Good day, CharterFolk,
Last week, we saw San Francisco topple.
Long time readers of CharterFolk will remember that I have long written about San Francisco Unified teetering much like the city’s tallest building is famously teetering.
San Francisco now sadly joins the pantheon of American cities whose schools have toppled into chaos.
But, as is abundantly clear given the decades of dysfunction we have seen in our nation’s public schools, the recent toppling of urban school systems is not a new phenomenon. It’s part of a larger trend that is accelerating.
Almost three years ago I went Yeatsian in attempting to describe it.
I saw it as an inevitable consequence of the great disconnect that is opening in public education …
… where parents are wanting things for their kids that many school districts simply cannot provide.
It has been exacerbated by the federal government’s unwise decision to throw a ton of one-time money into the brokenness during the pandemic.
It was taking that which was teetering to begin with …
… and adding a massive weight …
… such that toppling became inevitable.
I thought then, as I think now, that our district public schools are simply not set up to wisely use resources for “one time purposes,” certainly not the unprecedented volume of resources that were thrown at them during the pandemic. The fact that public employee unions control the management of district schools ensured that the money was not going to be used as intended but instead was going to grow the number of long-term employees and to increase their long-term compensation, which would inevitably lead to tragedy as soon as the funds ran out.
And that is exactly what we have seen play out. School districts across the country are toppling more than ever before as the consequences of their own wantonly irresponsible decision-making are finally becoming plain.
Over my years of chronicling this sad tale, at different times I’ve taken some criticism. My rendering of the traditional system, I would hear, was too negative. My critique was too “us them.” Isn’t there some way, my critics would suggest, that we can present ourselves as just loving all great schools regardless of type? Because don’t you know, Jed? Parents couldn’t give a damn about governance model. All they want is a great school for their kids.
Those of you who know me well and/or have been in these conversations with me in person know that I don’t concede the point on this topic, and often tend to dig in my heels. I do so because, in my years of doing this work, I have found that our capitulation on this subject, as tempting as it is to give in and say the vacuous, virtue-projecting thing that everyone wants to hear, is actually one of our worst mistakes.
It is to make the misguided implication that our public education system has been set up just fine the way it is, or is at least fine enough, such that all we have to do is get the right people in place, and everything will turn out fine in the end. And once that wrong initial implication has been made, all sorts of even nastier ones follow when bad things happen thereafter.
Because what does our capitulation imply when toppling inevitably occurs?
That the problem must be with the people, of course.
That they must not be smart enough, or dedicated enough, or caring enough.
Like this situation in San Francisco would somehow be solved if the district just had better people.
If this superintendent who just stepped down had been a smarter guy.
Or if the superintendent in front of him, who himself had spent many years working in charter schools, had just been a little more dedicated.
Or if the board of education, which now includes KIPPFolk, just cared a little more.
They’re all lines of thought that are orders of magnitude more repugnant than if we had just said the thing.
And, paradoxically, it’s what ultimately leads us into becoming “us them.”
Or at least contributing to patently offensive “us them” thinking.
By blaming on people what is actually the fault of system-misdesign.
It’s why it’s so important that we stay honest and remind people again and again that our critique is not against any Folk.
And as tempting as it can be to blame it all on people like Brandon Johnson and Randi Weingarten and Cecily Myart-Cruz and myriad other status quo protectors …
And don’t get me wrong. I don’t think anybody here would accuse me of being sheepish in calling these people out when they make things worse. Because goodness knows they are often making things immeasurably worse. No doubt!
But ultimate culpability?
For the edifices of public education teetering to the point of toppling?
No.
Not even Brandon Johnson is responsible for that.
It’s the system that put Brandon Johnson where he is.
Without proper checks and balances in place.
Without any real accountability.
Such that decisions end up being made for those who work within the system rather than for the kids who are supposed to be served by the system.
It’s why why we’ve simply got to say the thing, CharterFolk.
Because when we don’t, things only get worse.
The Latest Round of Us Them Coming Against Us
Which brings me to one of the other major developments from last week.
You may have seen that the Network for Public Education announced their next assault against charter schools.
Their shrillness over the years has led them to become almost completely ignored. In fact, their section about the news this latest attack generated …
… consists almost entirely of copies of their own press release. And the top link, supposedly some story at AP …
… when you click on it, you see it is actually a paid reposting.
So a lot can be said for not amplifying NPE’s messaging by responding too much to it, an approach that I’m happy to see almost all our advocacy organizations have taken.
But for our purposes here at CharterFolk, there are a few things that are instructive about the way NPE has gone about this latest attack. So it’s worth us paying attention, especially considering that this is the posse …
… whose attack during the election in 2020 turned into the Administration’s attack against charter schools in 2022.
The first thing to recognize is that this entire release is just one massive rehash.
Four years ago, NPE did essentially the same thing, issuing some supposedly new report …
… accompanied by an interactive map.
This cycle, we get essentially the same report again …
… along with the same interactive map just spruced up a little.
This year, though, they branded the report as having been co-authored by a new “center” …
… whose mission is supposedly advocating for charter school accountability.
NPE doesn’t even bother to make a separate website for the new center, which features a star system evaluating the degree to which states have laws ensuring “charter school accountability.”
Tellingly, the only states that earn five stars …
… are states that have no charter schools.
It reveals the true intent of this new center, which has nothing to do with charter school accountability, and has everything to do with charter school elimination.
The center’s intent is further revealed looking at another section …
… featuring a comprehensive, searchable database of scandals that have happened in CharterLand over the years.
It’s when you put together these pieces that the overarching strategy of NPE, and indeed of the entire phalanx of status quo protectors, is made clear.
It’s when you see that our opponents’ supposed quest for charter school accountability is really nothing more than an attempt to achieve charter school elimination. It’s the policy “center” around which all status quo protection is anchored. Its central tenet is that the only good charter school law is one that prevents any charter schools from opening. Indeed, the five-star charter school universe is one where no charter schools exist at all.
The second thing you see is that our opponents’ whole approach to charter opposition is actually one massive “us them” strategy. It presents the entire charter school experience as one never-ending scandal perpetrated by a community of Folk who are motivated to do nothing other than swindle taxpayers and shortchange kids and communities.
It makes their critique the exact opposite of ours.
Ours is that Folk are not the problem and the system’s mis-design is.
Theirs is that the system is fine, and the problem is, in fact, Folk.
CharterFolk.
This, CharterFolk, is what we are contending with.
It’s what we have to build our advocacy strength to overcome:
The most, expansive, all-encompassing, and yes most powerful “us them” strategy public education has ever seen.
The Irony of Our Silence
None of this is in the least bit surprising to me, CharterFolk.
Nearly all the dynamics that I have addressed in this post are ones we saw come at us in California about a decade before they were brought to the rest of the country. In fact, part of what motivated me to create CharterFolk in the first place was to provide content …
… showing that the attacks that were developed by charter school opponents in California …
… were being taken national …
… and require new approaches to advocacy if we intend to prevail over the long term.
Which brings me to my final point, which is to respond to a last criticism that often comes out of conversations where we are accused of being “us them.”
What do we often hear?
How unfair it is for us to surface criticisms of the public school system when we have no solution.
Sure, the charter school movement making some great schools is important, we hear, but until the day you have a way to correct the system’s mis-design you talk so much about, close your mouth. Your critique looks like nothing more than self-interested potshots.
It’s a criticism we should take to heart if it were accurate.
But it’s not.
And never has that been more evident than the fall of 2024 when the charter school movement has compelling new data showing that system redesign is in fact within our grasp.
Charter schools going 10 for 10 in cities where our sector serves more than a third of students.
10 for 10 in terms of closing gaps and lifting all boats.
The most powerful message that perhaps our world has ever had at our disposal.
An “Us All” narrative unlike anything public education has seen in our country in generations. Perhaps ever!
We should be seeing CharterFolk coming together in every city and in every state in this country saying, unabashedly, that we are committed to making sure that charter schools serve a third of students everywhere.
But what do we see instead?
Stories like this one coming out of Denver.
Two formerly charter-unapologetic advocacy organizations are coming together, and what do they say at their moment of merger?
That the days of reform are behind us.
Not a word about charter schools.
That it’s time to work together to eliminate student achievement data and to focus on health, safety and academics.
It’s making vacuous, virtue-projecting statements about loving all great schools at exactly the moment when even polite conversation is ready to hear the charter school story anew.
Last month, Denver saw some of the most compelling research ever to come out …
… about the scope of progress that has been made. Researchers call it …
… “among the most effective reforms in U.S. history.”
And we’re saying we want reform efforts to become a part of the past?
Really??
Sadly, what is most striking about this story is how un-striking it is.
Reformers in Denver aren’t an outlier.
They’re doing what we we’re all doing.
Making an implication that only makes things worse in the end.
Because it veers us off into further implications that ultimately become “us them.”
Right at the moment that an “Us All” message is more available to us than it ever has been before.
It makes our silence right now one of the most ironic things happening in public education today.
Come on, CharterFolk!
It’s time.
Say the thing!