Good day, CharterFolk.
This morning I’ve got 10 brief vignettes on a theme for you. Let’s get to them.
1
A recurring assertion I make here at CharterFolk is that it is not possible for our movement to drive a narrative without working to advance policy proposals.
We can tell positive stories.
We can release a study.
We can hold a symposium.
All of these things are important.
But in terms of driving narrative?
Not sufficient.
We can do these things until we’re blue in the face.
But when our adversaries run a bill attacking us for this or that supposed shortcoming, the attention that their controversial idea generates on that shortcoming …
… regardless whether their proposal passes in the end …
… and regardless whether it has any basis in fact whatsoever …
… will crowd out any other narrative we are trying to drive with our conflict-less positivity.
This is why we struggle so much to drive a narrative as a movement.
They attack.
We don’t.
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2
Aristotle taught us in the Poetics.
What is the origin of drama?
What makes an audience pay attention?
What makes them willing to sit through an entire play?
Conflict.
If we are serious about the public paying attention to our side of the story …
If we are serious about driving narrative …
… we will remember our Aristotle.
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3
I find it indicative of our current mindset:
CharterFolk get mad at our advocates.
Don’t do anything controversial. Anything you do that’s controversial will cost us friends. And we need every friend we can get right now.
But at the same time, CharterFolk want our advocates to drive narrative.
What we want is narrative without conflict.
Which is never going to happen.
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4
Not all conflict is good.
Some of it is unwise.
Some of it is cheap.
Lots of it is values-less.
We attack just because they attack?
No.
But conflict that is carefully considered?
And reflects our values?
Initiated in the right way at the right time?
Toward a North Star that shows us aspiring toward a noble end?
Like, say, all kids getting a better education, maybe?
It’s how we could finally drive narrative.
It’s the only way, actually,
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5
Some conflict is predictable.
It’s the conflict that comes from parties trying to get their fair share.
Or in some cases, more than their fair share.
When we advocate for things that would result in charter schools (and by extension charter school students) getting their fair share, it’s important.
We have to do it.
In so many cases our kids and schools are being short-changed.
But in terms of conflict that will drive narrative?
Something unexpected?
Interesting enough to sit through until the end of the play?
Not Poetic.
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6
The best conflict for driving narrative is not centered on benefit we seek for ourselves but on benefit we seek for all because of our values.
The absolute nirvana is a proposal that educates the public about problems that exist in district schools and that do not exist in charter schools because of our design.
For example:
Our adversaries like to run bills about supposed cherry picking problems that exist in charter school admissions. Everyone in CharterLand knows of this menace. They advance a lot of narrative along these lines.
When in fact, public education in our society …
… at massive scale …
… allocates better educational opportunity to those with means and worst to those without through attendance boundaries and other redlining admissions practices.
So it would be perfectly legitimate to assert that status quo schools are guilty of orchard-harvesting offense in admissions.
And that charter schools, by design, aren’t.
But, of course, we never make that assertion in a manner loud enough to be heard.
We’re too afraid.
So cherry-picking is the narrative that prevails, not orchard harvesting.
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7
Nirvana would be the charter school world running bills on matters like status quo orchard harvesting because, most importantly of course, it would make the world better for kids and families.
But also because, in pointing out the orchard harvesting, we would make clear how absurd the allegation of cherry picking is.
And when people ask, why, Charterfolk, are you running a bill like this?
What dog do you have in the hunt?
What do you care about district school admissions?
This isn’t going to result in any direct benefit coming to you.
You know what we say?
Exactly.
Nice to meet you.
We are the charter school movement.
We are ultimately not about every kid in our country being served by a charter school but about every kid getting the fair shake they deserve, and there are many ways by which we can get there, all of which our movement supports.
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8
I firmly believe that someday – and yes, I think it will be someday soon – the charter school world will come out of its shell and begin to advance policy proposals that reflect our values.
It will be scary at first.
We’ll make mistakes.
But, ultimately, we will learn how to do it.
And in so doing, for the first time in the history of the charter school movement, the movement itself will begin to drive its own narrative.
There are glimmers, though, that happen from time to time.
Examples of CharterFolk seeing the way forward in front of the rest of us.
We saw one last week.
You may have heard that a group of school districts in Texas sued to block the release of new A-F academic rankings for all public schools in the state.
Their cockamamie notion is that AI was used so somehow the rankings are inaccurate.
When in reality, of course, the school districts’ decision was grounded in two central facts about the education status quo.
The first is that they are not transparent. They don’t want the public to actually see how they are performing.
The second is that they are opposed to being held accountable.
Note how both those assertions are ones they direct against charter schools ad nauseam, when in fact they are the ones who are guilty of the offenses.
I call it throwing rocks from the glassest houses in America.
And, sadly, we let them do it.
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9
Last week IDEA Public Schools said they’d had enough.
They embraced conflict.
Values-centric conflict.
That was not self-serving.
They petitioned the court to force the state of Texas to release the rankings.
Not because they had some dog in the hunt, but because IDEA believes that all public schools should be transparent about their performance and should be held accountable.
Look at their own announcement.
They were transparent about the fact that, by their own calculation, the percentage of their schools that should receive an A or a B actually dropped this year.
How’s that self-serving?
And yet, still they went on.
And in an important way, a new narrative was initiated, not just for IDEA, but for all charter schools.
We are on the side of parents getting the information they need to know whether their schools are performing well.
Imagine, CharterFolk, if this wasn’t just one charter school organization acting this way, but thousands.
Imagine if our advocacy organizations across the country were acting this way every day.
Such that when people ask why we’re doing it.
We have no dog in that hunt.
We can say:
Exactly.
Nice to meet you.
We are the charter school movement.
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10
It’s fitting who this gesture came from.
It’s not just the right IDEA.
It’s an IDEA whose time has come.