The below posts originally ran on The Progressive Policy Institute Blog.

Bellwether Education Partners’ Eight Cities: Exploring Urban America’s Most Successful Education Reform Efforts

with David Osborne. December 2018.

Why it Matters That Public Charters Dominated the 2018 US News Best High School Rankings

May 2018

A Step Down for the Chancellor; A Step Forward for D.C.

February 2018

Shelby County Supt. Hobson "willing to relinquish some control over struggling schools to be operated by private charter groups," or so we hope.

with Juliet Amann

January 2018

Fighting for the neediest and pushing back against special interests are often unexpected actions in the realm of political battles. 

However, Dorsey Hopson, Superintendent of the Shelby County Schools (SCS) in Memphis, Tennessee, might exceed our expectations.

Last week, Hopson announced that he is “willing to voluntarily relinquish control over some struggling schools to be operated by private charter groups.” 

For years, SCS has been working hard to turn around struggling schools through its Innovation Zone. The iZone, however, is a costly model, and few of its schools have successfully achieved key benchmarks.

In defense of his decision, Hopson said:  “We spend so much money, whether it’s philanthropic dollars, state dollars, our dollars, on trying to improve these Priority Schools over the last five or six years, and we’ve gotten some gains but certainly nowhere near the transformative results that we would like to have had …So I think we’ve got to take another shot at it and do it differently.”

Hopson is showing strength of character by acknowledging the success of the charter school model at a time when the anti-charter propaganda machine is in full swing. Because he recognizes the district’s need for “transformative results,” Hopson is willing to throw out the old, unsuccessful model of education that has failed urban students for decades in favor of embracing public charters, which have created profound changes in cities like New Orleans, Washington D.C., Denver, and Indianapolis.

Strong superintendents cannot, and should not, sit idly and continue to  support schools that are not helping children achieve, especially when public charters schools can help thousands of our nation’s most disadvantaged kids.

After all, the Tennessee Charter School Center reminds us that a charter sector benefit students because: 

• Public charter schools are held accountable. Test scores and performance results are published and are part of the school district findings.

• Public charter schools provide healthy learning environments for all students, including students with special needs, English Language Learners and the gifted.

• Public charter schools are not allowed to turn away any child, for any reason.

• Public charter school teachers want to be in their school; it was their interest that brought them to the school.

If none of these key points brings you to the table with Superintendent Hopson, then looking at the data from the 2017 Shelby County Schools Charter Schools Annual Report might. The existing charter schools have already paved the way for more innovation, progress, and success. 

The report notes that student enrollment in Shelby County charter schools has increased annually by an average of 1,500 students per year. More parents are choosing the charter option than ever before. 

The charter sector also has lower suspension rates for secondary schools, and public charters in Shelby County have a lower withdrawal rate than district-managed schools. More students receive more days of instruction.

Finally, charter schools participate in a program that offers transparency and encourages oversight.  The Operations Score Card (OSC)  assesses the charter schools’ performance regarding non-academic expectations, like school budgets, operation, legal compliance and other issues.  The OSC stated that Shelby County Charter schools “are consistently managing operations well and to respond appropriately in the interest of protecting SCS and its students when charters are at risk for non-compliance.”

In  Reinventing America’s Schools, David Osborne underscores the findings and points out, “As in most charter cities, Memphis’s charters outperform traditional public schools.”  

The data supports the promise of having public charters take over operation of SCS’s failing schools. It’s no wonder that Hopson supported the idea too. 

Of course, not everyone was pleased at Hopson’s announcement. United Education Association of Shelby County President Tikeila Rucker was dismayed that Hopson would consider partnering with charter organizations: ““UEA along with parents, teachers and community leaders stands behind the district turning schools around, not giving schools away.”

Unfortunately, in the face of such commotion, Hopson has begun to placate those who want to keep the status quo.  In an email to principals, he clarified his remarks, writing: “All that said, I want to be very clear that my preference would always be to keep schools under the governance of (Shelby County Schools).”

Please, Superintendent Hopson, continue to stay strong and do what’s right. Put politics aside and put kids first.

Indianapolis Grows a 21st Century School System 

with David Osborne

August 2017

In a recent media release, Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) announced they are looking for “quality partners” to launch innovation network schools for the 2018-2019 school year. IPS explains their innovation school network as a group of “public schools with expanded autonomy to make academic and operational decisions that will maximize student achievement. Innovation schools also expand quality choices for all families.”

In 2014, IPS Superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee realized that the centralized policies of IPS prevented principals and teachers from making significant changes in their schools. He began to look for ways to empower them.

Ferebee publicly supported state legislation to allow the creation of innovation network schools. These schools are exempt from the same laws and regulations that charters are exempt from, and they operate outside IPS’s union contracts. The principal and teachers are employed by a nonprofit corporation with its own board, not IPS. Yet all the innovation network schools operate in IPS buildings. They have five-to-seven year performance contracts with the district. If a school fails to fulfill the terms of its contract, the district can terminate it or refuse to renew it, but otherwise it cannot interfere with the school’s autonomy.

There are already 16 innovation network schools, out of 70 total in IPS. They come in four varieties:

1. New start-ups, some of which are also charter schools.

2. Existing charter schools that choose to become innovation schools and are housed in district buildings.

3. Failing district schools restarted as innovation schools.

4. Existing IPS schools that choose to convert to innovation status.

Regardless of the type of innovation network school, all of the schools benefit from full charter-style autonomy. With that autonomy, IPS has seen a growth in the types of schools the district has to offer.

Francis Scott Key Elementary School, a failing district school that became the first innovation school, has focused heavily on creating a culture of parent involvement: the school hires parent advocates, invites parents to regular events at school, and has a breakfast program for fathers and kids. Teachers do home visits before each school year begins.

School 93 is a teacher-run school. Project Restore, a group of teachers who were tired of top-down initiatives created by those far removed from the classroom, had earned a reputation for turning around district schools. Ferebee encouraged them to bring their model to School 93, and the teachers chose to pursue innovation network status for the school.

Global Preparatory Academy is the first dual-language immersion school to be chartered in Indiana. Mariama Carson, the founder of the school, recruited teachers worldwide to get 50 percent native Spanish speakers on staff. Her school is both a charter, authorized by the mayor’s office, and an innovation network school, located in an IPS building. “I thought I would never again work inside a district,” she says, “but I think this way of working inside a district will work for us.”

By embracing school autonomy, IPS has spurred the creation of unique and successful district schools. Soon the charter sector and innovation network schools will educate half of all public school students within IPS’s boundaries.

By calling for new partners to open other innovation network schools, IPS is showing its continued effort to expand the diversity of school designs and its intent to create a 21st century school system.

IPS has decided to open the application process to “attract a broader pool of diverse applicants with innovative ideas.” The call for applicants is open to any non-profit group, charter school operator, or individual. The application can be found here.

Et Tu, NAACP?

August 2017. 

When I was a kid, my parents bought a house in a middle class neighborhood of an economically diverse city. My brother, who is a year older than me, embarked upon his schooling in our local public elementary school – an adventure that lasted one year.

His teacher struggled to control the class, fights broke out, students stole other students’ lunches, and, because of the constant disruptions, he lost precious time for in-class learning.

My parents swiftly made plans to move my brother—and consequently me—to a private school. After elementary school, my brother and I continued to attend the small student-centered private school, skipping over, as did many of our affluent, white peers, the notoriously bad neighborhood middle school.

We returned to our neighborhood public high school, where we received, overall, a good education.

But I am not naïve. I know that part of my academic success in the AP and honors courses at this huge, socioeconomically diverse public high school came from my K-8 education, which included individual attention, undisrupted classes, creative projects, and teachers who not only taught the subject matter but also how to study, meet deadlines, and take control of our own learning.

I wonder how different things would have been if I had been told I had to wait. If instead of my parents having the choice to remove my brother from his disruptive elementary school, they were forced to watch as he fell behind because of factors beyond their control. If they were told that the school district was attempting to fix the school’s problems, and in the meantime, my brother and I would have to make the best of it.

No one ever told me that I had to wait for access to a good education. My parents’ socio-economic status gave them an option, a way around the traditional system when it failed.

Unfortunately, many parents don’t have that option.

Now it’s the NAACP telling parents to wait while school districts fix traditional public schools. Telling them that abandoning their neighborhood public school for a public charter school is a civil rights crime, because saving traditional public schools will somehow save poor and minority kids… someday. Propping up failing schools is so important, in the NAACP’s view, that parents should forgo their right to a choice, just so the traditional system can have all the resources—regardless of whether its students are succeeding.

Last week the NAACP upheld its 2016 call for a moratorium on the expansion of public charter schools. Its edict, much like a recent one from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, demands that the moratorium remain until charter schools implement a series of changes that would essentially make them function like traditional public schools.

The main difference is that this time the betrayal of impoverished and minority families comes from an organization that is historically committed to advancing opportunity for those groups.

Charter schools are about opportunity. They provide choices for those families who lack the economic means usually required to “have a say.” They provide opportunity for millions of low-income kids to graduate from high school and attend college.

Studies have repeatedly shown that public charter schools produce dramatic academic gains for minority students in high poverty areas, compared to traditional public schools. Thousands of black families choose charter schools, and they are happy with that choice.

Former NAACP president (ousted in May 2017) Cornell Brooks previously explained that NAACP’s actions are not inspired by an ideological opposition to charter schools but by the organization’s historical support of public schools. Yet, Brooks embraced school choice for his own family. Both of his sons attend/attended The Potomac School, a private school in Fairfax County, Virginia, where tuition ranges from $33,000 a year for kindergarten to $38,500 for high school.

Why does the NAACP want to deny avenues of choice to parents who can’t afford private schools?

Could it be that the NAACP has been influenced by the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has received from teachers unions? And could it be that its leaders care more about their adult constituents, many of whom teach in public schools, than about the needs of minority children?

21st Century School Systems Need Effective Authorizers

July 2017

When I was in high school, I had a teacher everyone loved: Mr. C.

Mr. C told us stories about traveling, he talked about baseball, and he let us sit with our friends and socialize. We completed worksheets; we earned As in the class. We were happy, and our parents were happy with our grades.

When the A.P. Exam results came in, only two students out of our class of twenty-five received passing scores.

The problem with Mr. C. wasn’t that he was a bad person. The problem was that he wanted to be our friend first and our teacher second. Our test results showed that we had learned none of the course content, and, ultimately, Mr. C did a disservice to us as students, regardless of how much we liked him.

Extend that scenario to an entire school: The school creates a comfortable and safe environment. Students are happy with their teachers, and parents are happy with their children’s grades. But the students perform abysmally on standardized tests. Despite the overall satisfaction of parents and students with the school, there’s evidence that the students aren’t learning.

In the new book Charting a New Course: The Case for Freedom, Flexibility & Opportunity Through Charter Schools, Jeanne Allen, Max Eden, and others argue for the end of results-based accountability for charter schools, at least as far as standardized testing is concerned.

The charter sector they envision is one where authorizers no longer carefully screen charter operators prior to issuing a charter, and they no longer shut down schools based on the results of test scores. The free market guarantees quality control: if the customers are happy, the school stays open. If enough families desert it, it runs out of money and closes.

But this would ultimately do a disservice to students, regardless of how much they and their families liked their schools.

Schools are first and foremost places of learning. If we’re going to spend taxpayers’ money on them, we need objective evidence that students are learning.

Of course, test scores should not be the only relevant factor in determining the success or failure of a school, and no good charter authorizer judges schools on test scores alone.

Chester Finn, senior fellow at The Fordham Institute, explains that effective authorizers are also looking at various gauges of student growth, as well as graduation rates, pupil and teacher attendance and persistence, and more (e.g., Advanced Placement scores, dual credit results, where kids go to high school after leaving the charter middle school, etc.). Good authorizers also do site visits and pay attention to school climate.

We need authorizers who investigate charter operators prior to allowing them to open schools, then conduct in-depth evaluations of schools based on a variety of factors, including test scores, and finally close or replace those whose students are falling far behind.

Not all parents have the ability to assess schools, and those parents trust regulating bodies to ensure that the schools available to their children are high quality. Parents and students have a right to choice, but we need to make certain that they choose from a selection of effective schools.

In 21st century school systems, we need well-authorized charter sectors in which strong authorizers scrutinize charter operators, shut down failing schools, and invite successful schools to replicate, so we have no doubt that our students are learning. Otherwise, we’re simply replacing one failing school system with another.