Charter Schools and Market Segmentation: How market and political theory explains the behavior and racial composition of charter schools

This research was conducted to examine the effect(s) of charter school marketing on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) education landscape with respect to the racial stratification of charter schools. Information from four sources: school websites, a survey of charter school parents, existing online statistics and data, and various school documents and marketing materials comprised the quantitative and qualitative data used in this research. The major finding was that there are two theoretical constructs at work, the market and the polis (Stone, 2006), that explain the stratification that exists within charter schools in the LAUSD. Each of these models describes charter schools at different times during the school life cycle. The polis dominates during the creation of a charter school, while market theory explains the operation and maintenance of ongoing charter organizations.