One of the pri­ma­ry aims of char­ter school poli­cies is to intro­duce com­pe­ti­tion between all pub­lic schools. When par­ents can choose where to send their chil­dren to school, this cre­ates pres­sure on schools to attract and retain stu­dents. But do school lead­ers in New Orleans rec­og­nize these mar­ket pres­sures? Which schools do they com­pete with and why? Draw­ing on sur­veys and inter­views with 90% of the prin­ci­pals in New Orleans pub­lic schools, this paper exam­ines the extent to which school lead­ers in New Orleans per­ceive com­pe­ti­tion for stu­dents, the schools they view as com­peti­tors, and the fac­tors that explain why one school com­petes with anoth­er. Edu­ca­tion Research Alliance research asso­ciate Huriya Jabbar will present her find­ings which sug­gest that school lead­ers do think about com­pe­ti­tion, but the num­ber and type of schools they com­pete with varies across schools. Fac­tors asso­ci­at­ed with a com­pet­i­tive rela­tion­ship between two schools includ­ed geog­ra­phy, school per­for­mance, char­ter net­work, and prin­ci­pal characteristics.