconomic inequities in access to school choice. ¹⁶

In Denver and Los Angeles, our data revealed criticism that PMM-oriented change unfairly burdened low-income communities of color and the educators serving them. In Denver, a Latino civic leader critiqued the process of school closures in low-income Black and Latinx neighborhoods:

It’s a really hard thing on a community to close a school. They really are hubs of communities. It destabilizes. For the most part, it’s been in places where they’re poor. It’s lower income areas. It’s been where Chicanos and Blacks live. . . . It’s all these hard transitions, but there really haven’t been that many good schools to send people to [after a closure]. . . . If we’re going to put a community through all that trauma, then it’s got to be for a good reason and there’s got to be some benefit to them.

Similarly, in Los Angeles, concerns about inequity emerged within the counternarratives pushing against the growth of the charter sector. Critics, including union leaders and some community advocates, argued that choice-oriented structures were harmful to low-income students, students of color, and their families. A union leader’s description of the Public School Choice Initiative illustrates this perspective—one that emphasizes the perceived injustice of threatening underresourced schools with potential charter takeover:

There are a lot more White teachers that live in the northern part of [Los Angeles] . . . . all the teachers want to teach kind of near their neighborhood, kind of near their community. That’s understandable, but I think we [need] to kind of stop the institutional racism . . . . I think when Public School Choice happened it was not these [more privileged, easier-to-staff] schools that [were affected]. It was all measured by the standardized tests which are written for and by White, middle class people. . . . Then you have a school that’s barely getting enough staff to work in it when times are tough. Then you say, “Okay, you have to write a new plan or else we’re taking your school and giving it away to a charter school.” . . . I feel like Public School Choice, a lot of schools, especially in historically underserved areas were kind of like forced to either make a plan or you’re going to lose your school.

Relatedly, a state leader pointed out the inequities of choice in LA, noting that transportation, information, and language barriers limit traditionally disenfranchised parents’ access to school options:

There are still a number of issues out there that make it a lot easier for me, upper middle class, White woman, to get my child into a great program, than unemployed, single mother of four who has no car choice wise.

She added, “There’s still a lot more that could be done on the equity front to give her choices.” Interviewees questioned the core values of a system purported to advance the interests of underserved students, but failing to ensure access and support to realize these aims.