Prime Public Charter School: A New Approach to Professionalizing Teaching

Abstract

In the last 30 years, the U.S. education reform movement has focused primarily on increasing school choice, accountability linked to standards, and leadership capacity in our schools. In particular, charter schools have tried to incorporate all three elements in their attempt to provide families with better options for their children. But many charter schools have not fundamentally changed the role of teachers or the organization of the school itself, leading to issues of sustainability and insufficient autonomy for teachers. This capstone describes an attempt to address this problem through the creation of an innovative charter school, Prime Public Charter School (Prime Public). The school’s proposed model would have allowed for teams of teachers to start, manage, and grow their own “Teaching Practices” within a school community, much in the same way that lawyers, doctors, therapists, or private tutors run their own practices. This capstone describes and analyzes the attempt to gain approval for and launch Prime Public in New York given the context of the charter sector and the challenges of entrepreneurship as they relate to school creation. After three unsuccessful application attempts, the school did not gain approval to launch in 2016. Implications include the need for greater resources for early-stage founding teams, a more transparent and supportive authorization process, and a greater emphasis on long-term sustainability and teacher professionalism when considering the growth of the charter sector.