As a proud parent and strong supporter of public charter schools, I’m very excited to be attending the 2015 National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Conference here in New Orleans. Here are some major personal highlights so far:
- “I saw ‘Stand and Deliver’ . . . I wanted to be Jaime Escalante,” said Mike Milkie, who as CEO and Superintendent of Noble Academy Schools, accepted the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools that honors the charter management organization that has demonstrated the most outstanding overall student performance and improvement in reducing achievement gaps among the country’s largest urban management organizations. Like KIPP last year, Milkie graciously announced that he would share the $250,000 award with fellow nominees Achievement First and IDEA Schools.
- Ashley Judd’s moving, personal story of how school systems and child services failed her by ignoring the trauma she experienced throughout her childhood. The teachers who did pay attention not only changed her life, they also saved it.
- Geoffery Canada explaining that (unlike teachers who aren’t very good at their job but manage to stay in the profession) if we MADE people go to a bad hairdresser, there would be a REVOLUTION in this country!
Often, the conference was an emotional conversation about why we got into the public charter school movement and the need to continue to press on.
Most of the speakers – including keynotes and breakout presenters – noted their teaching experience – a refutation of critics’ claims about public charter school advocates’ lack of direct experience in the classroom. In every presentation I attended, presenters were motivated not to privatize education or make a buck, but by social justice. They got into this work due to recognition that the system was not serving some kids well and, like Rosa Parks who spent five years trying to start a charter school, believe that access to a quality education is a civil rights issue. They are sincere about quality public charter schools and closing those that are not.
Additional takeaways:
- On the 10th anniversary of Katrina: Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White described how out of a man-made tragedy and unimaginable injustice – a “colossal failure to provide for the least among us” – came opportunity for rebirth. Citing numbers from Progressive Policy Institute’s How New Orleans made charter schools work, he said “It is time to tell the bloggers . . . Charter schools in New Orleans have worked. End of story.”
- On current events and promoting diversity: IDEA Public Charter Schools provided a session on helping the community process recent events; Perspectives Charter Schools in Chicago provided a documentary of their student-organized, 2,000-student peace march and peace movement in response to gun violence in Chicago (I am for Peace); and much conversation about the need for diverse teachers and school leaders and community engagement. Purposefully socioeconomically and culturally diverse charter schools (see diversecharters.org) are great models of educators wanting to be part of the solution.
- The need to better tell our story: It’s hard to buy the argument that public charter schools are not representing family or community needs when enrollment has grown 100% from 1.29 million in 2008 to 2.57 million now, and over 1,000,000 students are on waiting lists (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools). But, due to public charter schools’ still small piece of the 74 million total population of schoolchildren in America, there’s huge importance in building relationships – across organizations, with parents, community members, clergy, legislators, Governors, journalists and the public. We need to help students, parents, and teachers connect the dots of personal experience to policy so they can provide their authentic voices to local, state and national conversations. Pulling from Marshall Ganz, Keith Dell’Aquila from the California Charter School Association said, “Stories not only teach us how to act – they inspire us to act…. A public story is one that includes a story of self; a story of us; and a story of now.”
I can’t wait to be further inspired by Bryan Stevenson, Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (a nonprofit that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners) later today!