Good day, CharterFolk.
As we sail into the Thanksgiving holiday, we are delighted to share a Contributor Column from Jim Goenner, President and CEO of the National Charter Schools Institute.
We provide a bio for Jim below.
A charter OG, Dr. Jim Goenner serves as President & CEO of the National Charter Schools Institute, which stewards the National Charter Schools Founders Library. He is a champion for kids and a member of the National Charter Schools Hall of Fame.
Under Jim’s leadership, the Institute hosts the Bold by Choice podcast and propels the charter schools movement through its work with authorizers, boards, and schools, as well as its digital platform, Epicenter, which streamlines compliance and makes performance visible for 4,000+ schools in 35 states, Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico.
Jim joined the charter movement in 1995, helping pioneer Central Michigan University’s chartering strategy, which became known as the “gold standard” for authorizing and earned recognition from the U.S. and Michigan Departments of Education.
He helped found and chaired the boards of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers, and served as the first President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies. He serves on the board of 22 Beacon, which breaks barriers in facilities and financing for charter schools, and is a judge for the prestigious Yass prize. Jim has testified before the U.S. Congress, advised the U.S. Department of Education’s National Charter Schools Resource Center, and received gubernatorial appointments from Governors John Engler and Jennifer Granholm.
Jim earned his doctorate in educational administration from Michigan State University and is the proud father of seven children and two grandchildren.
Jim has written twice before here at CharterFolk, first in 2022, and then in a piece he co-authored with Naomi Rubin DeVeaux in 2024.
We’re happy to have this one round out the trifecta!
Kids Don’t Need a Sector. They Need a Movement.
Movements change what’s possible. Sectors protect what is.
I’m grateful to be part of the charter schools movement. We are a group of spirited, strong-willed, opinionated mavericks. We don’t think alike, act alike, or look alike. But we are united by something deeper: a conviction that every child deserves a great education, and the “one best system” is standing in the way of public education living its ideals.
But let’s be honest, our movement is starting to lose some of its mojo. We are beginning to think and sound like a sector. It feels like we are becoming too cautious, too bureaucratic, too permission bound. If we do not confront this drift, we will become the new status quo.
Sector Thinking Leads to Failure
Students do not need another sector. They need doors opened, barriers broken, and leaders who champion and steward possibilities. Sector thinking leads to failure because it turns founders into caretakers, innovators into rule-followers, and the charter schools movement into mush.
Changing paradigms and transforming systems is hard work. It requires courage, conviction, and action. Sector thinking discourages doers and demoralizes change agents. It replaces urgency with hesitation. Instead of asking, “What must we do for kids?” sector thinking says, “Hold on. Wait. Be careful.”
Sector thinking also breeds fear and justifies inaction. If you listen closely, you will hear things like, “Don’t rock the boat. We can’t do that. Stop pushing so hard.” Talk like this dampens the fire of those willing to move and make things happen. If we allow sector thinking to grow and take root, our champions will move on, and our movement will not just lose its edge; it will lose its moral clarity and credibility.
Movements Matter
Movements make things happen. They start when people step forward, speak up, and take action. If we want the charter movement to stay a movement, we must reclaim the spirit that launched it, and lead from our why.
Movements provide something sectors never can. They ignite imagination, awaken courage, and pull people toward a purpose so compelling they lean in and start building. That’s why movements attract doers.
Movements provide more than a job. They offer a mission and create space for ordinary people to make an outsized impact. They don’t win because they have the most resources; they win because they unleash the most resolve and conviction.
Our movement rose and caught fire because it has a purpose bigger than ourselves. Breaking down barriers, launching schools worthy of our kids, empowering people with educational choice and freedom, and laying the foundation for upholding the ideals of public education is something we can pour our hearts and souls into. That’s why we pay the price, do the work, and never quit.
Chartering Matters
Chartering matters because it challenges and moves beyond the outdated givens and design of the “one best system.” It shows the good things that come when students, parents, and educators are given choices and empowered to vote with their feet.
Chartering shows how excellence thrives when people are trusted, empowered, and held responsible for results. It creates opportunities to design schools where students feel safe, seen, challenged, and inspired. It proves a child’s destiny does not have to be determined by their zip code.
Chartering is a catalyst. It demonstrates that public education can be different and better. It proves that millions of families want something different, something better, something that helps children discover their gifts and unleash their potential.
This work was never supposed to be easy. Taking on monopolies and entrenched interests requires courage. Dr. Howard Fuller reminds us that freedom and progress require struggle and agitation. And as Frederick Douglass said so well, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Chartering Is Systems Change
Ted Kolderie, who taught me that the biggest barrier to improving public education is not the people, but rather the system itself, calls chartering an “institutional innovation.” Not a program or reform, but a new design for public education.
Ted saw that the district system could take families for granted, treat teachers like labor, and reduce students to numbers. Before chartering, states and districts had tried nearly everything to force improvement: more money, new funding formulas, performance pay, test-based accountability, rewards, recognition—even public shaming. None of them worked.
Chartering offered a different path. Instead of mandates, it relied on a coalition of the willing. It invited people inside and outside of education to bring forward ideas for how to design and operate a school.
The word charter was never meant to be an adjective describing a type of school. It was a strategy for states to offer choice within public education and harness the dynamics of freedom, competition, opportunity, accountability, and voluntary action.
When Minnesota enacted the nation’s first charter law, it did not say what a school must be or prescribe a model. It essentially said, Go try. It gave policymakers and practitioners permission to think beyond the constraints of school districts and the one best system. It allowed for discovery, iteration, and finding better ways to organize and operate education, so it meets the personal needs of students and the public good of taxpayers.
Chartering is not a model to replicate. It is a philosophy built on freedom, trust, responsibility, and results. Charters are supposed to listen, learn, adapt, and measure their success by the success of their students. Ted believed then, and still believes now, that the best ideas come from empowering those closest to the action: teachers and students.
Let’s Reignite Our Movement
Let’s reignite the spirit that made chartering a movement in the first place, the belief that public education can be better, that students deserve more, and that ordinary people with extraordinary purpose can change the world.
Our kids do not need another sector protecting its turf. They need a movement willing to fight for their future. A movement that attracts builders and doers who wake up every day believing change is possible and refuses to be boxed in by the rules of an old, outdated system.
So CharterFolk, let’s stand tall. Let’s link arms. Let’s act with courage and be bold by choice. And let’s do the work of a movement:
Push. Build. Innovate. Demand.
And let’s not stop until every child in every community gets the education they deserve.