Good day, CharterFolk.
As I said over the weekend, there is just too much news to keep up with. We’ll get through what we can.
Tomorrow, Andy and I will be releasing a WonkyFolk podcast with DFER CEO Jorge Elorza. During that conversation, as we discussed Jorge’s work in Providence, where he came to the conclusion that the school district should evolve into an all-charter district, I noted that, unless I was mistaken, the President of the Senate and the president of the state teachers union were the same person.
This article confirmed it.
It also confirmed that the attacks on charter schools in the Rhode Island legislature are coming from the Senate President and her union-aligned, if not union-employed, compatriots in the capitol.
As Rhode Island League CEO Chiara Deltito-Sharrott has been highlighting in recent media appearances …
… that attack comes despite the fact that strong majorities of Rhode Island voters support charter schools, and despite the fact that more than 9,000 applications were recently submitted for 3,000 charter school seats.
In Denver, the school board stopped a district school from evolving into Innovation status, despite the fact that 80% of teachers voted to support the conversion.
The justification for the denial was the suggestion that adding a new school to the Innovation Zone would make it whiter, even though that effect is small compared with the change caused by the district pulling out of the zone another school that is overwhelmingly nonwhite.
“It’s very clear that I should not allow certain parts of our community to self-segregate,” Superintendent Alex Marrero said.
But when the district itself produces that separation, that is acceptable?
Confused?
This is the incoherence in messaging and policy to which a district must resort when it cannot simply admit that its real priority is controlling as many schools as possible.
It also wants to control as many school facilities as possible, as its new policy on facilities now makes clear.
Previously, the district had a policy stating that charter schools’ use of underutilized facilities was among the acceptable uses. The other acceptable uses have been retained. Charter school use has not.
So I guess it was not really true, was it, when people said there was not much difference between the school board candidates endorsed by reformers and those endorsed by the teachers union.
CharterFolk, this is a movie we’ve seen in Denver before: reform opposition and dysfunction.
Sadly, it’s playing again.
Status quo interests clinging to control of their schools are not limited to the Northeast or the West.
You find them in the South.
You find them in the nation’s capital.
You find them in the Pacific Northwest, where the pain from the state’s decision to take $1,500 per student away from charter schools this year is now beginning to be felt very acutely.
So yes, zigzagging across the country, you find ample evidence of status quo interests using their various perches to inflict harm on what we are trying to do.
You can also, though, find ample evidence of even greater force assembling in our support.
Last week, I was pleased to be part of a statewide forum hosted by one of the state’s larger newspapers.
As it happened, Mike Huguelet, CEO of the Iowa Coalition for Public Charter Schools, and author of an amazing Contributor Column this year, was participating in the discussion from inside the capitol building …
… where, later that day, an omnibus bill containing many wins for charter schools, including the creation of an additional authorizer, passed the House.
Missouri is allowing charter schools to expand into new parts of the state.
Colorado, which has led the nation in securing operational funding equity for charter schools, is getting close to achieving the same in facilities funding, potentially requiring that charter schools be equitably included when school districts attempt to pass local facilities bonds.
Tennessee just provided $40 million for charter school facilities.
Opportunity 180 is distributing CSP funds to facilitate faster charter school growth in Nevada.
Over the years, Idaho has assembled the conditions that lead influential people to visit and fact-find.
So while the hill grows steeper when status quo interests serve as both the heads of their own organizations and the leaders of policymaking bodies, it is still a hill we are proving we can climb.
We just have to keep climbing.