Disciplined by Design

Welcome to Disciplined by Design

By Adreanna Halliman, May 5th, 2025

Charter schools have arguably reshaped the educational landscape in New York City since they were introduced in the late 90s. Initially, charter schools were marketed as a way to offer families more choice, rigor and equity in educational outcomes. However, many of these schools have raised questions about student outcomes, equity and their choice of discipline practice. Disciplined by Design, a podcast and article series, will explore the history of larger charter schools and investigate how charter school discipline systems in NYC overlap with carceral styles of punishment. Additionally, it will tease out how these systems impact students, educators, families and those in school communities. 

This series will utilize interviews with former educators, students and community members of students that hail from the Big Seven charter networks. This project aims to illuminate and qualify the quantified outcomes of research done on school discipline systems. It seeks to center the voice of those closest to the systems to create a more clear, nuanced understanding of how the “no-excuses” charter school models impact student’s relationships with authority and compliance. 

What are Charter Schools?

Oftentimes, charter schools are discussed without definition. What makes a charter school? Charter schools are schools that can be both publicly and privately funded and are independently operated – this means they are not operated by the Department of Education (DOE). This independence allows charter schools to have greater autonomy over how the schools operate. 

In traditional DOE schools, there are local school boards that serve as governing bodies and schools must follow strict state regulations. Charter schools, on the other hand, operate under a “charter” or a contract, hence the name charter schools. These contracts allow for more freedom; this is how charter schools are able to implement their own curriculum, have school missions, alternative teacher hiring practices or even implement significantly longer school days. Additionally, and most importantly for this series, this freedom allows charter schools to implement vastly different approaches to school discipline and student support. 

How Are Charter Schools Different from DOE Schools?

It’s important to highlight the differences between charter schools and DOE schools. While studies on school discipline can be done on DOE schools, the focus on charter schools in this series is done because of the difference in how they are able to operate. The main difference between charter schools and DOE schools is how they are governed, how they are held accountable and how flexible they’re able to be.

As previously mentioned, DOE schools must follow strict rules and regulations. They follow a centralized curriculum, have laws and regulations around teacher certification and teachers have union contracts. Teacher unions provide pay clarity and unity across the DOE and also protect teacher jobs. The centralized curriculum is meant to ensure that students across the state are learning the same concepts in specific grade bands. The DOE also has a centralized discipline code that outlines responses to specific behaviors. 

Charter schools are able to set their own curriculum and instructional styles and they are typically exempt from union rules. Teacher salaries vary across charter schools and jobs are typically positioned as “at will” – they are able to terminate teacher contracts for any legal reason. 

While DOE schools must offer full special education services, some charter schools have been criticized for allegedly pushing out students with special needs and avoiding responsibility through loopholes (Naclerio, 2017). 

Discipline practices are another key area of difference. Many charter schools adopt “no excuses” models, emphasizing strict compliance with behavioral expectations, while DOE schools often use a restorative justice framework, especially in recent years after updates to the discipline code.

History of Charter Schools in NYC

The 1998 Charter Schools Act introduced charter schools to the New York City educational landscape. The first NYC charter school opened in 1999. During Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration (2002–2013), charter schools rapidly expanded and began to gain political and philanthropic support which increased their growth.

In the last twenty years, NYC has gone from having a handful of charter schools to 281 schools that service roughly 14% of the city’s public school students (Rodrigues Valle Collective, 2024). While charter schools have expanded dramatically, they have also faced significant backlash with critics pointing to the lack of accountability for meeting the needs of students with disabilities, financial oversight and harsh discipline policies (Green, Baker & Oluwole, 2018; Rapa et al., 2025). 

Charter schools currently remain powerful in terms of political ties and financial backing. However, there continue to be debates about their impact, their discipline systems and whether or not they are truly equitable for the students they serve.

Understanding the Big 7 Charter Schools

The “Big 7” refers to the seven largest and most influential charter management organizations (CMOs) operating in New York City. These are:

Together, these school networks shape the charter school landscape in NYC and heavily influence discussions around discipline, equity, and school success.

How Does This Connect to the School-to-Prison Pipeline?

The school-to-prison pipeline describes how exclusionary school discipline policies—like suspensions and expulsions—push students, especially students of color, out of educational spaces and into the criminal justice system (Bacher-Hicks et al., 2024; Hemez et al., 2020).

In NYC charter schools, where school police may not play as large a role as elsewhere, the discipline system itself becomes the primary vehicle of exclusion. Suspensions, public shaming, and harsh compliance demands can undermine student trust in institutions, leading to disengagement, resistance, and vulnerability to criminalization later in life (Heise, 2023).

What Will This Podcast and Article Series Do?

Disciplined by Design will explore the intersection between research and real-world experience. It will pair existing academic studies with interviews from former charter school teachers who experienced these discipline systems firsthand. Ultimately, this project aims to offer clarity about the human impacts of discipline systems—and to imagine how schools could be different.

References

Bacher-Hicks, A., Billings, S. B., & Deming, D. J. (2024). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Long-Run Impacts of School Suspensions on Adult Crime. American Economic Journal. Economic Policy, 16(4), 165–193. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20230052

Green, P. C., Baker, B. D., & Oluwole, J. O. (2018). Are Charter Schools the Second Coming of Enron?: An Examination of the Gatekeepers That Protect Against Dangerous Related-Party Transactions in the Charter School Sector. Indiana Law Journal (Bloomington), 93(4), 1121–116

Heise, M. (2023). Racial Isolation, School Police, and the “School-To-Prison Pipeline”: An Empirical Perspective on the Enduring Salience of “Tipping Points.” Buffalo Law Review, 71(2), 163–224.

Hemez, P., Brent, J. J., & Mowen, T. J. (2020). Exploring the School-to-Prison Pipeline: How School Suspensions Influence Incarceration During Young Adulthood. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 18(3), 235–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204019880945

Naclerio, M. A. (2017). ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH PROCEDURE? RETHINKING CHARTER SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SPECIAL EDUCATION RIGHTS. Columbia Law Review, 117(5), 1153–1189.

Rapa, L. J., Katsiyannis, A., & Edwards-Bowyer, M. (2025). Lawton et al. v. Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc. (2018): Charter School Disciplinary Approaches and Students With Disabilities. Intervention in School and Clinic, 60(4), 236–240. https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512241296822