Weekend greetings, CharterFolk
Quite a breakthrough this week:
A new charter school was approved in – of all places – Philadelphia.
It’s the first charter approved since the Eagles have brought home two Super Bowl titles.
Consider it, in its own way, a Lombardi Trophy lifted up for public education in Philadelphia.
A testament to the meticulous, endlessly patient, and relentlessly positive efforts of Early College’s founders.
Following an infuriating denial in February, they never gave up, despite all the opposition they had to contend with.
Congratulations, all.
You remind us that CharterFolk are, indeed, the very heart of the charter school movement.
A Focus on Sustenance Reveals a Widening Chasm
The other “signs of the times” at the board meeting where the charter was approved were unmistakable.
The meeting had been rescheduled at the last minute, apparently because the district was set to consider a new agreement with the feds related to asbestos in its schools. Many waiting for the meeting to begin were clearly frustrated by the schedule change. Then, just as the meeting started, it was announced that the asbestos-related item had been pulled. So, as it turns out, there hadn’t been a reason to reschedule after all.
It led to them starting off the meeting with the district’s budget.
Despite building a several hundred-million-dollar surplus through COVID, the district plans to spend down half its reserve next year to avoid tough decisions now.
When asked about the massive projected deficit, district staff blamed two things:
The state’s inadequate education funding and, of course, charter schools taking away money.
Which was an assertion, it should be noted, that was objected to by board members on the dais, and which makes the 8-1 vote in favor of the new charter all the more commendable.
Before the new charter application was considered, a community group called Lift Every Voice spoke.
What was their demand?
Greater student learning? Better instruction? Enhanced supports for students?
No.
Their entire agenda boiled down to three things:
- Access to food and water
- Access to bathrooms
- Access to recess
Basic sustenance.
Which forces us to contend with a stark reality:
The disconnect between what our public schools offer and the bare minimum that parents will accept – something I’ve been writing about for nearly half a decade now …
… is widening into a chasm.
That advocacy has been reduced to pleading for absolute non-negotiables is just another tragic sign of how wide the gap has become.
It’s a reflection of what an ever-growing number of parents across the country now recognize:
Our public schools aren’t providing basic sustenance even, never mind the truly supportive experience that kids will need to thrive in a world of unimaginable change.
Basic Sustenance in California
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a Californian – the friend of a father of one of my son’s classmates. Word had somehow gotten around about what I used to do in California, and this guy wanted to talk.
Turns out, he’d done well enough as a Silicon Valley executive to retire early. His daughter had a traumatic experience in public school. She’s dyslexic, but it wasn’t identified until middle school. So in retirement, he’s dedicating himself to a nonprofit trying to advance “Science of Reading” practices in California.
I think the call was largely cathartic for him.
He explained how his group had been pushing for a bill that would require school districts to adopt these practices, train teachers, and receive new resources.
But the California Teachers Association has long opposed it.
So it died.
Then suddenly the idea came back – revived only because the powers-that-be made it a priority. Another bill, completely unrelated to education, was “gutted and amended” (I had to explain the term to him) and brought to the Assembly Education Committee. He and his colleagues went to Sacramento only to see all their hard work stripped from the bill to get CTA’s buy-in.
Now, in his view, the bill will do little to advance the Science of Reading, but it gives politicians something to campaign on.
As it happens, just before that hearing, a charter school bill was considered – one that, if passed, would do massive harm to the charter school movement.
As the Science of Reading folks filed in, CharterFolk were filing out.
They’d shown up in force. Their pleas had gone unheeded. Several, he reported, were crying.
It was a side of the world he’d never seen before – how politics traps public education in a fixity of brokenness.
Even the ability to read is being withheld.
Before we ended the call, he asked if my time in the legislature had changed my politics. Before I could answer, he volunteered his own story:
He came to California as a Republican, but found the party’s stances on social issues in the early 2000s abhorrent. So he became a Democrat.
But now, having seen Democrats up close, he said he has “no politics.”
No party represents what he believes. Especially not on education.
All I could say was amen, and that it was up to us to build the politics that our kids and families need.
Signs of the Times in Districts Across California
Because sadly, dysfunction playing out in California school districts, like parents protesting in Philadelphia, is just another sign of the times.
In Oakland, after ousting a respected superintendent, the school board appointed a new leader who spent seven years as president of the local teachers union.
She’s aligned with the current union head, who’s been accused of entering a school site without authority and physically threatening a principal, leading to pushback from administrators.
It’s exactly the dynamic I have reported happening in other parts of the country – teacher unions becoming so extreme in their views they can find no one willing to carry water for them such that they have to go and carry the water themselves, personally.
Across the Bay in San Francisco, the continued dysfunction on display is just stunning to behold.
Fights about grading policy … …
… and curriculum …
… playing out against an unfolding budget fiasco.
In fact, it was an attempt to get the district to confront its budget problems last year that led to the departure of San Francisco Unified’s previous superintendent.
Just as it was what led to the departure of Oakland Unified’s superintendent.
In Los Angeles, the district lost 11,000 students last year. Charter schools lost a couple thousand, too – but in terms of percentage of students served, charter schools have never served more.
Across LA, schools sit under-enrolled, while popular campuses deny enrollment to those who reside outside their attendance boundaries.
Tim DeRoache at Available to All recently called them out.
Public schools denying access, even when they have room?
Facilities denied to charter schools, even when district campuses sit nearly empty?
This is what we call public education?
Policy making truly in service of the public?
And yet, as Jared Austin shared with us last month …
… despite the attacks coming against California charter schools, we keep on growing. State data released two weeks ago shows for the first time that charter school enrollment rounds up to 13% of public school students, the first time it has crossed that threshold.
In total, public school enrollment in California fell by 50,000 last year, while charter school enrollment rose by over 18,000 …
… solidifying California’s charter school sector as one of the fastest-growing in the country.
Status quo interests continue their attacks.
Whether the bill that brought charter school parents to tears passes the Assembly hangs in the balance.
So, of course, we have to do everything in our power to stop it.
But at the same time, we have to know:
Whatever opponents throw against us, charter schools’ impact is only destined to grow.
Because this is what happens when public schools fail to provide even the most basic sustenance:
What parents know their kids deserve.
Public Education: More Than a Label
Recently, debates have centered around whether charter schools are “state actors” or “private actors.”
I understand the stakes. But the conversation drags us down to the lowest possible denominator.
Because the sad truth is that many public schools that qualify as “state actors” are among those that don’t provide even basic sustenance.
Yes, we must fight the legal battles. But we must not lose sight of the bigger picture.
What defines public education?
For many submitting amicus briefs in recent months, there is no such thing as “public education.” It’s just a label, they say.
The only thing that matters, they maintain, is whether a school is a recipient of public funding.
That’s, again, reducing things to the lowest common denominator.
To matters of sustenance.
When what we need is something that inspires us to reach for the highest.
Something that reminds us that public education is an ideal.
Public schools are those that are both open to all and that are excellent.
Schools that don’t exclude as a feature, but include as a principle.
It’s a category of ‘actor’ that many believe is mythical – literally impossible to create.
Thus, they revert to a sustenance mindset and say the best that we can hope for are private schools.
Ones that might be great for a lot of kids, but which exclude others as a central feature of their design.
As a central feature of the value-add they profess to offer.
Each new charter that opens is a reminder that our values endure. That our movement lives on in its quest to help public education achieve its ideal.
Take what Keshema Davidson and Anna Winter, founders of Early College Prep, said in their interview this week with Chalkbeat:
Davidson and Winter describe themselves as atypical charter founders. They served in leadership roles at Cristo Rey, a respected Catholic school in the city, but they don’t have deep roots in the charter world.
“We’re brand new. We have no baggage in this game,’ Winter said.
Davidson added: ‘We felt very strongly that the school should operate as an open-enrollment public school with no selective criteria.’
Philly already has a district school dedicated to programs in which students can earn associates degrees and professional certifications: Parkway Center City. But as a selective admissions school, not everyone gets in.
It’s a testament to the staying power of the charter school movement – newcomers as committed to our belief in the ideal of public education as the founders who launched the charter school movement three and a half decades ago.
A Lombardi Trophy not just for Philadelphia, but for the whole country.
Just as the growth we’re seeing across California raises high the same trophy.
A symbol of something that transcends basic sustenance.
And rejects the notion that public education is nothing more than a label.
It’s why I say, CharterFolk:
Each new charter school that opens …
Each new charter school that expands …
And succeeds with students …
While excluding no one …
Advances our belief:
Public education is not a label.
It is an ideal.
One that is achievable.
It’s a message that gains new currency every time we grow.
As this week in Philadelphia so compellingly attests.
It’s why it’s so important.
Do it, CharterFolk.
Grow!