The first section of the paper describes how the literature on organizational innovation provides a foundation to build an examination of charter schools by identifying the obstacles and opportunities associated with the creation and operation of charter schools. Relevant theories and findings from the organizational literature include major change paradigms and strategies of change. Knowing and understanding organizational theories, including innovation and adaptation, facilitates and illuminates the process involved in creating charter schools.

Next, the paper describes how California's charter school legislation could enable schools to extend reforms under other statewide initiatives, such as by placing responsibility for school reform at the local level, or by linking accountability for student outcomes with parental choice. These changes were found to encourage innovative educational approaches. Local communities are creating charter schools to take advantage of these and other opportunities created by charter school legislation, such as increased autonomy and greater flexibility. Charter schools’ challenge to the traditional roles played by local school boards and the State Department of Education are also addressed. For example, state agency oversight and evaluation requirements are absent from charter school legislation.

The final section of the paper discusses emerging issues related to charter schools, including the degree to which they will be innovative and operate as schools of choice with academically low-achieving students as a target population as envisioned by California's charter school legislation.

The paper closes with an overview of Southwest Regional Laboratory's future research related to charter schools, including tracking the creation and survival rates among charter schools, describing the core structures of the survivng charter schools, and gathering information on the performance of charter schools against various provisions and assessments.