Event

Studies examining the role of private philanthropy in advancing social change have primarily focused on the impact of foundations’ financial resources. Few scholars have analyzed how foundations also leverage social mechanisms to advance and legitimate desired change. We apply insights from recent scholarship on ideas as mechanisms for change to analyze the early diffusion of the charter management organization (CMO), a recent reform effort in the charter school movement. We argue that the CMO form benefited from and was advanced by widely held ideas underscoring the importance of scale. Understood and framed as the vehicle for getting to scale, the CMO form drew a disproportionate share of private philanthropy dollars, appealed to a new class of professionals from outside of education, and was successfully distinguished from alternative charter forms, all of which contributed to its early diffusion. In addition to developing a fuller understanding of the charter school movement, the paper contributes to broader scholarship on the ideational mechanisms of education reform.