Interview with Nelson Smith on Morning Announcements: Brief Summary of the State of the Charter School Movement
6 September 2006, 9:00 AM EDT
Read more about Nelson Smith
Transcript
Erica H.:
Welcome to Virtual Back to School Day!
Today charter experts, parents, teachers and students as well as media and policy makers will gather in one forum to discuss the most pressing issues facing the charter movement today.
Here is Alliance President Nelson Smith who will kick off the day with a brief summary of the state of the charter school movement.
Today charter experts, parents, teachers and students as well as media and policy makers will gather in one forum to discuss the most pressing issues facing the charter movement today.
Here is Alliance President Nelson Smith who will kick off the day with a brief summary of the state of the charter school movement.
Nelson Smith:
Good Morning! Sorry the principal was a little late. "Technical difficulties!"
Nelson here. Welcome to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Virtual Back-to-School day. OK, quite down in the assembly hall. Mr. Feinberg, put down the cell phone.....
Actually, a lot of charter folks are already back at school, for days or weeks in some cases. According to federal data, charter teachers actually put in about two weeks more per year than other public school teachers on average. So kudos for all your great efforts!!
My job here is "the state of the movement." Kinda ponderous, no? The numbers are looking good: A million kids, 40 states and the District of Columbia, nearly 4000 schools this year....
And more and mopre encouraging data is coming out about how Charter Schools Rock academically. My colleague Todd Ziebarth will be on a little later and you may want to ask him about those recent national numbers that got such play -- and were so oddly skewed -- but look at the evidence from city to city and state to state:
Massachusetts charters, according to that state's education department, are doing incredibly well, really setting the pace for all public schools in the state. We've seen similar reports from California, Florida (where year to year gains have been really strong), and any number of cities. As our recent "Renaissance of Urban Education" issue brief showed, charters in Buffalo, Indianapolis, New York, Chicago and other cities are at the top of the pack academically.
My favorite recent academic note came from Philadelphia, where newspapers were full of reports last week that the city's Adequate Yearly Progress rankings had jumped dramatically since last year -- led by charter schools! Superintendent Paul Vallas was quoted in one story as saying he sure did want to include the charter scores among those for the whole district!
But numbers don't tell the whole story. Charter schools are so different that any summary data leave out the heart and soul of the story. All around the country, families are flocking to public charter schools because they offer new hope. The news clips are full of headlines like that. The best example in the country is New Orleans, where a charter-led system is emerging from the rubble of Hurricane Katrina, ending decades of have-vs.have-not education that disserved generations of kids.
Just this morning I opened the Washington Post to find a great story about St. Coletta's, a new (non-sectarian) charter school serving kids with disabilities, that just opened in SE DC, in a stunning facility designed by Michael Graves.....One more example of how the flexibility of charter laws, and the imagination of our founders, can go where it has seemed impossible to go. We've tried and tried here in DC to find a way for the public system to serve kids with intractable problems...and this looks like a Brand New Day for them.
That's why this movement means so much. Every time you see a KIPP school or an Achievement First school, or Aspire or Edison -- or any of the terrific freestanding charters -- that breaks through the ceiling and proves kids really can achieve -- THAT is what chartering is about. I heard the phrase "learned optimism" at a conference last night - -attributed to Wendy Kopp, I think, and that captures it. When you know it can be done once, it can be done again.
So welcome again. We have a terrific lineup today, everyone from students and teachers and bloggers to the Governor of Florida.
And Have A Great School Year!!
Nelson
Nelson here. Welcome to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Virtual Back-to-School day. OK, quite down in the assembly hall. Mr. Feinberg, put down the cell phone.....
Actually, a lot of charter folks are already back at school, for days or weeks in some cases. According to federal data, charter teachers actually put in about two weeks more per year than other public school teachers on average. So kudos for all your great efforts!!
My job here is "the state of the movement." Kinda ponderous, no? The numbers are looking good: A million kids, 40 states and the District of Columbia, nearly 4000 schools this year....
And more and mopre encouraging data is coming out about how Charter Schools Rock academically. My colleague Todd Ziebarth will be on a little later and you may want to ask him about those recent national numbers that got such play -- and were so oddly skewed -- but look at the evidence from city to city and state to state:
Massachusetts charters, according to that state's education department, are doing incredibly well, really setting the pace for all public schools in the state. We've seen similar reports from California, Florida (where year to year gains have been really strong), and any number of cities. As our recent "Renaissance of Urban Education" issue brief showed, charters in Buffalo, Indianapolis, New York, Chicago and other cities are at the top of the pack academically.
My favorite recent academic note came from Philadelphia, where newspapers were full of reports last week that the city's Adequate Yearly Progress rankings had jumped dramatically since last year -- led by charter schools! Superintendent Paul Vallas was quoted in one story as saying he sure did want to include the charter scores among those for the whole district!
But numbers don't tell the whole story. Charter schools are so different that any summary data leave out the heart and soul of the story. All around the country, families are flocking to public charter schools because they offer new hope. The news clips are full of headlines like that. The best example in the country is New Orleans, where a charter-led system is emerging from the rubble of Hurricane Katrina, ending decades of have-vs.have-not education that disserved generations of kids.
Just this morning I opened the Washington Post to find a great story about St. Coletta's, a new (non-sectarian) charter school serving kids with disabilities, that just opened in SE DC, in a stunning facility designed by Michael Graves.....One more example of how the flexibility of charter laws, and the imagination of our founders, can go where it has seemed impossible to go. We've tried and tried here in DC to find a way for the public system to serve kids with intractable problems...and this looks like a Brand New Day for them.
That's why this movement means so much. Every time you see a KIPP school or an Achievement First school, or Aspire or Edison -- or any of the terrific freestanding charters -- that breaks through the ceiling and proves kids really can achieve -- THAT is what chartering is about. I heard the phrase "learned optimism" at a conference last night - -attributed to Wendy Kopp, I think, and that captures it. When you know it can be done once, it can be done again.
So welcome again. We have a terrific lineup today, everyone from students and teachers and bloggers to the Governor of Florida.
And Have A Great School Year!!
Nelson
Nelson Smith:
Good Morning! Sorry the principal was a little late. "Technical difficulties!"
Nelson here. Welcome to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Virtual Back-to-School day. OK, quiet down in the assembly hall. Mr. Feinberg, put down the cell phone.....
Actually, a lot of charter folks are already back at school, for days or weeks in some cases. According to federal data, charter teachers actually put in about two weeks more per year than other public school teachers on average. So kudos for all your great efforts!!
My job here is "the state of the movement." Kinda ponderous, no? The numbers are looking good: A million kids, 40 states and the District of Columbia, nearly 4000 schools this year....
And more and mopre encouraging data is coming out about how Charter Schools Rock academically. My colleague Todd Ziebarth will be on a little later and you may want to ask him about those recent national numbers that got such play -- and were so oddly skewed -- but look at the evidence from city to city and state to state:
Massachusetts charters, according to that state's education department, are doing incredibly well, really setting the pace for all public schools in the state. We've seen similar reports from California, Florida (where year to year gains have been really strong), and any number of cities. As our recent "Renaissance of Urban Education" issue brief showed, charters in Buffalo, Indianapolis, New York, Chicago and other cities are at the top of the pack academically.
My favorite recent academic note came from Philadelphia, where newspapers were full of reports last week that the city's Adequate Yearly Progress rankings had jumped dramatically since last year -- led by charter schools! Superintendent Paul Vallas was quoted in one story as saying he sure did want to include the charter scores among those for the whole district!
Nelson here. Welcome to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' Virtual Back-to-School day. OK, quiet down in the assembly hall. Mr. Feinberg, put down the cell phone.....
Actually, a lot of charter folks are already back at school, for days or weeks in some cases. According to federal data, charter teachers actually put in about two weeks more per year than other public school teachers on average. So kudos for all your great efforts!!
My job here is "the state of the movement." Kinda ponderous, no? The numbers are looking good: A million kids, 40 states and the District of Columbia, nearly 4000 schools this year....
And more and mopre encouraging data is coming out about how Charter Schools Rock academically. My colleague Todd Ziebarth will be on a little later and you may want to ask him about those recent national numbers that got such play -- and were so oddly skewed -- but look at the evidence from city to city and state to state:
Massachusetts charters, according to that state's education department, are doing incredibly well, really setting the pace for all public schools in the state. We've seen similar reports from California, Florida (where year to year gains have been really strong), and any number of cities. As our recent "Renaissance of Urban Education" issue brief showed, charters in Buffalo, Indianapolis, New York, Chicago and other cities are at the top of the pack academically.
My favorite recent academic note came from Philadelphia, where newspapers were full of reports last week that the city's Adequate Yearly Progress rankings had jumped dramatically since last year -- led by charter schools! Superintendent Paul Vallas was quoted in one story as saying he sure did want to include the charter scores among those for the whole district!