Good day, CharterFolk.
Today, we are pleased to share a Contributor Column from Gary Larson, the CEO of Larson Communications.
This is Part Two of a two-part series on how to communicate as a movement. Read Part One.
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.
Persuade as a Movement. Not as an Industry
It was my second day at California’s state charter networking association, and after the fight that pulled me into this work, I was all in.
I stepped into a movement operating this way: Stay below the radar. Keep our heads down. Don’t ruffle feathers. This non-strategy worked. Until it didn’t.
Day two, the movement was rocked by a statewide charter scandal covered prominently in the news media. Then another. Then another. We became defined by our worst schools.
Sacramento responded with several cycles of restrictions that punished everyone for the misdeeds of a few. The movement fractured. In California, most authorizers were like Blockbuster overseeing Netflix — regulating their own competition, with every incentive for the kids to return.
“We became defined by our worst schools”
My mandate? Go tell positive stories. Nope. We needed to go on offense with a strategy: Persuade the public why the movement was needed and how it was doing. They had no idea.
Two years of defining ourselves on our own terms convinced policymakers — and even philanthropy — that this movement was worth standing by. Out of that came CCSA. Caprice Young arrived from LA Unified’s board with a clear North Star: Charter schools are the best path to genuine reform of public education. She helped grow LA’s independent charters from 7 to over 70. She knew the path.
We helped great schools expand, held bad apples accountable and flipped the script on authorizing.
Each year we introduced legislation to create independent authorizers and to revoke the lousy ones. Each year it was defeated. But it kept us on offense while we told the story of the good. Public support climbed. Enrollment doubled. We were winning over the public.
Caprice handed the baton to Jed Wallace, who led California’s movement for the next decade. He built on what Caprice started: Standing for quality, expanding great charters and holding to the North Star — transforming public education. Nearly 1 in 6 charter schools nationwide is in California. Most today are under attack.
Does the movement have a messaging problem? Not really. We don’t lack great public opinion research. We have an alignment problem. A movement cannot persuade the public when its vision, politics, positioning and communications all point in different directions.
A couple of years ago I was on a reform panel. The question came: What’s the biggest mistake the movement has made? Easy. We’ve tried too hard to be liked by the system we seek to transform. This manifests in four ways.
Seeking acceptance from the status quo. If we outperform, they’ll accept us. If we’re more accountable, they’ll embrace us. None of it has worked. Think about what we’re actually asking: to be embraced by the system we exist to change. The system will never reform from within. We need the public’s confidence, not the system’s blessing.
“Think about what we’re actually asking: to be embraced by the system we exist to change”
Comparing ourselves to the system to gain credibility. We tell the public we’re just as public as district schools. Just as free. As 50CAN’s Derrell Bradford diagnosed, “In return for greater political support, we took the temperature down on our rhetoric. ‘Freedom, flexibility, funding,’ and ‘autonomy for results’ were ablated by district charter compacts.” If we’re just like them, why are we needed?
Comparing ourselves to the system to prove superiority. The inverse is also true: We rank our test scores against the system’s; we benchmark our growth against theirs. That comparison may have helped early on, but it now keeps us defined relative to the system. As long as we’re defined by the system, we cannot lead beyond it.
There’s a better frame. How is the system changing because charter schools exist? Where is it improving because of our pressure? How do we accelerate that? A rhetorical axiom I follow: Communicate as if the issue under debate has already been decided in your favor. The Wall Street Journal captured the point: “When public schools face competitive pressure to retain students, their performance improves.” Where quality choices expand, performance for kids in traditional schools goes up.
Supporting mushy political candidates. For years, advocates have backed mushy, status-quo candidates, hoping the support buys credibility. I don’t know if it has. Worse, it signals to candidates who consistently stand with us that our own commitment is mushy. I’m not talking fringe candidates — mainstream ones. They notice. Too many conclude: If the movement won’t fight for me when I fight for them, why should I? They look elsewhere — toward bolder reforms. Mushy endorsements lead to mushy policies, weak support and, in the end, a mushy movement. Sometimes leading means taking a stand. Sometimes it means withholding an endorsement – strategically.
All four keep us on the persuasion sidelines. They trap us into seeking approval over conviction. Be respected, not liked. Use transformative language. Parents don’t need a “seat at the table.” That’s industry talk. The table is broken. Families need better tables. That’s how movements talk. Jed put it plainly: “We consciously chose to stop talking about why we exist, about the brokenness and unfairness of the traditional system.”
When we’re misaligned and act like an industry guarding its turf, we fail to define ourselves on our own terms. So the system defines us instead. Let’s stop trying to join the establishment’s club and unite around one purpose: persuading the public that a better system is possible.
“The table is broken. Families need better tables. That’s how movements talk”
Why We Exist
This distinction matters. We – CharterFolk – exist to make public education better for the children the system is failing.
“External pressure works”
When Waiting for ‘Superman’ came out, it exposed six LA dropout factories — high schools where a ninth grader had a less than 7 percent chance of earning a college diploma. Alongside them were charters changing lives. That lottery scene with young Daisy. You felt it in your chest if she didn’t get in.
I visited that school last year. Thriving. I met a teacher who was a charter middle school student when the movie came out. That school changed her trajectory and inspired her to teach. Somewhere in our conversation we realized: nobody’s said “dropout factory” in a decade. Not because the district got its act together. As Caprice noted in EdNext, improvements were “driven by fear.” Families were voting with their feet. 1 in 5 LA kids now attends a charter. External pressure works.
Movements that drive lasting change unite around key principles. After 25 years in this work, these are the six that matter:
Lead With Your North Star
Have a clear vision. Define your end game. Without a North Star, politics, positioning and communications aimlessly drift apart. Jed offers a strong one: “Our role is to lead a shift toward funding systems that reward excellence, expand access, and build something far better than what we inherited. For all students.”
Implicit are two truths: We grow to give more kids better opportunities. We grow to prompt, pressure or inspire the broader system to step up. This isn’t one path among many. It’s the best one. The National Charter Schools Institute’s Jim Goenner said it plainly: “Movements change what’s possible. Sectors protect what is.”
Two questions every movement leader should answer:
- Why do we need you?
- How are you doing at transforming public education?
If you can’t answer, you won’t win over the public.
Shape the Agenda Instead of Reacting to It
The best defense is a good offense. Years ago, California’s entrenched Assembly Speaker introduced a bill the news media called a “poison pill”: dismantle California’s newer independent state authorizer or lose millions in facilities funding. A Sophie’s Choice: Take the money or lose the authorizing pathway beyond conflicted districts.
An industry would have compromised quietly. We went on offense, unleashing a barrage of news media coverage and organizing hundreds of parents at his district office. As the pressure mounted, the press labeled it the Speaker’s “filthy trick.”
He backed down. Both were preserved. “Charter Parents School the Speaker,” one headline read.
The movement at its best.
The irony: After being termed out, that Assembly Speaker became a powerful lobbyist for charters. Effective movements don’t just win policy fights. They reshape the political field so completely that even opponents reposition themselves.
“The best way to raise awareness of a problem is through a bold solution”
The best way to raise awareness of a problem is through a bold solution. This is how we define the system on our own terms. Run legislation with broad appeal. Want to expose how children get trapped in failing schools by their zip code? Propose ending attendance-boundary assignment. Want to show who really escapes accountability? Propose that districts seek renewal for schools that have failed for a generation, the same way charters must. Want to name the real drain on school funding? Propose ending funding that props up half-empty schools. Each solution forces a definition. Offer none, and we get defined instead.
Don’t repeat the negative. Any sentence starting with “Charter schools don’t…” is defensive. If you’re responding, you’re losing. Once you respond, the critic’s moved on.
Everything that follows — the benefits we sell, the leverage we use, the urgency we bring, the narrative we build — serves this end: defining ourselves through policy solutions we dare to propose.
Sell Benefits, Not Features
Apple didn’t market its revolutionary iPod as “5 GB of storage.” That’s a feature. They sold “A thousand songs in your pocket,” a benefit. Volvo doesn’t sell “superior crumple zones.” It sells safety.
Movements must do the same. Too often, our campaigns sell features: “We’re free, we’re public and we’re open to everyone.” That polls well. And it tells the public absolutely nothing about why the movement is needed. Worse, it collapses in political battle. When defenders attack with “you’re draining money and not doing better,” the response “we’re the same as you” falls apart.
“Features explain what we are. Benefits explain why we matter”
The benefit that holds under pressure is this: We exist to make public education better for every child. Choice is the means, not the end. Sell increased opportunity. Increased learning. A more vibrant public school system that benefits every kid — including those who never set foot in a charter. Features explain what we are. Benefits explain why we matter.
Use Leverage Over Force
A few movement leaders have recommended Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. It’s good. Alinsky leans on force. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is sharper for this central insight: The superior strategist shapes the field through leverage, so resistance weakens before battle is necessary.
We don’t yet have enough leverage on real estate, funding, authorizing or bipartisan political support. But we have leverage where it matters most: Performance, innovation, authentic school cultures, school-site decision-making and family demand as seen in waiting lists.
We also have leverage because of the system’s shocking underperformance. For years we leaned on test scores to make the case. That proved fragile — scores shift, methodologies get attacked, the framing dates. The durable indictments are structural: A third of American high school seniors cannot read at a basic level. Public trust in K-12 education is at a more than two-decade low. District redlining still exists in nearly half of all states. Recently, it was reported that not a single student was proficient in reading or math in 55 Chicago public schools. That’s the shock.
I’ve often heard, “Don’t bash the system.” No. Don’t bash the school next to you. Don’t demean educators working hard inside a broken structure. Free them from it.
But we have been quiet about what the system fails to deliver. That’s cost us. It’s central to explaining why change is necessary. As Arne Duncan and DFER’s Jorge Elorza said, “Sitting on the sidelines is not a policy choice; it’s a moral failure.”
Highlighting the system’s failures exposes the brittle glass house they’ve been throwing stones from. “Children are often kept in failing public schools despite other schools in the area having room to admit them. That’s discriminatory,” stated The Wall Street Journal.
Operate With a Sense of Urgency
Former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings put it this way: “When your house is on fire, you don’t talk about making renovations.” Her logic applies at scale. Consider Dunkirk — perhaps the greatest military rescue operation in history.
Churchill ordered England to rescue 300,000 soldiers stranded on a beach. Every capable ship joined. The mission was simple: Get them off the beach. And they did. Imagine if England had said: “Royal Navy only.”
Urgency changes the question from “Which policy vehicle do we prefer?” to “Which quality options can help children now?” We’ve been too slow on the broader school choice landscape. ESAs. Tax credits. Even vouchers. Reflexively opposing these solutions undercuts our urgency – morally, by sidelining families who need options now, and strategically, by making us sound like the status quo. At Dunkirk, every capable ship was welcome. Ours should be, too.
Be open to every ship that meets the quality standard. As Bradford puts it, ESA policies are “the shark allowing other policies to come along for the ride like a remora.”
Case in point: After 20 years of charter stagnation, Arkansas expanded ESAs, ended redlining, raised teacher salaries and eliminated its charter cap — all at once. Indiana saw major reading gains after school choice expansion. Ohio’s reforms lifted college outcomes for recipients and students who remained in district schools.
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.
The caution we should heed comes from Johns Hopkins researcher Ashley Berner: “You want parent choice to succeed? Make sure there aren’t any truly dreadful choices.” But to transform education, we must operate with Dunkirk urgency.
Drive the Narrative
Your agenda is the story. Advance policies the public can’t ignore — bills that end attendance-boundary redlining, that hold failing schools to the same standard we’re held to — then publicize it relentlessly. That’s what keeps us on offense; amplifying it is how we tell it over time. It often takes three to six months of storytelling to gain traction. Too many advocates quit prematurely. They tell it a couple of times, hear silence and conclude no one’s listening. Wrong. The audience is there. They just haven’t heard you yet.
Stay with it. Tell it creatively through the Six Drivers. Build a cadence of consistent visibility. Think of persuasion as a TV series, not an episode. Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones (forget Season 8) built audiences over seasons through narrative arcs that drove interest. Episodic shows like Seinfeld and Law & Order reset every week. Movements don’t get reruns. We have to think long-game.
A provocative example: Repurpose your annual report. Even the best ones pack a year of news into one document. Episodic. No compelling hook or headline. Break apart your successes. Sequence them. Tell them over time. Release the report as the culmination, not the announcement.
The problem isn’t the message. It’s misaligned strategy, messaging and storytelling.
Be a Movement. Not Another Part of an Industry
“Sectors watch out for themselves, just like trade associations and interest groups do. Movements, on the other hand, carry forward in support of something bigger than themselves, even when it puts parochial interests at risk,” said Wallace.
“The movement does not exist to protect itself. It exists to transform public education”
That’s the choice in front of us.
Three questions sit underneath every attack. Do charter schools work? Are they good for public education? Is the movement too divisive to be worth defending?
We know the answers to the first two. The broader public doesn’t yet. The third will fully shift only when families hear those answers from us — with conviction.
That’s the work.
Align around the North Star. Stop seeking acceptance from the system we exist to change. Build the public’s confidence that better is possible for every child.