Late last month, district superintendents and charter leaders from 29 U.S. cities were invited to Houston to consider how to reach across the charter-district divide. Hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the two-day meeting was designed to help these cities leverage their diverse strengths to improve outcomes for all students.
Attendees represented a range of collaboration experience, from cities that have built a solid district-charter relationship such as Denver; Hartford, Connecticut; and Spring Branch, Texas to the five newly announced cities that have recently signed district-charter collaboration compacts: Aldine, Texas; San Jose, California; Lawrence, Massachusetts; Spokane, Washington; and Tulsa, Oklahoma, all in the beginning phases of collaboration. These five new cities have committed to increasing transparency, working together to implement Common Core State Standards, sharing data more effectively, developing peer-to-peer teacher training programs, and co-locating district and charter models into single schools.
The focus of the meeting was twofold: to make sure district and charter leaders from each city understand the Gates Foundation’s College Ready Learning Strategy, and allow these leaders to build connections with each other as well as between cities, including those in different phases of the work.
Meeting attendees had an opportunity to view presentations from organizations such as CityBridge Foundation, IDEA Public Schools, Lindsay Unified School District, New Classrooms, and Rocketship Education that are working across sectors and creating new blended learning models.
Attendees heard from superintendents Gary Yee of Oakland, Tom Boasberg of Denver, and William Hite Jr. of Philadelphia on how their districts have moved toward personalized learning models that are focused on creating individual learning paths for students while maintaining high expectations. For Boasberg, for example, this has meant a paradigm shift from applying grades to assessing skill sets: “all children reading by third grade” has become “all eight-year-olds reading at grade level.”
They also heard from superintendents Duncan Klussmann of Spring Branch; Fran Gallo of Central Falls, Rhode Island, and Boasberg of Denver on their different approaches to building collaborative relationships with charter schools. Issues included how they’ve created trust with the charter sector, engaged the public in their work, and worked through both anticipated and unanticipated problems in moving toward deeper cross-sector collaboration.
Successful collaboration, the panelists noted, requires excellent leadership in both sectors, a commitment to equity, a focus on building strong relationships between sectors, and the belief that both charter and district schools are part of a system of public schools that serve all students. When asked what advice they would give to their peers who are considering embarking on this path, Gallo said to be “honest, patient, and fully transparent.” Boasberg told superintendents to “look in the mirror first,” recognizing that you can’t be credible with charter schools if you have not addressed your own problems. Klussmann advised that superintendents should put effort into building informal relationships with teachers so that trust is in place when implementing changes that disrupt the status quo.
Attendees also had the opportunity to talk through some of the more difficult challenges of collaboration. Leadership transitions and changing political winds, serving students with IEPs, and pulling off successful co-locations are all potential sticking points for cities hoping to collaborate. To move their relationships forward, both sectors will need to continue these difficult conversations.
