Weekend greetings, CharterFolk.
I start today highlighting a new series of discussions being hosted by Andy and others at Bellwether regarding reform efforts since Katrina.
I’ll be writing on the same topic in the coming months. It’s an important one – not just for what the reform efforts themselves reveal, but also for how the way we talk about Katrina reflects some of our movement’s greatest advocacy challenges.
As I have said many times, and will continue to say, one of the charter school movement’s greatest shortcomings, if not the greatest, is the fact that we don’t have a compelling North Star.
When I say that, I mean we don’t have one anywhere.
Not in any state.
Not in any city.
The closest that we come is in Indianapolis, where Brandon and the Folk at The Mind Trust continue speaking unapologetically about an end state where having many more charter schools, or schools that operate very much like charter schools, represents a noble thing to strive for.
The experience in New Orleans is a complicated one, of course. That’s why I’m glad Bellwether will be diving in with all its depth and impartiality. Certainly, there are many things CharterFolk got wrong along the way, mistakes we could learn from as ever more communities across the United States see charter schools growing to serve large percentages of public school students.
But in the aggregate, the charter school world should claim the experience in New Orleans as a proof point of the possible.
Thus far, our inability to say it. Our unwillingness. Our almost conscious choice to avoid saying it … holds us back.
It’s part of the reason why we don’t have as much new talent coming in to charter schools as we would want. Or new funders. Or new supportive policymakers.
Because we can’t articulate that end state.
We can’t bring ourselves to say that, yes, that new end state in New Orleans, while still rife with challenges, is an important step forward.
It is, in fact, not an end state, but a new stable platform from which even greater progress can be achieved in the decades ahead.
When we ourselves can’t name our self-evident truth, do we really expect others to say it for us?
Or to jump on board what we’re trying to do?
It’s another reason why the anniversary in New Orleans is such an important moment.
It gives us the chance again to recognize the progress that we ourselves have made.
And, yes, to challenge ourselves to name the truth we know waits to be said.
The Naked Truth About the Over-Regulation of Education
This week Mike Petrilli came out with an important piece about charter schools and regulation.
And I don’t call it important only because he cited my recent article on the same topic.
This week we have seen the naked truth about where the over-regulation of public education comes from.
Oklahoma has begun forcing out-of-state teacher applicants to pass a new political litmus test.
It’s ridiculousness parading around in the buff.
The primary instigator behind the creation of the new test is the state’s superintendent, who, while constantly virtue-projecting on social issues in public education, is accused of having hosted pictures of naked people on his office computers during public hearings.
This same superintendent advocated for a charter school operator from another state with a questionable track record of academic performance to come to Oklahoma.
His primary reason? The school’s culturally conservative ways of teaching history.
The school’s shaky record ultimately forced him to change his tune, saying the school should come as a new private school under the state’s new voucher program.
Which is exactly as it should be.
You want a school to come for cultural or religious reasons without being held accountable for academic results?
Let it come as a private school.
You want it to come as a charter?
Then its take on history should be immaterial.
While its academic results should be paramount.
Instead, we see, sadly, the naked truth of how schools get to be over-regulated.
The Gerrymandering of Public Education Into A Twisted Pretzel of Nonsensical Regulation
It’s a problem we see happening across the country right now, much like all the focus on gerrymandering happening right now.
A red state redraws.
Then a blue state redraws.
Each side points fingers, like kids on a playground.
The same thing happens in education regulation.
Red states push forward conservative mandates.
Blue states push forward progressive ones.
Each says their proposal is needed because of the other side’s previous excesses.
We end up with a regulatory scheme for public education as gerrymandered into pretzel-ness …
… as any congressional district in America.
There is No Such Thing As Effective Defense on Regulation, Only Capitulation
The thing is, we know this is coming.
Just as politicians draw maps to maximize electoral advantage, they also virtue-signal to their constituencies – often the most extreme wings – by imposing new constraints on public schools, increasingly including charters.
We’re just too perfect an oven in which to bake their pretzels.
And just you wait.
Eventually they’ll end up doing the same to publicly funded private schools as well.
We know it’s coming.
And we know how hard it is to stand in opposition in the moment.
When we’re advocating so hard for the fair funding, facilities or other conditions that charter schools need, we’re dependent upon policymakers everywhere to help us secure those wins.
And when many of them end up attempting to impose a new gerrymander on public schools, you think we’re really going to be able to say no in those moments?
In either red states or blue?
Usually we end up going silent, or in some instances actually helping braid the new pretzel.
The only way out is to remain proactive in our pursuit of less regulation – to include in our policy agendas every year an effort to sunset significant portions of state education codes.
That way, when new regulations are proposed, we have current, incontrovertible evidence of our long-standing commitment to end the over-regulation of schools. It’s what puts us in a far stronger place to say no.
It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with the politics behind a proposed new regulation. It’s about having the credibility needed to oppose new regulation on public education until schools have enough agency to make decisions that educators and parents feel they actually own.
And yes, that means letting school choice determine most things.
You want conservative history taught?
Good, go to a school that offers it.
You want the opposite? Same thing.
Or, as is most often the case, do you just want your kid in a school where she’s learning a lot and loves going every day?
Again, school choice gets you there.
And it’s hard. I know.
Each year, to say to our world that, amid all the other policy wins we seek and the policy threats we prepare to parry, that we’re going to crowd out a few priorities each year to run a bill that seeks to sunset burdensome regulation.
But the truth is, CharterFolk, that there is no effective long-term defense against the over-regulation of public education.
Even the smallest losses, added up over decades, amount to operational confinement.
It’s why I say:
Defense against over-regulation is, in the end, indistinguishable from capitulation.
The only true posture against over-regulation is offense.
Actively and perpetually trying to reduce the statutes and regulations burdening our schools.
What I Used to Think – How Woefully Naive I Was
People who have known me for a long time will remember that I haven’t always talked like this.
I used to believe that, if we just got good, smart, light-touch regulation in place for charter schools, and then made sure that charter schools were held appropriately accountable for results, we’d be fine.
Not only would we have the optimal circumstance for charter schools to keep growing and thriving, but we would create the right counterpoint against which the traditional system would be compared.
And the common sense of what we seek would be made so plain that eventually everyone would come around to our way of seeing things.
So, advocate for smart stuff for ourselves. Go silent on whatever might be proposed for other public schools.
CharterFolk, how wrong I was.
This week in Texas we saw further evidence of it.
Texas released its new A-F results. A preliminary scan reveals charter schools faring well, with many improving since the last reporting period.
But Alan Seay who writes a great weekly newsletter in Texas …
… was spot on contrasting the different levels of accountability that exist between charter schools and district schools.
Three strikes for a charter school and you’re out.
Meanwhile, district schools can go on for generations – five, six, seven or more times at the plate – still at bat. Still whiffing.
I used to think this is what we wanted.
Just make sure charter schools are actually accountable. It will help protect our freedoms. Over time, the public will see and recoil against the brokenness in district public schools.
Instead, over the years, we have seen freedoms erode whether charter schools have been held accountable or not.
Defense is capitulation.
It’s why I believe we are in a new era, one where we shouldn’t advocate for three strikes applying only to us.
The better public education environment is one in which all schools have greater freedom paired with higher standards of accountability.
Our role is not only to demonstrate that paradigm for ourselves but to push public education as a whole to evolve in that direction as quickly as possible.
Who knows?
Maybe charter schools will ultimately lead our school choice friends to embrace the fact that even private schools funded by ESAs and vouchers should be held accountable for results.
It’s about naming our own truth at the level we have the potential to proclaim.
Because in the end, public education will be made best for all when all kids are attending schools that are free and accountable.
And the role of charter schools is no longer to stand apart as a proof point but to lead all of public education toward a new, compelling end state that, like New Orleans, we should proudly claim as our own.