Volume 30.3 September 2006 528–47 International Journal of Urban and Regional Research DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2006.00678.x © 2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2006 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published by Blackwell Publishing. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAIJURInternational Journal of Urban and Regional Research0309-1317Blackwell Publishing Ltd 20062006303528547 Original ArticlesCharter schools and neoliberal urban regimes in metropolitan AtlantaKatherine B. Hankins and Deborah G. Martin Charter Schools and Urban Regimes in Neoliberal Context: Making Workers and New Spaces in Metropolitan Atlanta KATHERINE B. HANKINS and DEBORAH G. MARTIN Abstract In this article, we demonstrate the neoliberalism and multiscalar economic perspective of the charter school movement in Atlanta, Georgia, through examination of news articles and editorials about charter schools in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1998 to 2004. We posit three interrelated dynamics which explain the editorial board’s interest in charter schools as part of a broader urban regime agenda. First, charter schools represent part of a neoliberal shift in education that parallels shifts in urban governance, emphasizing flexibility, public–private partnerships, and ‘market’-oriented consumer choice and accountability. Second, the newspaper is issuing a challenge to educational structures, to adopt more neoliberal policies and shed a bureaucratic, liberal governance framework. Finally, we find critical evidence that the charter school movement draws on a multiscalar discourse which simultaneously references responsiveness to local, neighborhood needs, and at the same time highlights the economic imperatives of a global, competitive city to differentially skill students/workers in order to capture mobile and fractured (global) capital. Introduction As of 2006, over a million students in 40 states attend one of more than 3,500 charter schools in the United States. Charter schools are funded by taxpayers on a per-pupil basis, and yet they are independently managed by groups of parents, teachers, community activists and/or private businesses. Charter schools operate with funds from local school boards — with very general oversight — but their particular structure, from educational mission to human relations, is determined independently in each school, creating a fragmented and differentiated educational landscape within any given school district (that has charter schools). The state of Georgia alone hosts 56 charter schools, serving over 20,000 students. Between January 1998 and December 2004, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), Georgia’s major newspaper, published 50 staff editorials advocating charter schools as a (partial) solution to Georgia’s and Atlanta’s public education woes. This advocacy raises questions about the motivations and interests of the newspaper: why would charter schools generate such interest by the newspaper’s editorial board? What is the relationship between a new form of education and a prominent representative of a local urban regime? Recognizing the newspaper’s role as a classic urban regime player (Logan and Molotch, 1987; Stone, 1989), we posit three interrelated dynamics which explain the Sincere thanks to Perry Carter, Sarah Elwood, Josh Inwood and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.