Weekend greetings, CharterFolk.
It’s been a fascinating week.
CharterFolk readers reached out wondering my take on “the exodus” from our public schools, as the New York Times put it …
… and on the assertion that public school districts are “fighting to hold on,” as PBS put it.
For me, none of this is surprising.
It’s what I’ve been writing about since the earliest days of CharterFolk.
How a great disconnect is opening up – one born of the fact that schools are failing to provide even the bare minimum that parents will accept.
It created a fundamentally unstable situation.
Which led to the National Crack Up – Red and Blue States going in radically different directions on education policy.
That in turn resulted in a rough beast slouching toward our Normal Streets – the central offices of school districts across the land.
Now as we prepare to begin the 2025-26 school year, “exodus” and “fighting to hang on” statements confirm:
Yes, CharterFolk.
The beast has arrived.
A North Star Finally
Ever since I began writing here at CharterFolk, my theory has been that, in order to navigate the hour that has come round at last, the charter school movement would need fundamentally better advocacy.
A network of affiliated national, state and city-based membership associations.
Supported by higher membership dues.
Evolving into C3/C4 tandems able to take on political work in order to transform our other advocacy work.
All done while working more effectively in coalitions …
… for as strong as our associations become, they’ll always need the support of partners in the reform ecosystem.
The final piece has been having a new North Star …
… a vision for our movement explaining how, as charter schools grow, public education is made both more excellent and more fair for all.
Truth be told, over the past half-decade, we have made a lot of progress.
Membership organizations are growing in strength, no doubt.
As completely as we would want?
Of course not.
Or strengthening as fast as we would want?
Not that, either.
But, inarguably, much stronger than we were pre-pandemic.
So much so, that it’s begun to make plain that our structure work has outpaced our North Star work.
Last week I said that not one place in the country – not at a national, state or local level – has a fully articulated North Star, a publicly asserted long-term vision that the charter school community owns describing how the growth of charter schools will result in all schools become fairer and more excellent.
This week, in addition to new evidence emerging that the beast has arrived, I’m ready to say that a North Star has arrived as well.
Our first in the nation.
Last week, in Indianapolis, we saw Stand stand.
Stand for Children brought forward a policy proposal calling for the school district to evolve into one where all schools will be autonomously operated. It was an organic next step in line with the courageous advocacy that has been coming from Brandon and The Mind Trust …
… and that has been anchored by the presence of a new state charter school association that was established last fall …
… and that is now adding to the mix the validation from the broader charter school community that can only come through a membership association.
CharterFolk, it’s exactly what we have been calling for.
A strong state association operating as a tandem amid an effective coalition coming forward with a policy proposal calling for charter schools to grow while the rest of public education evolves to become better and fairer for all.
A North Star!
Finally!!
The CharterFolk Board Gets Stern With Me
As it so happens, last week the CharterFolk Board of Directors met. It afforded us a chance to revisit why CharterFolk exists:
To be a place where CharterFolk can come together to celebrate our progress and hash out vexing issues as our movement evolves to build the advocacy strength we will need to succeed over the long term.
A part of the discussion also reconfirmed our shared values.
Yes, we believe in broad strokes that the charter school movement needs better advocacy infrastructure and better North Stars.
But we’re not calling for any cookie-cuttering here.
The advocacy infrastructure that Texas needs is very different from the infrastructure that California needs.
And the North Star that works in Indianapolis is not the North Star we need everywhere.
It’s just a North Star.
One example.
One we hope will inspire scores of additional charter school communities across the country to adopt their own before the decade is out.
Because that is what the charter school movement is going to need if we are going to reach our potential in an era of “exodus” and public education “fighting to hang on.”
Generally, I would report that the Board provided me feedback that CharterFolk feels on stride on all dimensions but one.
And that last one they had to get stern with me about.
It’s the dimension of watching out for CharterFolk’s bottom line.
Having the resources we need, not just to sustain the work, but to grow them responsibly so we can expand what we’re doing.
Bringing in more voices and more readers. And celebrating our Folk at levels befitting the remarkable contributions that they are making.
The fact is, I’ve been putting so much time and effort into to the rest of CharterFolk’s theory of action that I haven’t put in enough to our bottom line. And if we don’t make some serious progress before the end of the calendar year, we’ll have to make some adjustments that none of us want.
I assured the Board that I had heard them loud and clear.
So be on the lookout, CharterFolk.
Expect me to be hitting you up.
I haven’t really been making asks of people to become individual subscribers of late. It’s left us in a steady state of having between 250 and 300 when we really need closer to 500.
Same thing goes for our organizational subscribers – organizations providing us either $2000/year (for smaller organizations) or $5000/year (for larger ones) so that all the people on their teams can receive CharterFolk content on an going basis. We have about 15 right now and certainly have the potential to more than double that number before the end of 2025.
If any of you can help out right away with individual subscriptions, please sign up here.
Meanwhile, Folk interested in organizational subscriptions can reach me directly at jed@charterfolk.org.
CharterFolk, an hour has come round at last.
An hour when the heart of our movement – CharterFolk – has never been as important as it is right now.
For all of you who have helped CharterFolk make such great progress over the years, I extend our deepest thanks.
For those of you about to make new contributions, I extend to you the same.
Meanwhile, on we go.
Aspiring toward our compelling North Stars.
Stars that are coming into focus more brightly today than they ever have before.