Competition in Public Education: A Case Study on a Michigan Charter School's Perspective

Abstract

The performance of public education in Michigan has been significantly below average across the country for decades (US News, 2019). Lawmakers in Michigan sought to remedy this in the 1990’s with the introduction of charter schools into the educational landscape. Throughout the years, there has been significant debate around whether charter schools have been effective. One of the central ideas behind charter schools is that the infusion of competition will raise the level of performance of public education across the board. This has not shown to be true as Michigan still is in the bottom half of performance across the country (Arellano et al., 2016). The possibility exists that while competition was infused into the market, it was never adopted by educators to improve practice. This case study explored how charter school administrators and board members viewed the role competition had on their decision making and how they described their competitive advantage. A single exploratory case study methodology was used to conduct this study. Findings indicated charter school educators and board members of the case school could identify their competitive advantages around three key areas: responsiveness to stakeholders, school safety and security, and school quality. The findings also indicated the pressure to balance academic rigor with student enrollment.