Weekend Greetings, CharterFolk
We’re going to try an experiment with this post.
As our readership has grown larger, we find that our platform isn’t always able to deliver image-heavy posts to all recipients, and this one is chock-full of screenshots. So the email version will only provide the beginning of the post and a link taking you to the remainder. For those of you wanting to go directly to the web version, you may do so here. An added benefit of reading the web version is that all images contain links that will take you directly to the source material.
Let’s get to it.
The Hoosier Story – Pacing the Nation With Vision, Folk and Advocacy Structure
Indiana is known as the land of pacers.
The moniker’s origins grew out of the region’s connection to harness racing, including the legendary horse Single G …
… which earned the moniker “pacer of the century.“
In terms of branding an entire geography, pacers grew to national fame in the context of the Indianapolis 500.
So, by the time the area’s professional basketball franchise came to choose a name for itself in the 1960’s …
… it was intuitive that they would decide to call themselves “Pacers.”
But an ambiguity remains.
The 500 is branded as an “Indianapolis” phenomenon.
While the Pacers call “Indiana” home.
So, in terms of pacing the nation, which Hoosiers are doing it?
Those from the City?
Or from the State?
Or is it, perhaps, from both?
Similar questions come to mind thinking about the region’s charter schools.
As Brandon Brown wrote in his great Contributor Column last month …
… nearly 60% of the students in the Indianapolis Public School District are served by charter schools and innovation schools …
… the highest rate we find for any city in the country except New Orleans.
And the academic performance of Indianapolis charter schools is as strong as we find anywhere.
It makes for compelling evidence that Indianapolis is, indeed, pacing the national charter school movement.
But Indiana?
At a state level?
Would we say the same?
Yes, both the National Alliance …
… and NACSA …
… have listed the state as having the best charter school law in the country.
And yet, in terms of statewide charter school growth, less than 5% of Indiana’s public school students are served by charter schools, which wouldn’t even put the state’s sector in the top 25 in the nation.
And the state has had one of the worst funding inequities problems for charter schools in the country going back for decades.
So you tell me, CharterFolk:
Is that what we would call “pacing the nation?”
The Three Things the Movement Needs to Pace the Nation
These were the questions that were front and center in our minds as we decided to dedicate a significant portion of September content to considering what the national charter school movement has to learn from the Hoosier experience.
It started, of course, with our featuring extraordinary HoosierFolk like Eddie Rangel at Adelante Schools …
… and Keeanna Warren at Purdue Polytechnic …
… whose schools I had the chance to visit during my time in Indianapolis three weeks ago.
It was a day that drove home a few learnings I have come to over my years of working in the charter school movement.
The first is that the only thing that is more inspiring than profiling the work of extraordinary CharterFolk is having a chance to visit their extraordinary schools.
The second is that the deepest understanding of the challenges and opportunities confronting the charter school movement often emerges in the context of visiting schools.
So it was during my time in Indianapolis, when I was able to see that, like a pacer champion consists of three essential parts – horse, driver and sulky …
… so, too does a charter school sector require three essential parts if it truly intends to pace the nation.
Essential Part #1 – Vision
Brandon’s post was exquisite for many reasons. One of the parts I liked most was his underscoring that, from the very beginning, the Indianapolis experience has been framed by vision. That included a concept paper written by The Mind Trust’s Founder, David Harris, outlining what the organization’s North Star would be. That was followed up a few years later with a public articulation of that vision …
… which gained massive attention …
… and sparked massive resistance.
Indeed, as Brandon has told me separately, in terms of managing blowback from the status quo, The Mind Trust’s release of its vision actually made things worse in the short term.
But in the long term, it created a coherence that kept reform efforts on track and which ground down resistance over time as the common sense of the plan became more evident to all.
It was anchored by a conviction to make all public schools better, something the charter school world could never have accomplished to the same level without the passage of Indiana’s Innovation law.
I have known about Indiana’s Innovation Schools for years.
In a post a couple of years ago, they were among the first national examples I labeled “CABINs.”
“Charters All But In Name.”
Schools with all the autonomies they need to succeed.
And conversion schools to boot, exactly the kind of charter schools I believe it has been our greatest mistake as a movement to not be prioritizing more.
But it wasn’t until I was with Eddie at Adelante’s Emma Donnan Middle School with Kim Reier from the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, and Kateri Whitley from The Mind Trust …
… that it sunk in again.
Seeing the new partnerships the school is entering into with some of the most respected organizations in the city.
Observing Eddie’s co-founder Matthew Rooney in a classroom modeling researched-based instructional practices for an early career teacher, just as he is doing for others across the nation at Relay/GSE.
Learning about the school’s latest academic results which have become the talk of the city.
And then researching the school’s history so as to put its current success in proper context.
CharterFolk.
Back in 2012, Emma Donnan Middle School’s struggles were so profound that the Indianapolis Star ran front page story …
… after front page story …
… about the school’s tragic brokenness.
And now a dozen years later, the school has become itself an “Indianapolis Star.”
Just like the broader Indianapolis charter school sector has become a national star.
It puts in repose the scope of the school’s accomplishment, and indeed the entire city’s accomplishment.
Which was catalyzed by a North Star.
By a theory of action.
Yes, growing great charter schools as quickly as possible.
But also finding innovative ways for district schools to convert to charter school status.
Reflected in a policy agenda that has guided shared effort for decades.
Such that cumulative impact builds over time.
It lays bare the first essential part that any charter school sector needs if it seeks to pace the nation:
Vision.
Essential Part #2 – Folk
Another of The Mind Trust’s activities that Brandon highlighted in his Contributor Column was the importance of the organization’s fellowship programs.
It’s another of part of the charter school story I feel particularly well attuned to.
Indeed, the central premise of CharterFolk itself is that our people are the very heart of the charter school movement.
That assertion was certainly proved true during our second visit of the day.
For, when I learned that Keeanna Warren, the Executive Director of Purdue Polytechnic, who herself has been a Mind Trust Fellow …
… was unable to be on hand for our visit, who did we find was there to greet us in her place but Chief of School Operations, Shatoya Ward …
… who has also been a Mind Trust Fellow.
Shatoya introduced us to our student guides, 11th graders Shamya McVey and Kendall Moore. We were joined by Donald Baker …
… the school’s Student Engagement Manager, who shared how his experience attending a charter school has given him the insight he needs to support students like Shamya and Kendall.
A few minutes later, we were in the classroom of teacher Gabby Weinart who, along with 11th grader Johnny Smith, showed us the various creatures populating the science lab …
… including several bearded dragons …
… which is a species that Gabby studied while getting her Bachelors in Animal Science at Purdue.
With terrariums lining literally every wall of the classroom, the learning space itself was emblematic of what has drawn Gabby to teach at the school.
Soon after getting her undergraduate degree, she had found her first experience at a district school so stultifying she nearly gave up on teaching altogether, but then she moved to Purdue Polytechnic, a school established in partnership with her alma mater …
… that is having great success securing admission to Purdue for historically underserved students …
… while implementing a program widely known for its innovation …
… that is affording great teachers like Gabby freedom in the classroom such that they deepen their commitment to the profession.
It’s a deepening of commitment that so many connected to Purdue Polytechnic are demonstrating.
Indeed, the school’s founder Scott Bess, who has been a “Mind Trust Duo-Fellow” with both Keeanna and Shatoya, is now going on to found the Indiana Charter Innovation Center …
… along with my fellow school visitor Kim Reier, who herself had previously worked at Purdue Polytechnic.
It put in focus that the stunning progress that is being made in Indianapolis charter schools is being catalyzed …
… by fellows.
By people.
People who are being intentionally supported, such that they’re ready to go on and do even greater things.
Yes, people in positions of leadership, like those drawn into fellowship by the Mind Trust.
But also highly effective school support staff who themselves attended charter schools.
And gifted teachers who are propelling students on to attend their own distinguished alma maters.
Such that, when multiplied over and over across a broad community of schools serving tens of thousands of students, the second essential part of the charter school movement’s ability to pace a nation comes together:
Folk.
Essential Part # 3 – Advocacy Structure
As it so happened, during my time in Indianapolis, a party was held for the city’s former mayor, Bart Peterson, who was retiring from his position at Christel House International …
… a nonprofit that has been helping drive reform efforts in the city.
Peterson’s support of our movement has led to him being referred to as the “Peyton Manning of Charter Schools.”
But perhaps his biggest accomplishment was what he did after being “sacked” in a shocking re-election loss in 2007.
He got right back up under center and called the greatest ” Omaha ” in the history of the national charter school movement …
… an audible that led to the founding of The Mind Trust, which has played the key quarterbacking role for Indianapolis’s charter schools ever since.
Passing the innovation law.
Helping ensure that even greater funding inequity wouldn’t befall the city’s charter schools.
And working with Rise Indy …
… and Stand For Children …
… to keep the IPS school board at least modestly supportive of reform.
But in the same way that a quarterback cannot alone get a team to the Super Bowl …
… or a rider alone cannot win a pacer competition …
… so too, a city-based effort, even one consisting of a constellation of local partners, cannot provide all the advocacy support a charter school sector needs to thrive and grow.
And when there is a massive, structural gap in advocacy capacity at a state level, as is the case in Indiana due to the fact that the state’s first charter school association imploded more than a decade ago …
… no matter how compelling the efforts of many have been to compensate for the vacuum …
… the resulting challenges in policy work at a state level, like a broken axle on a sulky …
… has led to heartbreak:
A funding environment where Indianapolis charter schools receive $7,900 per year less than district schools, and where all other charter schools in the state don’t even know what their funding inequity would be were they to attempt to open schools elsewhere.
It’s the subject that came up in literally every other conversation I have had with HoosierFolk over the past few months.
Not to mention the toxic authorizing conditions …
… that charter schools face outside IPS …
… explaining why many of Indiana’s other great charter schools have not been able to grow and flourish to the same degree that IPS schools have.
It puts in focus the importance of the charter school community in Indiana finally coming together behind Scott’s leadership to create the next true membership association the sector will need at a state level …
… if it is serous about pacing the nation to the same degree that Indianapolis’s charter school community has.
Coda – The Ball in the Hands of CharterFolk
So we see how the three essential parts of pacing the nation – vision, folk and advocacy structure – have found their vastly different expressions in Indianapolis and Indiana.
And the truth is that, should the next chapter of national pace-setting emerge from the land of Hoosiers, all three will have to rise to levels never seen before:
Vision articulating, not just how we have 60% of Indianapolis public school students served by charter schools, but how we complete the evolution of the district such that all schools operate like charter schools do, regardless what we call them, an initial articulation of which is as sure to make things worse in the short term as The Mind Trust’s initial plan did. But like that first plan, the next one, articulated at both a state and city level, will be embraced more over time as people come to see the common sense of the charter school movement’s North Star.
Folk from all walk of charter-life, deeply and unabashedly committed to that North Star vision, stepping up to take even greater responsibility than they ever have before in communities across the state.
And finally, an advocacy structure featuring a strong state association modeled after the stunning work that Starlee and her team achieved in Texas, brought into formal affiliation with the incredible city-based advocacy infrastructure that Brandon and many others have developed in Indianapolis over the years.
It’s a daunting task, no doubt.
But I come away from our month-long focus on Indiana/polis fully confident that Hoosiers are destined to pace the nation in more ways than one.
And just when did that confidence fully click in?
Why during my last school visit of the day, of course.
One to Paramount Brookside …
… which happened just as school was dismissing.
School Director Dexter Taylor …
… acquainted me with all aspects of the organization’s operations.
From the foundations of the school’s building below …
… underscoring the organization’s commitment to community …
… to the stars above that the school inspires its students toward …
… in its specialty designed astronomy lab.
Paramount has overcome immense obstacles in recent years to become a multi-school operator serving students in Indianapolis, Lafayette, South Bend and beyond.
It provides a glimpse into the full potential that Indiana’s charter schools have within them.
Our final stop was the schools’s conference room where ParamountFolk keep under glass, right beside their National Blue Ribbon School banner, one of their most prized possessions.
A basketball signed by every Pacer.
Stewarded over by an organization that has found a way to thrive at both city and state levels.
It was a befitting end to an incredible day, one providing a resounding answer to the question I have been considering for months.
In terms of pacing the nation, should we think that the ball is in the hands of IndianapolisFolk or IndianaFolk?
CharterFolk, the answer couldn’t be clearer.
It’s in the hands of both.