Are You Interested in Starting an Entrepreneurial School?
The experience of starting a small entrepreneurial school can be a daunting life work. Prospective founders should take the time to learn from accounts of others’ experiences. What type of personal investment is required? What can be expected over the broad strokes of time? Are there common pitfalls, ascents, twists, and turns?
Meier finds that longitudinal studies of precollegiate schooling are surprisingly sparse. She points to books about distinguished private schools (Bensman, 2000; p. vii). McConnell’s (1967) book on Eton is a memoir and an analysis of the school based on his 20 years of work there as a teacher and house master. Another detailed retrospective look into a school is Prescott’s (1970) description of Choate which he attended as a student and revisited as an invited scholar, conducting numerous observations and interviews over the course of one year. There are some works on the elite schools that focus on the role of their headmasters. St. John (1959) describes Choate in an autobiographical study based on his 40 years as a headmaster. Cunningham & Ross (1967) use recollections, interviews and correspondence with many staff members of the Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School to probe the significance of the 16-year tenure of its headmistress. The role Frank Boyden played as headmaster of Deerfield Academy is told by McPhee in The Headmaster (1966) after he conducted numerous visits and interviews.
Readers can turn to thick studies of several schools created in the progressive era. Neill’s description of the Summerhill School (1960) is a memoir of his experience as its founder and headmaster. Mayhew & Edwards (1966) write in much detail about their experiences as teachers working with John Dewey during the formative years of the Chicago Laboratory School. Pratt (1948) writes about the founding and running the City and Country school in New York. Although a longitudinal study of multiple schools, the Eight-Year Study (Aiken, 1942) by a commission organized by the Progressive Education Association, examines 30 high schools that agreed to thoroughly reformulate based on progressive principles and various prestigious colleges that agreed to waive set admissions criteria for graduates of these schools.
Readers will find a group of studies centering on schools that emerged during the New Frontier and Great Society administrations. L.M. Smith et al (1987, 1988a, 1988b) write extensively about “The Kensington School”in studies that attracted nationwide attention during a time when the open classroom methodology was of interest. These studies, using ethnographic methodologies of direct observation and interviews with participants to collect data, trace the founding of the school, the hiring of a staff, the difficult first year when the staff fractionalizes as members find the vision unattainable and the steady reconstituting of the school into one that closely resembled other schools in the community.
During the same time span numerous independent schools that fit today’s conception of entrepreneurial schools were founded. Miller (2002) describes the history of this “free” school movement, based largely on an examination of source materials such as school brochures and newsletters. Graubard (1974), Hausman (1998), and Swidler (1979) also report on this free school movement. Readers can find detailed portraits of specific free schools. Snitzer and Ransohoff (1972) describe the Lewis-Wadhams School in upstate New York, Dennison (1969) portrays the First Street School in New York, Berman (1994) gives a retrospective view of the School Around Us in Maine, Bhaerman & Denker (1972) trace the opening of a free high school in Washington, DC, and Mercogliano (1998) gives a picture of the Albany Free School. Glines (1995) describes his work as founder and the organizational principles of the Wilson Campus School which operated at Mankato State University in Minnesota from 1968-77. Prospective school founders might be attracted to common features found in each of the cases: schools that resemble villages and staffs who have relational accountability and a sense of joint ownership of ideas, practices and philosophy (Wagner, 2001).
Although the free school movement largely collapsed by the end of the 1970’s, Miller (2002) argues there is a direct link between these schools and the early alternative schools of the 1980’s and 1990’s which, in turn, are forerunners of the devolved schooling movement of the 2000’s including charter schools, the phenomenon of homeschooling, and a great expansion of small and alternative schools.
There are several thick studies of such early alternative schools of the 1980’s. Bensman (1987. 1994, 2000) describes the history, practices, and legacy of the Central Park East School in New York. His findings are based on both qualitative and quantitative measures. Qualitative data consist of telephone surveys and sample interviews with graduates of the school, parents of the alumni, and staff members to provide background information for the quantitative data. Bensman draws conclusions on the basis of data comparing school graduates and students from a demographically similar group. The researcher’s long-range relationship with the school gave opportunities to gain several interesting insights. For example, in the 1987 study Bensman reports high overall parent satisfaction with the school although many were still uncomfortable with the school’s nontraditional approach to teaching and learning. In his survey of graduates and parents in 1991 he finds significantly more enthusiasm about the school than in the previous study. This leads him to conclude that values of the respondents as well as their perceptions of their feelings may have shifted over time (104).
A Coalition for Self-Learning (2003) maintains an online book in which founders of alternative schools describe in memoir-style the founding principles and early history of their schools. Although not rising to the standard of ethnography, its stories can be seen as valuable primary source material. Among the authors of “chapters” of this book are Leue who describes the Albany Free School, Pariser who writes about The Community School in Maine, and Skenes who takes a snapshot of the St. Paul Open School in Minnesota.
The heavy time demands of writing thick studies almost compel some form of participant observation—primarily outside scholars who are granted insider perches to work inside and study the program. Gregory (1993) describes the Mountain Open High School where he was a part-time staff member for one year. In this capacity he gathers data from direct observation and interviews with students, teachers, and educational professionals. For example he is able to capture reflective dialogues among staff members about whether the size of the school (238 students) had impeded on school effectiveness. Nehring (1998) is a participant observer who describes in narrative form the planning, opening, and evolution of a school-within-a-school, the Bethlehem Central Lab School in Delmar, New York. Collins & Tamarkin (1982) describe the formation and program of the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago.
Such schools acted as precursors to the “fourth wave” (Boyd, 2001) of devolved schools which have proliferated in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Several thick studies of these schools have been emerging. Based on two years of extensive study, Levine (2002) reports on two schools in Providence RI, the Met and The Big Picture Company. Although strictly an observer, Levine became highly familiar to members of the school community; his research is based on shadowing teachers, visiting internship assignments, attending events, perusing school records, simply walking through the building, and conducting multiple interviews with founders, teachers, students and families. Nehring (2002) describes the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School from his perspective of school principal. Schorr (2002) writes extensively about the formation and early years of the E.C. Reems Academy, a charter school in Oakland, California. As a reporter for a local newspaper, Schorr followed several parents who worked with a community-based organization that was trying to start a charter school. Schorr’s research consists of direct observation and interviews over the course of three years that documented the turbulent start of the school.
Not all participant observer research is of equally high quality. Gold (2003) describes her experiences serving as a substitute teacher for four months in “The New Millennium School.” Although this work meets the criteria of insider research, several ethical issues are evident. Gold fails to triangulate any of her personal impressions with hard data or interviews, reveals confidential information about students, and does not indicate whether she obtained any form of informed consent from her subjects. It appears that her intent in accepting the teaching assignment was simply to write a critical book about anentrepreneurial school.
Doctoral dissertations seem to be the best source to find more participant observer qualitative case studies. This vehicle seems to be one that attracts people who have privileged access to schools as participant observers as well as those who have the time for thick studies. Several founding principals of alternative schools write about their schools in dissertations sponsored at Teachers College. Cullen (1991) reports on the organization and effectiveness of Middle College High School in New York, Falk (1994) writes about weaving assessment into the fabric of teaching and learning in her study of the Bronx New School, Joffee (2006) writes about “The Value Creation School.” Davis (2001), at once the school principal and researcher, examines over the course of three years how principals and teachers shape a school culture that is trying to meet its accountability goals. Hansel (2001) studies the third year of a charter high school after spending several months of contact as a volunteer.
References (Partial)
Aikin, W.M. (1942). The Story of the Eight-Year Study: With conclusions and recommendations. New York: Harper & Brothers. Retrieved December 6, 2003, from
Bensman, D. (1987). Quality education in the inner city: The story of the Central Park East School. New York: Center for Collaborative Education.
_____ (1994). Lives of the graduates of Central Park East Elementary School: Where have they gone? What did they really learn? New York: National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching.
_____ (2000). Central Park East and its graduates: Learning by heart. New York: Teachers College Press.
Cunningham, K.S. & Ross, D.J. (1967). An Australian school at work. Melbourne: Australian Council for Education and Research.
Graubard, A. (1974). Free the children: Radical reform and the free school movement. New York: Vintage Books.
Hausman, T. (1998). A history of the free school movement. Unpublished senior thesis. Providence, R.I.: Brown University.
Joffee, M.J. (2006). The Value Creation School: A case study of collaborative leadership in a K-12 focus school. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
Mayhew, K.C. & Edwards, A.C. (1966). The Dewey School: The Laboratory School of the University of Chicago 1896-1903. New York: Atherton Press.
McConnell, J.D.R. (1967). Eton: How it works. London: Faber & Faber.
McPhee, J. (1966). The Headmaster. New York: Four Winds Press.
Miller, R. (2002). Free schools, free people: Education and democracy after the 1960’s. Albany, State University of Albany Press.
Neill, A.S. (1960). Summerhill: A radical approach to child learning. New York: Hart Publishing Co.
Pratt, C. (1948). I learn from children. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Prescott, P.S. (1970). A world of our own: Notes on life and learning in a boys’ preparatory school. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.
Smith, L.M., Dwyer, D.C., Prunty, J.J., and Kleine, P.F. (1988a). Innovation and change in schooling: History, politics, and agency, Book 3: Anatomy of educational innovation, a mid to long-term re-study and reconstrual. Philadelphia, PA: Falmer.
Smith, L.M., Kleine, P.F., Prunty, J.J., and Dwyer, D.C. (1988b). Educational innovators: Then and now, Book 1: Anatomy of educational innovation, a mid- to long-term re-study and reconstrual. Philadelphia, PA: Falmer.
Smith. L.M., Prunty, J.P, Dwyer, D.C. and Kleine, P.F. (1987). The fate of an innovative school: The history and present status of the Kensington school, Book 2: Anatomy of educational innovation, a mid to long-term re-study and reconstrual. Philadelphia, PA: Falmer.
St. John, G. (1959). Forty years at school. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Swidler, A. (1979). Organization without authority: Dilemmas of social control in free schools. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.