Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we are pleased to share a Contributor Column from Scott Campbell, Executive Director of the Nashville Incubator.
We provide a bio for Scott below.
Previous to joining the Incubator, Scott was the Executive Director of Persist Nashville, the largest college persistence organization in Tennessee serving over 5000 high school graduates over the past 6 years. Persist developed an innovative scalable city-based approach to college persistence using a Salesforce based data management system and continues to serve access and persistence organizations in Memphis, Austin, Denver, DC, and NYC.
Scott is a former classroom teacher and administrator. In his career he has worked at 6 different urban, rural, and suburban schools. He has led and taught at traditional public, magnet, and charter schools in 4 different states and DC. Before moving to Nashville he was a teacher and Assistant Principal at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the nation’s top rated public high school. In Nashville he helped lead and develop the early years of RePublic High School and Valor Collegiate Academies. As Principal at RePublic High School, Scott supported the construction and opening of a $15 million facility and supported the graduation of their inaugural class. He served on the TN Charter Commission Appeals Committee reviewing charter applications and is the Board Chair of TN Nature Academy.
He is active in his church, a BBQ enthusiast, and a over-committed youth soccer coach.
Innovation Is How We Get to Quality
I desire to be a “learn-it-all.” Over the past two years leading the Nashville Incubator, I have been intentional about learning from others doing similar work across the country. I have gleaned much wisdom from conversations with great leaders such as Terry Ryan in Idaho, Jana Lavin in Nevada, and Tennessee’s own Chris Barbic. I have participated in professional learning communities with fellow incubator leaders and education advocates across the country. From Seminar Collectives to AI for Equity Owners meetings, there are a lot of amazing organizations out there pushing the boundaries of what is possible for schools. My goal has been simple: listen carefully and learn as much as possible.
Yet, across Zoom calls, convenings, and conferences, there is one refrain that I’m hearing more often, but struggling to come to terms with: “I support innovation, but we need to first focus on quality.” I’ve heard it said enough to write this article. I believe this framing misses a critical point. Innovation is not in opposition to quality, innovation is how we get to quality.
Education is changing rapidly. While I’m not suggesting we abandon teachers and reduce learning to students sitting in front of AI-driven screens, we must be clear-eyed about both the potential of new AI tools and the ways innovation is already reshaping how students learn and how schools operate. The private school sector, with schools like Alpha and Acton, is moving quickly, experimenting with new technology, staffing, and schedule models, and responding to family demand. In addition to improving the traditional inputs through AI to get better academic results, innovation includes providing more variety in the public sector. Families are excited about dual-language models, Montessori, nature-based education, among others, and the private sector is moving faster than us to provide this choice. If public education, and the charter sector in particular, fails to stay ahead of this curve, we risk continued struggles with both enrollment and quality.
Charter schools were founded on the premise that traditional systems often struggle to adapt quickly and our kids need schools that can learn to meet their needs. Innovation and competition of charters was meant to challenge the “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality of traditional public schools. Yet today, in our understandable desire to ensure quality, we sometimes intentionally slow the growth of promising, innovative models. The result can be hesitation at the very moment when adaptability and forward progress is most needed. Ultimately, this hesitation could put us further behind.
The expansion of ESAs and vouchers in many states has introduced new competitive pressures. Private schools, in many states, can open and scale with fewer barriers than charters face. Without taking a position on whether this shift is good or bad, it should prompt reflection. If the charter sector is not willing to innovate, and to do so with urgency, we may find that private models define “quality” in the minds of families we serve.
Finally, amid widespread concern about enrollment declines, we should ask a fundamental question: why are families leaving public education? Families vote with their feet. If we were consistently offering school models that met their needs and aspirations for their children, fewer would walk away. When I talk about innovation, this is not only about technology, it is more about listening deeply to communities and designing schools that do a few important things exceptionally well. Not every school must be great at all things, and if we try to be all things to all people, we will quickly become very little to very few. High-quality comes from constraining ourselves. Real innovation comes from clarity. We don’t become competitive by doing more, we become competitive by being clearer and more disciplined than everyone else.
Yes, “quality” includes strong state test scores across core subject areas. Yes, it includes strong ACT results and outsized postsecondary outcomes. Yes, it includes low absenteeism.
And…quality may also include parent satisfaction, the development of life and career skills not fully captured by standardized exams, and access to multiple languages and cultural perspectives. It may include stackable credentials that lead to high-need, high-wage careers. While everyone agrees that all schools need to deliver high quality results in reading and math, we must be comfortable with the fact that every great school may not be great at every standard of quality we set.
We need shared standards of quality that allow parents and funders to compare all schools clearly and consistently. There are a lot of smart leaders across the country working on this as we speak. At the same time, our sector should aspire to offer more than outcomes that are merely “better than your zoned school.” Thoughtful innovation allows us to pursue both rigor and breadth in our definition of quality. We need schools and leaders that learn and use that learning to adapt, and systems that don’t penalize or slow innovation.
I offer these reflections as someone still learning. While I have over 20 years in public education, I have just over a decade in the charter sector. I’m a pre-teen in my charter years. Like most pre-teens, I have lots of ideas and zealous optimism, but I have lots more to learn as well. I’m excited to engage with charter folks, like you, around how we get there. I am continually inspired by the leaders I meet and confident that, through thoughtful and bold innovation, we can deliver the quality outcomes students and families deserve.