The Best School Operators in the Country

After spending two days with the best charter school operators in the country, I was impressed by three things:

1. Passion: The room was packed with smart hard working teachers, principals, and network leaders passionate about improving the life choices of low income and minority students. It's energizing to be around so many mission-driven "no-excuses" people. However, it was a pretty white crowd--we still need to develop more minority school leadership.
2. Operational excellence: The simple innovation that the best charter operators bring to the sector is management. They set high goals, higher talented people, develop smart organizations, and manage for results.
3. Data: As Colorado Lt. Gov. Barb O'Brien said, "Data is our BFF." This crowd lives by regular student performance data. Compared to flying blind 15 years ago (when I was a superintendent), a new generation of assessment and data tools leave no excuse for not identifying and intervening with students and teachers who need help.

I'm optimistic about three things:

1. Stimulus: The Race to the Top and Invest in Innovation (and related) competitive federal grant programs hold enormous promise for progress. States, districts, and charter networks with the best leadership and plans will soon have funding to carry out aggressive improvement plans.
2. Scale: The best three dozen charter operators have built efficient growth engines and are ready to scale. They're ready to help meet Secretary Duncan's goal of replacing hundreds of failing public schools.
3. Partnerships: growing charter enrollments, now 20% in a handful of markets, is putting pressure on public school districts. Undeniably good results, parent pressure, and federal grants will make charters hard to ignore. Some district relationships will get ugly, but I think we'll see more cooperative relationships as cities, like Denver, adopt a portfolio approach.

I'm worried about three things

1. Equity: Charter schools still operate on less funding than traditional public schools and typically don't get access to public facilities. The combination is like a 20-30% hit on the budget. We need to right this inequity--these are public schools serving disproportionally low income kids.
2. Funding: We need three times the number of high quality school operators to transform urban education. Foundation funding dropped off this year due in large part to the recession but also change in focus. Next year will be time to hit the gas and foundations will need to do their part.
3. Advocacy: This is a heads-down crowd that doesn't spend much time telling the stories of thousands of lives changed. In dozens of cities, good charter schools are dramatically increasing the number of students graduating and going to college compared to surrounding public schools. Parent organizing by the Los Angeles charter operators was instrumental in passing a school board resolution requiring new schools be put out for bids. Other cities will need to follow LA's leadership if we're going to transform the worst 5,000 schools in the country.

By the way, some of the best school operators in the country that I visited with this week include KIPP nationally; YES, Uplift and IDEA in TX; Achievement First, Harlem Success, and Brighter Choice in NY; PUC, ICEF, Alliance, Aspire, Green Dot, and Rocketship in CA; Great Hearts in AZ, and DSST in CO.

 

 

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Comments

[blindjester]

"bannorhill
Why did Chelsey Clinton go to a private school?
Why did Amy Carter go to a private school?"

Your argument supporting charter schools is that some famous people send their kids to private schools?

Forget any standards of proof. Just tell me: are we even in the same conversation?

[Endersdragon]

Care to address my complaints about the options in many areas as of today.

[blindjester]

The problems in public schools are not peculiar to the public school, and won't be absent in private schools or charters.

They will still be staffed by the same people you find in the schools you're fleeing from (literally the same people--teachers from public schools) and attended by the same sorts of students.

It's not magic. It's still teachers and kids. Hoping for different results is just magical thinking.

[Endersdragon]

Part 1: Not quite sure why my post was blocked but I am going to try again. So often I see people on the far left fighting charter schools with every fiber of their souls. To them I want to tell a little story. A few years ago I worked at a summer camp for kids with special needs. While there I met several kids I wanted to keep in touch with (everyone did), kids that reminded me of myself and I figured I could help their parents and their own self-confidence. Two of these kids were twins named Z1 and Z2 (names being edited to protect identies, though no doubt their mom and they themselves wouldn't mind). Z1 never had much trouble with school but shortly after meeting him I could tell Z2 had quite a few problems when outside this camp. Between bullying, social isolation, and learning difficulties he was having at a camp made for kids just like him, it was clear he had quite a few problems outside of the camp.

[Endersdragon]

Fast forward two years and his mom decides she has had enough with the regular schools for Z2. While it is clear that the bullying isn't that huge of a problem anymore, social isolation and teachers unwilling or unable to understand him and work with him were still huge problems. Luckily there is a private school nearby (maybe 15 miles away) for special needs kids. She is sending Z2 there now (though she could never afford it for Z1 who doesn't have anywhere near as many problems, but probably still could benefit from it. The school however costs just over $13,000 a year... and she is a mom of limited means. The funny thing is, in some parts of the country their are charter schools set up much the same way. She won't be able to afford this school forever... but just imagine if the government was willing to pick up the tab... just like we want it to do for healthcare. Is a fair and approrpriate education not as much of a right as healthcare? I believe, or at least hope, it is. Someone want to try telling me to it isn't?

[raechel]

Well-written and structured post. And I enjoyed "mission-driven, no-excuses people."

I used to fear that charter schools would undermine the public schools, and that the result would be education only for the privileged. I'm beginning to see that charter schools ARE public schools, just schools outside the huge educational bureaucracy, able to experiment with different approaches. Maybe the "portfolio" approach a good way to tackle the abysmal situation we have today. We do need funding equity for charters, though; otherwise how can we fairly assess their effectiveness?

[blindjester]

It isn't educational bureaucracy that is preventing "experimentation."

It is NCLB and state laws.

High stakes testing micromanagement has got us teaching with one hand tied behind our back. If you want to help kids, how about helping all of them?

[raechel]

Baloney. The most successful public schools -- most, but not all, in the burbs -- test the heck out of the kids and have for many years, because they are passionate about results and passionate about teacher and school performance. It doesn't tie their hands behind their backs. It enables them to determine how they're doing in an objective way.

It is because I do care about all kids that I welcome a variety of approaches. That way what succeeds can be replicated.

And for all the critics of testing as a way to assess school performance, what is your alternative? Think like a concerned community member for a minute and tell us what standard measures you would use (standard, not peculiar to each school), and how you would do that in a cost-effective way. How would you determine which teachers are succeeding and which need remediation or a new career?

[pdth]

We're charter school parents, but only because we carefully compared the two options and we happened to have a very effective charter school in our town. Other charter schools in our county are not nearly so successful. The critical success factors are: Boards of Directors who are unusually competent and motivated by the needs of the kids and not ideology; and parental involvement. If one of these two break down the school might be able to stay solvent but won't deliver a quality education.

The only real advantage charter schools have over ordinary public schools, in general, is the stronger possibility of parental involvement. If that doesn't happen, either because of poor economic conditions where both parents have to work full-time, or a corporate environment where parents aren't valued or are just "in the way," then that advantage is lost.

[blindjester]

The idea that teaching kids in THIS building (with the name "charter" on it) is superior to teaching kids in THAT building (with the name "public" on it) is ridiculous.

We're teaching the same content. Using the same resources. Employing the graduates of the same schools. We have the same motivations, the same sense of responsibility, the same innate creativity.

The only real difference is that corporations (excepting publishers, of course) have a harder time sucking money out of the public schools.

[bannorhill]

"The idea that teaching kids in THIS building (with the name "charter" on it) is superior to teaching kids in THAT building (with the name "public" on it) is ridiculous."

It is not ridiculous. It is like saying the team that plays in Heinz Field (Superbowl champ Ptiisburgh Steelers) are better than the team that plays in Ford Field (winless Detroit Lions). One IS better than the other. They play by the same rules. They have the same salery cap. They employ graduates of the same schools. Yet one suceeds and the other fails.

Schools are the same. Until we give students free agency and allow them to move to sucessful schools they will be stuck in dead end lives. Even President Obama had to escape public schools and public education to get where he is.

[blindjester]

Successful schools?

Arizona has had charters for the last 15 years (my niece teaches in one). That's enough time to draw some conclusions, and here's the verdict: the public schools consistently outperform the charters. Google it for yourself.

Charters don't offer a better alternative. All they do is siphon money from public schools to private accounts.

[fransdottr]

You cannot possibly think that placing a less-than-adequate number of "top operators" in education places in critical condition will wash away our sins of choosing not to place smart capable teachers in schools and offering a fair and equal education to poor and minority students.

[raechel]

Huh? Sorry, missing your point completely.