I. Bringing the Business to Scale

Most for-profit education organizations are created out of a demand for an alternative to existing public schools. The venture will often begin as an investment opportunity to open one or two mission-driven schools dependent on enrollment numbers and parent satisfaction. If after several years of positive response from parents and students, the school’s founders will entice investors to launch an additional school with the promise of the same level of success as the previous one. Due to the enormous expenses involved in renovating facilities and training staff, education institutes rarely break even until about a dozen or so schools have been launched and many can go without making a profit for almost a decade of operation (Wilson 317).

For each new school launched, the institute’s reputation and financial shareholders are put on the line. A successful launch will advance the company’s name and attract more private investment, thereby keeping the schools alive. On the other hand, a mediocre launch can almost immediately discredit the company’s name despite previous achievements. Therefore the pressure to ensure a successful and stable launch is enormous. The organization’s founders spend a vast amount of resources on creating a robust school design that could be applied similarly across different locations. Strict procedures are put in vital areas of activity such as instructional methods, disciplinary procedures, staff training, and testing. But of the many factors that affect the success of a school, strong leadership is one of the most critical and yet the most difficult to rely on for availability. It is not an uncommon experience that schools opening with a weak leader become locked in mediocrity even if the existing leadership is replaced by someone more competent down the road (Wilson 203).