Policy makers, teachers, parents, and community members have embraced charter school reform, hoping that charter schools will offer empowerment to local communities and teachers. Meanwhile, private education management organizations (EMOs), which offer whole-school management, have emerged, often targeting charter schools in low-income, urban communities of color with their services.; Yet there is little empirical study that considers which parties are empowered when (EMOs) and local charter school communities---parents, teachers, and other community members---form partnerships. Through case studies of three charter schools that partnered or contracted with EMOs, this dissertation examines three local forms of empowerment---community, professional, and market---and the macropolitical contexts that mediated the distribution of power within the charter schools. It also examines how conservative, neoliberal and progressive ideologies have defined and framed the policy contexts under which empowerment is negotiated. Data collected include interviews, meeting and classroom observations, and school and EMO documents.; The data suggest that "empowerment" is a context-specific and multifaceted construct, shaped by state, city, and school district contexts as well as the availability of resources, and connections to school district leadership and the private sector.; This study makes recommendations for policy makers, educational researchers, and practitioners to better engage in privatization and charter school reforms. I conclude that the best hope for the empowerment of local communities rests in the ability of teachers, parents, and school districts to develop capacities for negotiating new governance structures. There may be a role for the private sector in public education that does not hinder community and professional empowerment, but this role should be deliberated against the lived experiences of local charter schools that have partnered or contracted with EMOs.
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