Closing Session - Principals Panel The Future of Charter Schools J. Johnson Mod/K. Wilson, Davis M. Munier 1999 Charter Schools National Conference March 14-17, 1999 Denver, Colorado

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This is a very appropriate way, we think, to end what I know has been a really exciting, challenging and uplifting conference on the growing movement of charter schools in this Country. Your hopes, your promises and the challenges that face you as you return back to your home State. We plan to spend some time this morning talking with panelists who have immersed themselves in the charter school movement since its very beginning. I will introduce them to you in a minute. Upon the closing of the panelist questions, we’re going to then ask you, in the audience, if you’ve got questions of the panelists or any of the department people to please feel free to come forward to wherever the microphones will be at that point. And then we will have a few closing comments, and we will host as a summation the -- What is it we’re having at the end? The raffle, the raffle. But you know, I want to... One of the wonderful things about working for the Department is that they are very good at preparing talking points for you. So I’m going to go off talking points for a minute and feel it really important to say thank you to some folks. I, unfortunately, did not get to hear the Michigan students. But I understand the Michigan Academy’s band jazz all-stars were just outstanding, so we want to thank them for coming to join us, as well as the Colorado students who performed during the intercessions. Let’s thank them.

Now, there are many, many people from the Department of Ed. who have put in hours and hours and hours of time. And many of them are sitting up front, and I want to thank them as they sit here. But there’s always one person who somehow manages to function on a 24-hour day putting in 30 hours each day, and that’s what he’s done from the time this conference was conceived to the very last minute when we close the doors. Where is Alex? Alex, we really need to get Alex Medler a round of applause. Thank you very much for all that you’ve done to make this happen.

And now to the panelists. I’m going to introduce them as they’re sitting and start with Mike Munier. Mike is presently the principal of the Jefferson Academy charter school. Jefferson is one of 11 charter schools in the Jefferson County Public School District. The mission is to establish an environment where students attain the highest academic and character potential through an academically rigorous, rigorous context rich educational program. They use the core knowledge foundation, scope and sequence developed by Dr. Hersh. And they emphasize, this is really important, that teaching of basic skills within a traditional and conventional approach in a self-contained educational environment, but it is the highest academic potential that they use to approach the basic skills acquisition.

Our next panelist is Wayne Jennings. Wayne is in his 44th year in education. Proud of you to admit to that, 44 years. I don’t admit to 30 plus anymore. I stay at 30. I was very impressed that he did this. Wayne, as an educator, been a teacher, a principal, a central office administrator, a designer of experimental schools, school board member, superintendent and a small business owner, assisting in the transformation of an American education. He’s been there in every place one can be in public schools. He’s currently working intensively with the charter schools in Minnesota and, presently, is superintendent of four new charter schools in St. Paul, works with several others. He’s a researcher on the National Charter Studies commissioned by Congress, which is concluding its fourth year. And so therefore, is participating in helping to look at the policy implications for charter schools.

Next is Francis Terrain. Francis, very energetic, has been involved in community development for 20 years, working both in the public sector with the City of San Antonio and the non profit section at the local and national levels with the Bexar County Local Development Corporation, Laraza, the National Council and currently with the Mexican American Unity Council. She is the Director of La Suela De Lesamerica Charter School. It is a dual language charter school committed to helping students develop confidence, compassion and a commitment to life long learning. What a wonderful opportunity for those students.

And next to Francis is Dr. Karen Butterfield. Karen is an art educator with the Flagstaff Unified School District. She’s been there for over 20 years, is currently the director and founder of the Flagstaff Art and Leadership Academy. Something very important to me -- I don’t know if you know this, but I studied professional dance for 20 years. And I just believe that the arts an incredibly important part of an academic curriculum and should not be excluded as outside the curriculum, but within the curriculum. She has been active in arts education arena on the local, State and National level, was honored as the Arizona Teacher of the Year. As well as in 1993, Disney American Teacher Award recipient in Visual Arts. Does that mean you got to do that commercial?

And sitting next to Francis is Katrina Wilson Davis. We’ve had an opportunity to meet before. Very dynamic, energetic principal who is currently serving as the principal of Florida’s first charter school, the Liberty City Charter School. She has taught high school social studies at the Miami Killearn Senior School for over ten years. She has also written, produced and directed five plays that have toured Miami Dade County Public Schools. Watch the emergence of the arts again. While she has served in a number of numerous committees and was selected to serve as a teacher on special assignment, currently she is a board member of the newly formed Florida Association of Charter Schools.

And to Katrina’s left is Reverend Ellis Smith. Someone I also had a chance to meet before. He’s really passionate in talking about the role of charter school and, really, the role of saving our youth, particularly in Detroit our African American youth. He’s the pastor and founded the Jubilee Christian Church, which is located on the far east side of Detroit. And as an extension of the local church, Pastor Smith established five non profit corporations, each designed to meet a specific need in the community. He has -- I thought this was very interesting and very appropriate and difficult passion - for marriages and the restoration of American families. He has been instrumental in assisting Detroit High School graduates to pursue their college education, is currently the founder and president of the board for the Colin Powell Academy, a charter school on the east side of Detroit.

Welcome our panelists to this discussion. Now I have, with my colleagues, developed six questions. They had all of five minutes to think about them, so this is truly going to be a challenge for them because I just shared the questions with them a few minutes ago. And panelists, we don’t expect each one of you to answer each one of the questions. I’m going to ask people to jump in and probably take two to three responses per question. But you all will decide who starts. So let’s start with the first question.

Charter schools have attracted national attention. And everyone hopes that the charter school movement can and will influence the entire national emphasis on improving public education. What do you see the role of the charter schools in this national reform effort? Should charter schools be playing a prominent role in the national reform method to improve the quality of education for all of our students? Who would like to start?

I will. First of all, I feel that the charter school movement, nationally, has already made a gigantic difference in the arena of traditional public education. And I look at my own tiny community of Flagstaff, Arizona where in 1996, ten charter schools opened. And eight of those are continuing to thrive and grow. So in response to that, my own former school district has now opened up or re-looked at how they are doing business, by changing two of their current schools into magnet schools. They’re looking at recruiting their students and keeping their students and improving instructional programs. So I feel the charter school movement is well on its way in making a difference in the traditional public school arena.

Thank you. Would anyone want to add to that?

I’d like to add one thought to that. It’s very short, actually. I think that the purpose of why we exist, in some regard, I heard one person say this a long time ago -- is that we’re to bring light to this situation and to the dialogue. Not necessarily heat all the time. I think we have to be careful about how we go about our business of saying, "Are we better than this? Are we better than that?" But at least bring light to the subject of change and innovation and so forth, and to that dialogue so that we can progress well in our educational setting.

Great. Yes.

We also have a great opportunity to be innovative because we’re small, because -- and some of us are not all that small -- but because we do not have the structured bureaucracy that the schools have generated over the many years that they’ve been in existence. So it gives us an opportunity to incorporate and to try out various models that can then be passed on to the school district. We do a lot of things school districts can’t do. We have the smaller classrooms, the smaller student teacher ratio. We have a required parent involvement. So we have a number of things that we can do it at our scale that can, I think we reintroduce or introduce new concepts into the school system. And I think they’re looking for it.

Wayne, did you want to jump in? Wayne and then...

Mm hm.

Sure.

And then Katrina, mm hm.

It’s been, I think, all of our experience that within any school, any district or conventional school, there are people who would like to try new ideas. Maybe they’ve made requests, maybe the school itself is on a road to some sort of change or improvement. And so often in the past, they’ve run into severe road blocks, sort of playing "Captain, may I?" to the forces of the bureaucracy. The answer often comes back with a gigantic, "No, you may not do that. It’s against rules or against regulations," and so on. And so what charter schools have done is to provide opportunities for those educators who want to try new ideas. And there’s lots of them out in the schools. And so charter schools, I think, are breaking that sort of gridlock of the status quo and finding a way. A sort of institutional bypass, if you will, around the conventional programs. And people with different philosophies all the way from highly structured conventional kinds of programs to people with, you know, very constructionist points of view, have the opportunity to test these out in a setting that doesn’t have to drag along a system or a lot of other pieces of the system that doesn’t want to be dragged. And so it’s a way sort of to deal with these offsetting forces that we see often times in schools that prevent change from occurring. And I think as charter schools expand and as other educators learn about this, we’re just going to see a huge expansion in the number of people given that opportunity who will take advantage of that opportunity to start new programs.

That’s excellent. Did you want to jump in then we’ll go on to the next question. Go ahead.

I just wanted to comment, and I was basically going to say something along that line. And that is that what I see charter school reform doing is giving a shot in the arm to educators by empowering them to do the things in their classrooms that they know that work with the population that they serve. And in my school, particularly, one of the things that I have come to terms with that is also being, I think, it’s going to be a national movement is how the higher education is now revamping its curricular to be more practical and hands on for classroom teaching. And they are becoming more and more involved in what is happening in charter schools so that they can offer the kind of courses to their students that will better prepare them for their roles as educators. And I know that if we are really going to be preparing children for their roles in the 21st Century, part of it is being on one accord with businesses and the higher institutions of learning. And charter schools really, really have shown how those partnerships can really, really work effectively to meet specific needs of specific student populations.

Great. Let me take you all to the next question. We expect charter schools to be excellent public schools. Much of our focus has been on excellence. How do you respond to those critics who contend that charter schools are not truly public schools?

Well, I just e-mailed the Arizona Republic after they did a three-part series on charter schools. And it was actually some of the best journalism produced in our State on the charter school movement. However, there was one comment that the reporter made in her articles regarding how charter schools are publicly funded but are running as private schools. And I e-mailed her immediately and said, "Please, that is not the case," that we are public schools, by law, and operate as public schools. So my message to that is the importance of all of us to continually educate and reeducate the public and the media on factual information of the charter school movement.

Great.

I was interviewed a Phi Delta Kappa once and I coined a thought that charter schools are independent schools with a public obligation. I see us as semiautonomous, of course, and I think we need to continue to reeducate people any time things like that pop up, and say, "Yes, we’re semiautonomous. We are a bit independent at times, but we do have a public obligation and never forget that." And as long as they begin to understand and don’t see us as removing ourselves from the mainstream so that, you know, we’re accused of doing things we’re not doing then I think we’re better off.

Reverend Ellis?

A lot of that is perception and not reality. And we have to constantly combat that. And there are things that we can do to combat that, that relates to governments. When we have a governing board that reflects the public, reflects the community. Secondly, a fiscal responsibility because these are public funds. We have to maintain the integrity of who we are as a charter/public school. But I think the third thing has to do with relevance to our community. Communities are diverse and different around the Country. And as we begin to relate to our immediate community concerning their felt educational needs then we are, in essence, reflecting the needs of the public.

And I think we’re held to a higher level of accountability because when our school districts... We’re held to the same standard of accountability. But if there’s a deficiency with a charter, we are subject to being closed whereas, the independent school districts are not. And I think this is a message that we need to get out to the public, that we are held to those same standards. However, the consequences for us are graver than they are for the independent school district.

And private schools can pick and choose among their students. They can, and we cannot. We are public schools. We accept all students. So that’s one important distinction. We can’t mix religion in with public education. So that’s another distinction. We can’t impose a fee structure that would prevent students of certain income levels from participating, so that’s another distinction. So there are very strict distinctions between public schools and private schools.

I do think that this is a question that all of you need to take back to your home towns and your home districts and come up with reaffirmation statements. Charters, we are public charter schools, and we probably need to take the offensive at this point and begin to describe them as public charter schools in very compelling ways because this question has surfaced periodically over the past year. Okay, next question. There are thousands of innovative non charter schools that are doing creative things to help all children, children in their schools rather, become successful. New charters could benefit from learning about not just your innovations but their successes and their innovations, but there are barriers that prevent communication and conversations between the traditional schools and our charter schools. What thoughts do you have about how we can begin to eliminate those barriers?

We can partner with the schools in our immediate community because, once again, those barriers often times are just perception. We have to communicate a message that says that we are here to compete, I’m sorry, complete and not compete. We are cohorts in the educational process. So when we have an outreach mentality towards the public schools in our community, it pulls those barriers down. So we’ve done some innovative things. Like, we hold assemblies in public schools in our community. We also have forums that bring all the schools together. We also have a platform whereby we can actually have dialogue with administrators in our immediate school district.

In our district there’s quite a few of us, as well as many of the Colorado schools, that I interact with that, frankly, extend the hand of friendship and partnership on a one on one, individual basis. And it’s proven to be real effective. In our particular district, I’ve made it a point to go to all the principal meetings and so forth and extend my hand of friendship, of asking what they’re doing in their building that I might learn from. And then that opens up the floodgates of, "What’s going on in your school?" And, "We’ve heard about your school and what can we learn from you?" So it’s really very simple. But that kind of friendship partnering kind of aspect can be very, very dynamic. And we have to start at a grass roots level. It’s not anything that we can impose on anyone.

One of the things that I have found out is that by focusing on that one entity, and that’s the child, is what breaks down the barriers when you’re talking about a lot of traditional schools. I think that probably charter schools are seen as the new kids on the block who are bringing this element of competition and business into the whole arena of education. And I think that because there is a lot of misperception and a lot of lack of information and knowledge about what charter schools are really about, the one thing I’m very proud of about, you know, a lot of charter school operators is that everything that they do is based on how they’re going to get their children to achieve. And if we keep that focus, if we keep saying even to traditional and private and anybody who will listen, "What I’m about is trying to get my children to achieve," everybody’s going to be able to come to a table, a level table and a level playing field, to find out how that is happening. And I think that those barriers will be broken down if we just let the children kind of do it.

Do the barriers... Sure.

Just one more thing.

Mm hm.

Or, one more item. It’s a very important question because it’s been a phenomenon in education for a long time. Pre dates charter schools for a long time. And that is -- There have been innovative schools or schools with new practices. Strangely enough, the school a block away or two miles away never changes its practices.

Mm hm.

There’s often no communication. They don’t visit, and I don’t know why that is but so this just complicates the matter a little bit. But I think the suggestions that have been made are going to be helpful as, you know, the information society, information flows more freely. And as parents exercise choices and there are school fairs, which all are invited.

Wayne, that’s a good point. I’m wondering if any of you have personally experienced barriers being put in front of you as you attempted to reach out to the schools.

I would like to address that because my district rejected my charter after being with them for 20 years. And within two months after we opened our doors in August of ‘96, I invited our superintendent and board representation to come visit our charter school site. That opened up the doors to many informal meetings and discussions and many retreats, we’re calling them, to where this Spring, we’re doing a joint professional theater performance with the other three public high schools in the system. And then we are hosting a community-wide celebration honoring every educator and their spouses within the local public school system. Every charter school and every public school in Flagstaff, Arizona. And that will be held the first Sunday in May.

One of the things that I did was I got with an organization that was reaching out to schools for health education. And what they wanted to do was to get a range of different kind of schools to try to get a health education curriculum involved. So they got a public school and a charter school and a private school. And as a result of coming together, we have had to undergo staff development training. We have had to bring our curriculum in to see how we were going to integrate it. And you would be amazed as to how the staff development for each one of the different kinds of schools can be very different but, at the same time, how you can learn from those. Another thing we did was we partnered with another school across the county, and we wrote a grant to get a butterfly garden. And we went into their part to see their butterfly garden. they came and helped us plant ours. And we shared books on butterflies and the whole nine yards. And then even had pen pals in each grade level. And another thing we did was we got involved with the Junior League in our community that started a multicultural program, that we partnered with another, our school and two other schools to go on field trips together, to really spend time at each other’s schools. We host different events. So there are a lot of ways that, within your community, there are organizations that are trying to bridge relationships and communities together that you can offer your school to be a part of that. And you will, as a result, meet new educators and different types of educators and different types of educational settings and businesses that will help you to marshal resources for your school.

That’s really good.

One other thought.

Yeah, mm hm.

In this relationship building, a humble attitude and a diplomacy has to be in your heart at all times. It’s the only way it’s going to happen. Because we’re seen sometimes as a threat. and if you go in with a diplomatic attitude and with a humble attitude about what’s taking place in your situation, people will receive that. I think the divisions occur because of pride sometimes, and why the school two miles down the road doesn’t come and visit you. I think it’s a real effort to -- I’d like to use the term the Reverend said -- is outreach. You step out of your building. You go to them before them come to you.

Under promise, over deliver.

Mm hm.

That’s really good.

The bottom line, as Katrina said, is what is best for kids?

Right.

And we can do a lot more in partnering with others than in working in isolation.

Which takes me, really, to kind of a follow up question on partnerships. Charter schools seem to be doing a really good job of developing partnerships. What can you share with the rest of the educational world about these partnerships? Why are they working so well for charter schools and do they lead to improved student achievement?

Yes they do. A key is making the community, at large, stakeholders in the vision of your school. We’ve done some things. We have a business alliance with the businesses in our school. They knew if the young people we’re rearing and helping to raise up academically are involved in our program, our after school program, then they’re not going to be breaking into their stores and their shops. They’re going to be focused in on other things that are more productive, and making them contributors to be an asset to the community and not a liability.

We so often ask businesses to come in as partners and we ask for money. I mean, are there other things that partnerships that can build on that are outside the domain of asking for just money?

I’d like to address that. Our partnership is with the Museum of Northern Arizona. And we are in our second year of a very successful museum apprenticeship program that I feel models an excellent school to work program because our kids are learning about every component of the museum as a potential future career. And we’re also building a foundation for our students to believe and support not only the arts but museums across the Country, with an outstanding rigorous academic arts program. So the museum is also providing us with a wonderful platform for our kids to learn in a different way. In addition, just try to imagine our school of modular buildings at the base of a 12,000 mountain on 400 acres of the largest ponderosa pine forest in the Country. It is an awesome environment. And this morning the panelists talked about the importance of not only looking at test scores, but we also need to be looking at qualitative research as to what makes a school environment help our kids succeed. And our partnership with the museum is doing that.

I think also when you get into really look at educating children and, specifically, disadvantaged or economically disadvantaged inner city kids, you know that you can’t do it as effectively as you would had they been exposed. And exposure is critical in the learning environment. When children do not have positive and, I would say, educationally related experiences that they can bring into the classroom then your job as an educator becomes extremely difficult. So the resources that you marshal outside of the dollar, in terms of providing educationally sound and related experiences to your children, for your children to bring into the classroom is what becomes, I think, the things that companies and businesses are ready to deliver on. If you say, "Well, give me $500," they want to know what it’s for. But if you say, "Hey, we’re going to take our children up to butterfly garden," or, "We’re going to take over to Tampa to see the thing over there."

I love it. I love it.

So after they’ve seen that thing over there they’re going to be better, you know. I think that they’re more willing to buy into what you’re trying to do for your children.

There’s also service providers in the community that have performance indicators of their own. You know, if you have a library, a public library in your area, and it is a low use library, it is important to those people to increase their numbers, to get the community involved in there. So when we go in, a true partnership is there’s something in it for both sides or all sides. So when you go in and offer them what they need in order to make their programs more successful then you’re always welcome. I mean, you know, it’s something that, you know, the children’s museum, the libraries, you know, the police department with their program. I mean, they’re looking for avenues to get into our community. And we’re looking for them to come in. So it’s a perfect match.

That’s a powerful idea, museum example. Carl Emmons is sitting out there. There’s a school inside of a children’s museum with a real tight integration and sharing of resources so that one and one add up to three. I mean, you get more for your money. The use of the YMCA, use of libraries, art technology, high school, which is a dinky little school. I mean, we can’t begin to provide the range of courses. So we decided on a niche, that is preparing kids with technology and giving them the industry training. Well, now we go out where we will go out and help local businesses sometimes who have computers and their printer doesn’t work or they can’t get their little network to work. They don’t have the money to bring in Ameridata or something like that. Give your kids the experience of doing that. The other thing is that we can’t do it all alone in education. We have, you know, huge problems of dealing with drugs and of that sort of thing, and health and family needs. We ought to be partnering with social service agencies so that all are benefited by that. And this is not easy to do. It takes a real reaching out, but it’s very important to do, I believe.

What you heard, I think, this is a really powerful response to a question. I spent my 30 plus years in the traditional public school system. And all too often, we approached partners in terms of money that we needed. And often they said, "Well, we can give you a check for $500, but that doesn’t show us how it’s going to improve what you’re doing in your school or meet our particular needs." So what you heard in these responses were wonderful potential partnerships where everyone benefits, where students are exposed to the things in Tampa. The world beyond the building, the world beyond the school building is really important. And I’m going to suggest to the charter school staff that we ought to probably get out some examples of how these partnerships are really focusing on everyone benefiting, students and businesses. Because I think it’s an area where both the traditional public school and the charter school can really learn a lot from each other. You’ve done a super job in looking at partnerships.

Now, let me talk about another partner with charter schools, the Federal Government. The Federal Government role, the Department of Ed. specifically, to date in support of charter schools has been the following. We pulpit whenever we can. You’ve heard the President talk about, "I want 3,000 charter schools in this Country by the year 2,000." We’ll be close to that, by the way. We have provided funding for start up costs for charter schools. It’s not the complete funding, and we know that you still struggle with acquiring the funds you need to repair or restore or renovate your facilities. We know that start up cost is still a problem. We are beginning to increase knowledge across the Country by disseminating what we’re learning from our evaluation studies. A new effort this year will be dissemination grants that allow charter schools that have been operating for three or more years to acquire funds so they can allow or help new charter schools to start up. They can benefit from the expertise and even share their learnings with the traditional public school. As the charter school movement matures and expands, do you on the panel see any new or different roles for the Federal Government?

I, first of all, would like to thank John Fiegel and the U.S. Department of Ed. for the dissemination grants because I feel crucial that the Federal Government continue to support successful charter schools so that they continue to thrive. Secondly, John had mentioned in a finance session just before this, the importance for all of us as soon as we return home to contact our congressional leaders on a new bill regarding 22 billion dollars plus for funding capital ventures for public schools. That needs to include charter school language. So we need to continue wearing the political hats and lobby for additional Federal funding for our schools.

We always used to judge, you know, we’d come into some place and say, "I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help you." I mean, so you know, but it’s been

I used to be a district administrator up until 22 years ago. I know that statement.

Yeah, right. Meant to be funny. But the Federal role with charter schools has been enormously helpful to all of us, to have the President speaking out on this, to have the additional funds and so on, to put on the conferences like this and spread the word, which is, you know, there’s still a lot of misperceptions about the charter movement. And to have the Federal Government playing a role in that has been very, very helpful. I think another thing they might do is that, among their many publications, is to spread the word about the variation among charter schools. We’ve got all the way from this school that’s a ten by ten room with many phone lines coming into it, with an on-line program too. Hugh variation. And that’s not only among charter schools, but it’s in district schools as well. So that, I mean, we’re still, I think, bound, all of us. In a way, we’re prisoners of our past experience of going to school, sitting in rows, you know, and textbook kinds of lessons and separate subject approach. And all of that, which has many people comfortable with that, and that’s fine. But at the same time, there are many other kinds of practices in education that fit different learning styles, multiple intelligences, how our brains process information. And still the perception out there about education is the older sort of model. And I’d just like to see fresh air blow in so that people can say, "Well gee, I didn’t know that was happening. I didn’t know that results of kids doing school service has such a profound impact on their lives on their learning and so on." I think that kind of thing could be helpful.

I would also like to see the Federal Government promote or help us to promote the partnership with our local ISD’s. I think it’s very easy to get into an "us and them" type of relationship. And I don’t know, some programs that recognize maybe partnerships between the traditional schools and charters or those kinds. Maybe some innovative grants or something or something like that, that would encourage us to work together as opposed to, you know, letting that division develop any deeper.

I would like to see the Federal Government marshal all of the different types of assessments and evaluative tools that are currently being used out there so that we can pick and identify some that best fit our own school’s profile. So that as we are evaluating and assessing our students in our local districts, that we don’t fall under the criticism of subjectivity. So that our assessments are concrete, they are objective and they measure adequately, student performance. And that we can present that as a real tool to our districts to say that we are, in effect, educating children. And these alternative forms can be technology based, can be, you know, arts based. It can be traditional skills based. You know, just to fit a lot of the different ways in which children are being educated in charter schools that are "not traditional." And also, to probably to show something where we could see how we can look at our schools and evaluate ourselves every year on the effectiveness of our school operations and our instructional planning. You know, because we, generally, as we write our contracts, we say what we’re going to do. And in the end often times we meet them. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re operating at the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness. And I think that because of that, we have a lot of burnout in our schools. So it is very helpful sometimes if we have a guide that can help us to look at ourselves and revisit ourselves and say, you know, here are some things you probably need to look at differently or might be helpful to you as you keep... as you’re in the move of organizing and putting into place your school more concretely.

I think the Federal Government has very aggressive and very charter school friendly, and I compliment that. But I think we need to look at other innovative ways that the Federal Government can partner with charter schools on a local basis. That, in some cases, and I might get in trouble here, does not directly involve our States. Because sometimes the bureaucracy and the other stuff that comes along with that, by the time it gets to us, it gets lots. And sometimes, just the way the policy is. The dissemination grants, I think they’re wonderful but, in some cases, do not even apply to us. For instance, I get calls on a regular basis from around the Country of pastors in other cities who want to start charter schools. And they want to pattern themselves after Colin Powell Academy, which I have no problem with. We’ll help them. But the grant comes through our State. And if there’s a pastor in Las Vegas, and there is one right now wants me to help him, then that doesn’t apply. So if we can sometimes have a direct type of program with the Federal Government, it would be very helpful.

That’s very interesting, the national. The dissemination models are within the State not across the Country.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn’t realize that. That’s interesting.

And to add to that. A friend of mine, Dean Curran, in the audience said he would like to see the Federal Government help in a more watchdog capacity in those situations because there are States that are friendly and then there are States that are not so friendly.

That’s right.

And you folks can help us in that process to give them some guidelines because they will interpret and allocate as they see fit sometimes, and it’s not always appropriate.

Let’s go back. This has been really helpful. And people have been taking notes as you all have been talking. Go back to an issue that I think is probably going to more and more problematic. And I heard this issue raised last night during the telecast of our town satellite meeting. This issue of assessments and accountability. I’m going to try to bring it back another way. There’s a major movement across the Country. And this is a result of a 1994 reauthorization of ESEA that will reemerge in the 1999 reauthorization of ESEA around assessments that are aligned to standards at the State level. And assessments that are aligned to standards at the State level that identify how students are effectively being taught these State standards. And a second part to that will be in the new 1999 reauthorization, States being able to identify that students are not being socially promoted, but are being held to the standards and interventions are taking place when, as a result of these assessments, we learn that students are not achieving to standards. So if you take the notion of all students needing to meet the new State requirements through State assessments, all students in all districts, which includes charters, being held accountable for not allowing social promotion, how do these requirements affect what you do in your charter schools and how you monitor student achievement?

Boy, that one scares me. I don’t know of anyone in the charter movement that doesn’t want to be help accountable for getting results and having kids learn the basic skills and be prepared for the world of tomorrow. There’s just a national mania for standards right now and academic rigor and all this language around that. I mean, I work with real kids. And those of us in the charter schools do. And it doesn’t seem to me it pays enough attention to the range of human achievement and the range of kids that we have in our schools. I’m just afraid a lot of kids are going to get hurt in all of that. The word standards, of course, is good. I mean, we want to have standards in our life. We want to have things measure up to things. But if we narrow it to strictly academic, we’re going to lose an awful lot of kids who have... I mean, there’s Gordan Parks who was an extraordinary photographer. He was beautiful at communicating. Barishnakof, if I have the right name, was a fabulous dancer. Are we going to eliminate all of those and all the other kinds of human achievement in the name of strictly things that are from textbooks and academics and so on? I mean, this part scares me. And I think the government can take into account all of the kids that we have in our schools, so we don’t leave any behind, we don’t lose some of these kids in this race.

See, it scares me too. And the reason why it scares me is because often times, you know, you get all these new standards without any blueprint or any kind of suggestions as to how you‘re supposed to meet them. And by the time you get the new standards, it’s like the cart behind the horse kind of thing, which I said, you know, I feel like a lot of charter school operators are running out of the gate and the cart is in front of the horse. And the only way that you can establish true leadership is that you’re given some kind of heads up as to what’s coming to you so that then you can plan accordingly. Often times you get States going out and there’s starting all of these new assessments and new standards. But where has the staff development come in at? And when you start looking at each different school with its own set of populations and school dynamics, how do you train the staff under its condition to meet the needs of its children in the way their children learn. And it becomes essential. It is the kind of thing where, almost, you have to have individuals, people going in and listening to the teachers who are running, are in those schools and who are teaching, and finding out some of the common issues that they are faced with so that they can marshal together the kind of resources to help them to combat them. So what scares me most is not necessarily the standard. It’s just having it in enough time to be able to gear up to meet them. And to meet them based on who I serve every day in my school.

It is a challenge. And everybody’s right, it’s scary. But there are some things we can do to overcome that. First of all, it’s important to align your curriculum with the curriculum that is with the State. For instance, in our brochure, we have a statement that says the academic program of Colin Powell Academy is based on the State of Michigan core curriculum.

THIS IS THE END OF SIDE ONE

That’s what the standards and assessments are based on, so that’s ingrained in our curriculum. But we don’t stop there. That’s the key. We have that as a part of the fabric of our interdisciplinary and our thematic and experiential core subjects, but then we have four other components that enhance that because that doesn’t cut the mustard for us in totality. So but want to make sure that the kids do well on these tests. The first year, we weren’t prepared for that. We’d just gotten our kids, and we didn’t do very well on the standardized test. And I got a call from the media saying, "Well Reverend, you know, you got this charter school, yada yada, and we looked at your test scores and your kids didn’t do well." And I said, "Really? That really substantiates the need for our existence. We just got these kids. Give us a year and see what happens." And then a year later, it was May, 1998 to be exact, I got a call from the free press and they told me, "We have a copy of your new test scores for the MEC test." That’s the standardized test for Michigan. "And you’re off the charts. Your children had a 57 point turnaround in math. What did you do to get that kind of response?" We talked about some of the things we did, but it wasn’t just the Michigan core curriculum. We did some wrap arounds with that to enhance our children’s learning experience.

Really helpful. I think what you heard from the panelists on this question is that while this is a concerning, troubling requirement -- some people used the word scary -- this is a requirement that the Federal Government has placed upon all States who receive Federal funding. So the challenge you take back to your schools is -- How do you meet the requirements for Federal funding at the same time, as you heard Reverend Smith say, go beyond and exceed beyond those standards? That’s a continuing conversation that you probably need to have.

Next question. As the charter school movement grows, equity issues are beginning to surface. What does this mean and why do you think the equity issues are beginning to surface?

I think that question can be looked at two ways. Immediately, and I know that you’ve kept that one wide open, that people are thinking that we’re getting more than we should when, in fact, we’re not. The fact is the equity is going the opposite direction. In the State of Colorado up until about two days ago, we’ve been operating many of our districts with 80%, 85% funding as a PPOR or PPR. It’s ridiculous. You can’t run a school that way. You figuratively handicap the school in many ways by not funding it appropriately. And I think as the Federal Government and State governments begin, I know they were nervous about charter schools. Everybody was. W hat does it mean? Should we throw everything at it? And so they took a real conservative approach, just thrown just what they could at it, the minimal. Now we’re succeeding. Now we’re finally getting in the door and getting the foot totally in the door where we get appropriate funding. And here in Colorado it looks like we’ll be at 95% PPR or PPOR by next year, which will be great. But that inequity has been, for the last five years in my building, has been a travesty. I really feel like that that has been completely inappropriate and almost discriminatory. I mean, there’s other discriminatory things going on. We don’t get any busing for our kids to our school. It wouldn’t take but one of my parents to decide to file a class action suit against the school district to say, "My kid’s a public school kid too and he deserves bussing." There are so many inequities that we’ve got to keep hammering at, folks. We cannot let up. We are public schools, we deserve every bit of what we get and more, at times, because when you are producing and you’re doing the job, it’s about time to start honoring that as well. So my concern is that we continue to lobby and fight for those things that we know are right for our kids.

Probably particularly sensitive where you’re dealing with, you know, maybe a difficult population of students. Students that did not do well in the previous school. And if you get less funding then it’s double jeopardy.

I’d like to emphasize the importance, again, of constantly educating and reeducating the public and our legislators and the media. One thing that we always get is, "Oh, charter schools in Arizona, you’ve all this autonomy. You’re free from a lot of statutes and regulations from Title 15." And I always respond to, "Yes, but the playing field is not equal for charter schools and yet we’re deemed as public schools by law." And I always give the example -- Our local district can go for a tax bond override to build schools and add programs whereas, a charter school cannot. And I think charter schools have proved, nationally, how much we have done with very little. And we need to continue to educate.

And I think, also, as we continue to become more popular and more children and more parents are interested in participating in the school then we have a need to provide the services well. And our parents are paying taxes, our children are entitled to those monies. And if they were in the regular public school, they would have those monies. So it is an issue of fairness and it’s an issue of what these children deserve and what is, you know, in reality is theirs. And they need to have it.

I just come from a different perspective on that too. I just think that not only must we ensure that there is equity with getting the amount of funding that we deserve as it relates to public schools, but we also need to make sure that we’re getting the same kind of funding among charter schools. May be getting more funding than another charter school operator because you may not know what other kind of funding sources within the State that you could request. And I don’t think that school districts are volunteering that information either. So one person’s FTE may be a little bit higher than yours. And it’s because, you know, all of the funding forces are not brought to the table. So some how or another, we’ve got to make sure that charter school operators know what kinds of monies they can ask for and what they are rightfully entitled to get. And I know that our district is not all that crazy about giving us any more than that base student allocation.

Are you suggesting that charter schools within a region compete with each other for the dollars?

No. I’m saying that like often times, especially for new charter school operators, they’re not always aware of the money that the FTE of their students draw in. And they’re not always aware of the different funding formulas that are used to increase the amount of money of their charter school for student allocation. And because you don’t know and someone else may know, they go in and say, "Well, I want this. I want that. I want this." And you say, "Well, am I entitled to that?" And someone goes, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you." But if one school has gotten it for one year then they say, "Well, you can reapply next year." You know, and like sometimes you can get ESE money, you know, Exceptional Student Education money. Sometimes it might be dropout prevention money. Sometimes it might be your student transportation money. There may be different funding sources out there that you didn’t even know you weren’t getting, that you could be entitled to.

What our panelists have done in the last hour, they’ve been focusing on what I call growing pains. The promises and the challenges that face all of us as we continue to watch the charter school movement mature. And we’re going to give you an opportunity now to raise some questions and pose them to any one of the panelists, while the panelists are going to think about the following statement. Once we finish the Q&A period, I’m going to ask each panelist if he or she will share one closing comment that they would like all of you in the audience to take back with you. But while they’re thinking about that closing comment, do we have any questions? Who is going to work in the audience? Okay. Thank you, Michael and John. There are questions back there. Okay. I rely on you folks to identify the hands. Okay.

What I have to say is really good. You don’t want to miss this. What I’d like to do -- One of the questions that was posed to the panel that I’d like to propose kind of an answer to also. It deals with this whole issue of image and how are treated with regards to the traditional public schools and so forth. And I hate to say to all the educators, that words are so powerful. I would like to see us consider the notion that we try to change the dialogue. We change the dialogue to create the term traditional public schools and charter public schools, so that the conversation always becomes public in the conversation, always. All of our conversation today has to do with charter schools, as opposed to saying public charter schools. And in fact, I’d like to reverse what’s on the sign up there and say they are charter public schools so that we can begin to really put the tag on the other guys as being traditional public schools which, by definition, means there’s something else which would be us. So maybe I’d respond to that -- this is a big paradigm ship and I don’t know who passes the rule that says you change that discussion. But I think it would be really helpful in our public discourse if we were able to somehow put that tag on.

We all need to change the direction by all of us beginning to use, remember to use the word public. Okay. Do we have other questions? Are we down to one microphone?

And a very fast runner.

Okay.

Reverend Smith, I was very interested in your question regarding standards, State standards, and what you did in the charter school. Is it the Colin Powell School?

Colin Powell Academy, yes.

That’s in Michigan, is it?

Detroit, yes.

And what you did there to influence the curriculum to move your student assessment scores higher. And my interest is, is that my belief as a policy maker, as a State Board of Education member of the State of Oregon, my belief is that charter schools is a compliment. It’s a part of the public education system. And my concern has a lot to do with this notion of separation of charter schools over here and public schools over here. I think it’s a part of the same family. All children must have a fertile ground to achieve. So our State has established standards since 1991. And I’d like to propose. Our legislature is debating the issues of charter schools at this moment and are waiting for my return from this conference to talk to them about what I’ve learned here. And I am leaning in the direction that charter schools is a compliment to the process of reform education. And to the extent that you can give me some words around what you’ve done in Michigan, it’d be very, very helpful.

Sure, be glad to. Also, have copies the article where our principal talked to the media about what we did. But there are some other things that we did as wrap around. One of them was we had a team approach. And at Colin Powell Academy, this focus intertwined throughout the curriculum, technology, entrepreneurial development, arts, which includes music and dance and drawing, and mentoring. That’s one component. The next one was an African centered perspective. It’s important that young African American children, because that’s where our populous is, have a sense of connection. That relates to identity, image. A lot of the young people in our neighborhood are getting involved in gang activity. It’s a major issue over there unless we have the capacity to counteract the things that threaten their development. So we have an African centered perspective. Then we have a multicultural perspective. We can’t have this isolationist mentality where black kids are just going to deal with the African American experience. We need to be more varied than that. And the next part was character development, deals with morals, values, respect for authority. It’s very broad, but it’s very penetrating. So those are the wrap around things that we’ve done to enhance our program. There are some things we did academically that relates to having standardized test pep rallies. We actually made it exciting and fun. And that’s described in the article, and I have copies of that with me.

Reverend, I’d like to ask you -- I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before -- Your thoughts on church and State. Yes. I’m helping quite a few charter schools around the Country get started. And there are certain things that we emphasize in helping them get started so they don’t have this problem with the separation of church and State. First of all, there can be no direct financial dealings between the church and the charter school. With Colin Powell Academy, there’s never any financial dealings between our church and Colin Powell Academy. We had a non profit corporation that serves in that capacity, that is non sectarian, has no affiliation. Secondly, it’s important that the Pastor does not stack the board with church members. We only have one church member from our church on the board of directors from Colin Powell Academy. It reflects the public, the community on the board of directors. Thirdly, we have to be careful about having religious paraphernalia and religious jargon on the walls, bibles and things like that. So you’ll see none of that in Colin Powell Academy. So it’s things like that, relates to facilities and finances. And then in our curriculum there’s no religious curriculum there, none. But I have to be honest with you, we, because of the kind of people we draw to work at Colin Powell Academy and because I’m a high profile minister, a lot of people that have a very strong Christian background were involved in Colin Powell Academy. Not from my church personally but from the city at large. Well, people become, the ones you’re teaching, they become more what you are than what you say. So there’s a real emphasis on morals, values and standards of living in our school and disciplines that I think are very, very important.

Michael?

In response to the comment from the gentleman who mentioned the need to shift the paradigm and refer to our schools as charter public schools, I want to reinforce that. In my community I found that it’s been helpful. And the roots are beginning to bare some fruit, that we draw a parallel. Because a lot of times in education, there’s a language used that is not familiar to people who are not themselves educators. So when we talk about public schools and charter schools, we may be talking language that all of us can understand but not necessarily understood in the public. So one of the things that we have done in my community that is beginning to work is to draw a parallel between charter schools vis-à-vis regular schools. And if you remember, for example, in the fast food arena, you have corporate owned and operated stores, whether it’s Burger King, McDonalds or whomever, and then you have franchise operated stores. They all look the same. They all do the same thing. But some are owned and operated by the corporation and some are owned and operated by franchisees. So we say that the distinction in the charter school movement is that the traditional public schools are like corporate owned and operated schools and we are franchisees of the regular school system or the school board, since that is the agency in Florida which gives the charters. The other thing that we do to draw a parallel that tends to get a good response from folks is that we say that the charter school should be viewed by the traditional school system as almost like a research and development or laboratory, that the things that we are somewhat free to experiment with and test, that as we demonstrate the effectiveness of those things then it makes sense and certainly behooves the traditional education system to incorporate those things into what they do. And thus, reach a much larger body of students than we can reach through the charter school movement. And the final thing I want to comment on is this equity issue. I would hope that this movement, as a whole, gets fully behind the equity issue relative to the resources. It is complete insanity for us, as Mr. Jennings indicated, to, in most cases, have to take on the most difficult students, those that the traditional system has already pretty much acknowledged that they cannot do anything with or solve the problems of, and yet we have to do with far less resources than the rest of the schools. I say that we should be funded in the same manner as magnet schools, which tend to get a little bit of extra money over and above what the regular schools would get in order to enable the magnet school to be effective in attracting the students that they want and in making the results available to a larger number of students.

Thank you. We’ve run out of time. That’s a good way to end it. A couple more things. I asked the panelists if they each would offer a closing comment. And I will shorten my comments to three minutes. And start with Mike.

Okay. I think I’d probably say this to most of the operators because having done this for five years now, I brought out a couple of real quick thoughts. Dream, continue to dream. Communicate that dream. Be enthusiastic at all times. Be optimistic. It’s going to be okay. Be honest with those around you and with yourself. A big one for me -- Foster union, foster the union of bringing you together with your school district and those around you. Practice aloneness once in a while. That’s how I recharge my batteries. In fact, when we’re done here, I’m going to go spend a couple days in the mountains. Practicing the aloneness to help me recharge to be prepared for what I have ahead of me. Inspire others around you and have a good sense of humor through the whole process.

Wayne?

Thank you.

I’ll just go on down.

Mike’s last point was certainly important. I’d just like to make three points. One is that I just like to see great variation among programs and choices that are available to the public. And I think that will grow. At one point I used to say that all the schools were pretty much the same across America. And John Goodlad has cleared that out. One percent of the schools are quite different and they were interested, the Audubon school, for example, the kids got on the bus in the Fall, traveled America. And in the Spring of the year, got off the bus. And all the experiences they had along the way was their curriculum. That school is still operating, been going for 20 years. Today, I would say five percent of the schools are different, rather than one percent. I mean, very different. Different kinds of things that we could learn from them. I think in the next decade, we’ll see that’ll jump to 20 percent or so. So, and it will offer more choices to our parents. Second point is that the real wild card in all of this is technology, and I think the impact of technology on our lives, all aspects of our lives, on the whole field of education whether it’s district schools or charter schools is going to be profound. And we don’t know what that is yet, but when we have the whole world’s knowledge and information available at our fingertips at any moment, any place that we are, I just don’t know what that’s going to do. It certainly is going to change the institution. We’re going to think about schools that maybe of education. It may be beyond that of learning and beyond that of growth. And that will change all of our perceptions and our paradigms, I’m afraid. And that’s very exciting for all of us. And the third point I would make is that the whole staffing of schools may change dramatically too. We could maybe look elsewhere for that. In the legal profession now, they have paralegals and a lot of people who do the work. And in the medical profession, it is maybe even more dramatic. We’re seeing a variety of people doing what was formerly only a doctor’s job. And in a number of other fields as well. Service industries, the way those services are delivered is very different. So let’s just all keep our eyes open and our minds open to different ways, perhaps, of staffing this whole business of the learning industry.

Thank you.

I think what we’ve all done is we’ve all started a small business. And in doing that, we have to realize that there’s stages that small businesses go through. And of course, once you reach that third, fourth and fifth year, you can start to breath that sigh of relief that you’re doing. You’re going to make it. But just like in any other small business, you know, we have to offer a high quality product and service so that our customer wants to be with us and will continue to be with us. But I think one of the weaknesses that could do us in, is in the financial management and administration part of it, of the business. We’re not on an equal playing field financially so we’re doing a lot more with a lot fewer resources. And of course, if your revenues aren’t what you projected them to be then you’ve got to reduce your cost. I mean, we need to look at our schools as small businesses and operate them effectively and efficiently, while we’re offering those great products and services to our customers. And I think both sides are equally as important. And you know, while we are evaluated with the same standards, the repercussions for us are greater. So you know, it’s an area that we have to pay attention to.

Three thoughts regarding if the charter school movement, nationally, is truly going to make a difference in the traditional public arena. I feel three things need to happen. One, we need to have changes in teacher training at the university level across the nation, that emphasize alternative, magnet and charter schools. Because teaching in those schools are very different than in the traditional public school system. And we need to empower our teachers in their classrooms and empower principals and superintendents to think outside that box of traditional thinking. Secondly, I envision shared practices among -- And I say among instead of between -- charter schools and traditional public schools. And I envision regional conferences and a national conference like this that brings the two entities together in sharing practices because there are outstanding things happening in traditional public schools that we can learn from too. And last, I can’t wait for the day when all public schools are evaluated and scrutinized for high standards for accountability just as we are, to truly make a change in public education.

You go, girl. I like to use this analogy when I’m talking about charter schools. Many, for me, I was a person who opened a charter school, and it was a dream of mine to do that. It was also a labor. And it’s a labor just like you’re giving birth to a child. And while you’re carrying it, you’re visioning in your mind how it’s going to look and what it’s going to be like. And what you’re going to do as the parent, as the mother, of that newborn baby. And then we know the laboring process is a very difficult one, half of us in this room know about it. But it’s a difficult process. And once you give birth to that baby, it is yours. And I’ve often said this, that that baby is going to look most like who feeds it. And we could take the baby that we have labored to very, very intensively for, dreamed for, known in our hearts in the deepest place of who we are, that if we have given this opportunity, that we were going to raise it right or we could take that baby and give it away. Give it away to people who have a whole different set of interests, whole different set of ideologies, a whole different set of values than what we have. Or, we can really stay committed to the movement of the charter schools in this Country and feed this baby the way we know it’s supposed to be fed so it looks like us and it has the values that we believe that it needs to have, that public education in America needs to have. And we have to be intentional. We have to be deliberate in delivering that as a part of our obligation to this movement, lest we lose it to something that I don’t know if it’s going to be good for the children that we serve. So if I have any parting thoughts to you, I would say go home and take care of your baby.

Excellent.

You go, girl, too. My parting thoughts would be it’s important to stay true to the integrity of who you are. And that’s defined with us, at Colin Powell Academy, through our mission statement, our philosophy and beliefs, which I have copies of here if you want to take a look at those. But it’s important to know who you are because that is the guiding force to what you accomplish. Next, it’s important to know that the three R’s of education are not just reading, writing and arithmetic. I have three other R’s that we use. Number one, relevance. You’ve got to stay relevant in your whole process. Academically, extracurricular, community, you’ve got to stay relevant. How many of you when you were in high school or middle school dissected a frog? How many have dissected a frog since then? You know, how relevant was that? We have to be relevant. Number two, it’s got to be redemptive. We’re dealing with children that are sometimes left out of the loop of the educational process in our communities, children where the system has failed them. Somehow has not gotten to the core of the things that threaten their academic success. So we have to be redemptive. We’re actually purchasing, buying them out of that, bringing them out of that. Number three, rewards. They have to know that there is a prize at the end of this rainbow. They’ve got to know this is taking me somewhere. I was interviewing, had a guy at my church a couple years ago who was one of the founders of the Crypts Gang. We held a gang summit in our community. And because the gang problem was so relevant, I didn’t ignore it. I said, "Let’s go right where they’re at." So I brought in their hero who is now a born again Christian out of that lifestyle. But he was one of the people that made up the name Crypts, and he explained to me where the name Crypt came from. Then he said, "Reverend, one thing about that, my whole lifestyle is gang banging, shooting people, doing drugs, that whole lifestyle. I realize there’s no prize at the end of the rainbow." We have to let our kids know. There is a prize at the end of this rainbow. And once they buy into that, they’ve got something to shoot for. And we have to deal with the fact that in America, public policy is not geared towards the enrichment and enhancement and development of our young people. It’s not centered around that. It’s more problematical. What that means is right now in America, one of the biggest growing businesses is the prison building business because that’s what they’re anticipating. So we have to defy that. So we’re dealing with public policy that’s not in our favor. We’re dealing with a mind set. And in my situation in the African American community, there’s a mind set where they look at charter schools as a threat. We have to disarm all of that. And I love what was said earlier about we have to be humble. We can’t go in there proud and arrogant like we have all the answers. We go in there always in a learning posture. I’m always looking to learn. And I have to respect the principals. Three of them have paged me since I’ve been here because the principals in our district, they respect me because of our relationship. And I’ll always posture myself as one being a learner and always honoring the things they’ve done, not to have the attitude, "Let me go in and show you how you can really do this." We have to have that kind of a mind set. And last, be in touch with the community that you’re called to serve because there are some things in that community that could threaten the educational success of that child. And ours, we know it’s drugs, it’s violence, it’s gang activity, it’s family breakdown. And then we have to reeducate, in some respects, our parents. We had a heart wrenching experience at Colin Powell Academy where we lost, I believe, it was two fourth grade. And our principal is back in the back there. But I think it was two fourth graders. And they could not read at a first grade level. And the parent, because they weren’t doing well on their grades, the parents have looked at the public school, traditional public school. They were getting good grades. They’re saying, "Here, you know, they’re getting D’s and F’s." So we said, "Let us work with these children. We’re not just going to pass them along socially. We want to work with these children. We have after school programs, tutorial programs. We can make sure these girls will be reading at the end of the school year." She didn’t want to wait. She took them out and put them back in the school because of her mind set. So we have to reeducate the communities. We’ll do those kinds of things will ensure ourselves success.

I started with five pages of talking points, reduced it to two. And now, I’m reducing it a half because you can’t top that. They said everything that we need to hear about a movement that I will say to you is the end of the beginning and the beginning of the next phase. And that’s we need to look at the charter school movement. We are now the end of the beginning phase and the beginning of the next phase. And what you heard from folks and our colleagues today was this passionate focus on a vision. A vision that has a single minded purpose. And when they know that vision works, they’re holding fast to it regardless of the passing fads.

And I want to share with you the danger of passing fads and why you can’t allow that to happen. All of you, if you’ve been in education long enough, know about the silver bullet mentality. The vigilant search for the silver bullet, the reform that offers a quick fix but it often wastes resources in that search. Good intentions are simply not enough. It’s precisely this faith in the next hero of the next silver bullet that creates the circumstances where improvement becomes an impossible task. When your car is stuck on a muddy road, the easiest solution is the optimist solution. Stand on the gas and wait for the car to get traction. If the car catches or when it catches, the whole affair proves the power of positive thinking. In the meantime, you can also hope that a tow truck will come along and pull you out. It is much more difficult and much less reaffirming to take, to turn off your car, take off your jacket, crouch in the mud, wedge a board under the tire and gently coax your car out of the rut. Unwavering optimism about school reform has left too many students in the ditch. Our charter schools need to stay focused on their vision to help us advance our visions. Charter schools are getting serious about school performance. And by doing that, you help the 52 million children who may never attend a charter school. Let’s thank our colleagues again.

We honor you all very much. And now I understand there’s a lottery drawing to end this. One thing while they’re coming up with the lottery, there are copies of the Secretary’s speech outside this room. And we are encouraging you to go back home and talk to your press about the charter school movement and talk about this particular meeting, which I think was the largest charter school conference ever in its history. So please pick up copies of the Secretary’s comments. Alex?

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