Weekend greetings, CharterFolk.
I’m back from three days in Indianapolis for The Mind Trust’s 20th anniversary celebration.
Over 1100 people were on hand to recognize an organization’s progress.
But more importantly, an entire city’s.
One of the highlights was Jalen Rose’s keynote.
… whose school’s Executive Director, Jazmine Allen, we had a chance to recognize as CharterFolk Extraordinaire at the beginning of the week.
Talk about bringing oxygen into a room.
After his comments, The Mind Trust CEO Brandon Brown had a chance to ask him:
Of all the things that Jalen could be doing at this point in his life, of all the philanthropic things that he could be supporting, for all the simple adulation he could be generating with effort in other areas, why has he chosen to dedicate so much of his effort to supporting a charter school when so much toxicity and blowback comes against him for doing it?
Jalen didn’t mince words.
Because charter schools work. They make a difference. They make things better for the kids who need better education most. Amid a landscape where so many other things simply don’t.
Oxygen.
Brought into the entire room.
Filling all around him.
Just like the entire city of Indianapolis has become an oxygen bar for national education reformers – irrefutable proof that what we work toward is achievable if we just keep striving toward it together.
Across my three days there, I got to round out my understanding of what has happened in Indianapolis over the past two decades.
Speaking to advocates who just never give up.
Meeting with courageous legislators …
… who have sponsored key legislation over the years.
Meeting CEOs of other organizations that that have been set up to support the broader ecosystem of reform in Indianapolis.
And of course, visiting schools and seeing educators.
More time with Eddie Rangel …
… whose school I had the chance to visit previously.
But new ones as well.
The Match School, one of the city’s newest charter schools led by James Hill …
… where Kiontae …
… and a panel of other students …
… described the school’s program that both provides students college and direct-to-career opportunities.
It was also great to record a soon-to-be-released CharterFolk Chat with Earl Phalen and Brandon Brown at Phalen Learning Academy.
Earl himself wasn’t able to be with us at the anniversary event as he was expected in West Virginia where Governor Morrisey celebrated the ribbon cutting for Mary Phalen Leadership Academy …
… underscoring how progress being made in Indianapolis is now rippling out across the nation.
Yes, as we have profiled here on several occasions, a part of the recipe in Indianapolis has been CharterFolk being willing to show extraordinary courage.
But what puts courage within reach of breakthrough?
The Mind Trust’s broader recipe.
Which consists of equal parts Mind:
Vision. Precision of strategy. Choosing wisely. Doing the right thing. Correcting as we go.
And Trust:
An extraordinary community of Folk across many walks of life striving toward a common goal of better education for absolutely every student.
Sustained over decades.
Something that every city in America has within its reach too.
It shows what Indianapolis is really offering us right now.
Not just oxygen in a room.
Or in a city.
Or in a national movement, even.
But in all of public education itself.
The Backdrop
And yes, CharterFolk, there have been extraordinary signs-of-the-times stories that have been published this week.
We live in an era of declining enrollment. Even the best schools in the country in urban settings have to work hard to keep their schools full.
Inexplicable opposition to charter schools in blue parts of the country leads some of our best operators to open schools in red parts.
The Democratic Party is utterly unmoored from any sense of integrity as it relates to public education.
The places where that party is strongest are allowing vast number of schools to sink into an almost unimaginable level of dysfunction.
Leading to principals within the system signing a collective letter of protest …
… only to find out that the school district has chosen to mothball its search for new leadership altogether, a decision that district board members found out about at a meeting hosted by the teacher union.
Let that sink in about who it is that really controls our major urban school districts these days.
Meanwhile, perhaps the strongest entity in the nation defending the status quo, one that has railed against charter schools for decades using our wealthy supporters as a bludgeon …
… has itself endorsed a billionaire for governor …
… due in large part to that billionaire’s commitment to do lasting harm to our movement.
It speaks to just how pervasive the cynicism has become within the landscape that we inhabit.
We could, if we wanted, dive into these matters in customary depth here at CharterFolk.
But let us leave those things explored at only a surface level this week, so that we might keep our focus where it rightfully belongs.
On the hope that Indianapolis represents right now.
I’ll leave you with this.
David Harris, founding CEO of The Mind Trust and now Chair of the new Indianapolis Public Education Corporation …
… was not able to attend this week’s festivities because he was in London running the marathon.
You might have read this weekend that, for the first time, the two hour marathon barrier was finally overcome.
Not by one person, but by two.
David himself, of course, wasn’t even close to finishing at that pace.
But he was part of the race, contributing to a collective effort where shared human goals have been reset.
So it is with what we CharterFolk are aspiring toward together.
Obliterating obstacles long thought to be ones that could not be overcome.
Like the obstacles preventing us from making systems of schools where all kids are fundamentally better served.
On we go, CharterFolk.
One part Mind.
The other part Trust.