Good day, CharterFolk.
Today, we are pleased to share a Contributor Column from Gary Larson, the CEO of Larson Communications.
This is Part One of a two-part series on how to communicate as a movement.
We provide a bio for Gary below.
Gary Larson is founder and CEO of Larson Communications, a mission-driven communications firm that for nearly two decades has helped the charter school movement’s leading schools and organizations win their toughest battles and political fights.
Before founding the firm, he served as the first head of communications for the California Charter Schools Association. He writes from inside the fight.
Define Yourselves Before You’re Defined
I visited my first charter school a week after I heard about them. Some passionate parents invited me.
The week before, while reading the San Francisco Chronicle, I learned that San Francisco Unified planned to revoke a charter school despite amazing improvements. One parent quote stuck. “Our kids are finally learning and we’re happy as parents. Why are they so threatened by our success?”
That evening I flipped through the TV and landed on the live board hearing of that very school. Parents at the microphone, pleading to save the school they loved. Not because it was failing. Because it was succeeding. Every grade, every subject, achievement was up.
As they spoke, the school board president interrupted them. “You have nothing to worry about. Your kids will be just fine when they come back to our schools.” Condescending. Dismissive.
“Your kids will be just fine when they come back to our schools.”
– S.F. School Board President Jill Wynns
I lived six blocks from district headquarters, so I ran down there. I got one minute of public comment: “These are their children. This is their choice,” I said. Afterwards, those parents approached to thank me. Many were non-English speakers. They asked if I could help. Absolutely.
So I volunteered. We organized. I media-trained several engaged moms. Four months of a highly visible campaign culminating with a march of 700 families on that board, chanting “My Child, My Choice.” The district backed down. Parents won. Their voices mattered.
California’s networking association — later CCSA — followed the fight. They recruited me as the first communications head for a state charter association. That was my start. Over the past 25 years, we’ve helped some of our nation’s best charters communicate effectively through some of the toughest renewal battles and political fights in the country. Through this spring, we’re 50 and 1 in those battles. I’ve observed five communications practices that distinguish the schools winning over their communities from those that don’t.
The best schools:
Define Themselves Before They’re Defined
Great schools follow: “Tell your story first. Tell it your way. Get out all the facts about your success.” If you are not defining yourself, someone else is. That someone else may be hostile to your existence.
Winston Churchill reportedly said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has the chance to get its pants on.” The opposition has a playbook. They have decades of practice and unlimited resources. The story many tell: Your school is a threat. Don’t wait until they come for you. It may be too late.
“The best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”
– President John F. Kennedy
The Orange County High School of the Arts, one of the nation’s most reputable charter schools, demonstrated this. Santa Ana Unified, OCSA’s previous authorizer, facing a $180 million budget deficit and a massive family exodus, sent OCSA a surprise $20 million invoice for services OCSA never received. The district’s real intention? To financially bleed the program out of existence.
OCSA refused to let the district define the fight; OCSA fought the stakes on its own terms: an attempt at extortion by a mismanaged district preying on a successful charter. Amidst a barrage of news coverage, the district backed down and settled for well under half the original demand. OCSA today thrives.
Many charter leaders fear that telling their story, especially during a fight, will create controversy that scares their families and supporters off. The opposite is true. When supporters are exposed to the stakes — when they watch their school taking on an entrenched system on behalf of their kids — their affinity for the school deepens. OCSA recognized this. Supporters who love their school don’t want to be shielded from the fight. They need to know the stakes. They want to be in it.
“A government can be no better than the public opinion that sustains it.”
– President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Use Messaging That Balances Head and Heart
Are you working? Are you changing lives? Two questions.
Schools often lean one way. High test scores only go so far. Smiling student photos can come off as fluff. Successful schools blend the two.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said: “Facts make people feel. People are so unused to being given them. They’re grateful for the respect shown in an invitation to think.” This may seem counterintuitive; she later added: “The path to most hearts is through the brain.” They work together.
Six Key Drivers create news and move public opinion through head and heart. Each answers the question every journalist asks: “Why should I care?” They include:
- News. What are you doing that is new and compelling?
- Results. Does what you’re doing actually work?
- Success. Can what you’re doing earn recognition?
- Momentum. Can you document growth or improvement? Is what you’re doing changing the broader landscape?
- Validation. Are important people and organizations endorsing what you do?
- Human Interest. How do you tell the story of changed lives?
“Facts make people feel.”
– Wall Street Journal Columnist Peggy Noonan
Most schools tell their story across one or two. Schools that build durable public trust tell theirs across all six, over time.
On human interest, tell the stories of teachers, especially those from the system. A top education editor recently told me, “Gary, charters do a decent job telling the story of successful students and satisfied parents. Where they’re completely missing is charter teachers.” Critics can’t dismiss them.
Two stories showcase this. The Los Angeles Times called Phil Holmes “one of the great English teachers of his generation” after 35 years at the prestigious Harvard-Westlake. Critics said his approach only worked for privileged overachievers. At the age most retire, Holmes moved to a charter school in underserved South LA. The students rose to him. His method changed lives.
At another charter, we heard offhandedly about a homeless student the school took in years earlier. She’d just been accepted to Yale. The proud school leader didn’t think it was worth telling broadly. We did. The most powerful part: The teacher who encouraged her along the way. “She’s fierce,” the teacher said. Years later, that student graduated college, became a charter teacher, and recently, Dean at the charter that saved her. These are the stories charters must tell.
Build Trust Through Consistent, Dynamic Communication
Charters have this structural advantage the system cannot match. Prior to the 2022 Chicago Public Schools strike, the district, union and mayor were all in a food fight over adult issues. Imagine being a parent receiving email barrages from all three on why the others were wrong. No one was listening to her. She showed up the following week to drop her child off at an empty school. No one had told her about the strike.
Now imagine her teacher. One shared her experience with the Chicago Tribune: “Guidance from union and district leadership was replaced with rumors, anxiety and teachers cobbling together information from the news. My students looked to me for answers, and I had none.”
“It’s a true partnership. When the parents don’t have their children, we do.”
– Jackie Elliot, Founder of PUC Schools
As Jackie Elliot, founder of PUC Schools often notes, being a charter allows a partnership to form between students, families and schools. Free from bureaucratic constraints, charters can communicate two ways, where both can listen. Great charter schools live this.
Equip the Right People to Deliver Their Message
Great charter schools cultivate a deep bench of messengers. Teachers. Parents. Students. Alumni. Board members. Each speaks to different audiences. Great schools know who speaks to whom. They prepare them well.
When GALS Charter School needed a better facility in crowded Los Angeles, NIMBY neighbors pushed back with practical concerns — traffic, trash, noise, crime. GALS positioned the school as a good neighbor and let its families, students and teachers speak. Audiences fall into three groups: Saints, salvageables and sinners. Your saints fight for you. Salvageables can be persuaded. Sinners never come around. Great schools embolden their saints, win over their salvageables and neutralize their sinners to bring about change.
GALS’ strategy was to demystify their saints: Their mission is to serve middle school girls – hardly the type to bring traffic, trash or crime. GALS students mobilized a clever “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” campaign – a nod to the popular Mr. Rogers movie. They followed with a GALentines campaign in February to thank neighbors. The NIMBYs’ argument fell apart; GALS is now growing.
Know Your Political Strengths and Vulnerabilities
“Only the Paranoid Survive.”
– Andy Grove, founder of Intel
Know the opposition’s playbook. There are only five ways they’ll attack; their playbook never changes for two reasons. First, unchallenged, it’s effective. Second, they’re lazy. Their arguments state that expanding great charter schools:
- Drains money from the public school system.
- Doesn’t improve learning.
- Weakens teacher rights.
- Creams, or cherry-picks the best students, leaving the hardest kids behind.
- Weakens accountability.
Break their playbook. They use zero-sum language – one student attending a charter is one less student – and less funding – for them. Preempt this with positive sum language: How is your community better because you exist?
Here’s why their playbook works. Critics move the goalposts. If you open to serve an underserved community, you’re not doing any better. When you improve achievement, suddenly you’re creaming.
Underneath it all is a cognitive dissonance at the heart of this conflict:
Charter leaders wake up every morning thinking: Why are they doing this to us when the students we serve are thriving?
The status quo wakes up thinking: Our schools will do better if they are all under our authority — if charters are doing better, it’s only because they’re taking away our best kids.
So don’t argue on their terms. For every attack, prebut it with the positive — the reframe that puts you back on offense.
Great charter schools understand this: Our very existence means we picked a fight. Embrace it. We’re a movement.
“Our very existence means we picked a fight. Embrace it.”
Across America, parents are standing at microphones, fighting for their kids’ schools. Here are four I know — saying the same thing at different points over the past 25 years:
“This is our school and our choice. Don’t take that from us. When is it going to be about our babies?”
— Priscilla Nelson, charter school parent
“Our school has given our kids the opportunity to learn, and it’s being yanked away. What will they be left with, what they had before, which is nothing?”
— Lupe Hernandez, charter school parent
“Our children wouldn’t survive without this education. It’s here they learned to love learning.”
— Chris Reese, charter school parent
“We won’t roll over. We’ll go to battle over this.”
— Laura Baker, charter school parent
These are the stakes. Families count on us. No school can win these fights alone. The public is asking real questions. These five practices are how schools answer them well. Schools that run these plays will be fine. The national movement, on the other hand, has its own work to do — that’s for our next conversation.