Greetings, CharterFolk!

This week, Andy and I are talking with Nina Rees, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, regarding charter schools and the American Dream.

For those of you who would prefer a video recording, we provide a link to YouTube. 

This week some of the topics include:

• Introductions (00:01)
• One of the greatest accomplishments for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) over the last decade (06:11)
• How we should we think about charters relative to other choice options and what we need by way of leadership and advocacy (11:30)
• Nina’s thoughts regarding the most pressing charter issues 11+ years ago v. today (15:21)
• Nina’s biggest surprise (18:27)
• A backstage pass to leading and organization like the NAPCS and some of Nina’s enduring memories (24:33)
• The political leaders who support charter schools during a period of intense polarization, what we can do to support continued bipartisanship, and the importance of future elections (28:47)
• How to keep a charter base together, especially during vexing issues facing charter schools (34:10)
• The area Nina would encourage CharterFolk to work on for charter school success (44:11)
• Nina’s billboard for charter schools, “A ticket to the American Dream” (47:22)

Notes:

You can use the following links to access:

·      The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ report, Believing in Public Education: A Demographic and State-level Analysis of Public Charter School and District Public School Enrollment Trends. https://publiccharters.org/newsroom/publications/2023-public-school-enrollment-trends-report/

·      WonkyFolk Vol 5 – Special CREDO Episode with Macke Raymond. https://www.charterfolk.org/captivate-podcast/vol-5-special-credo-episode-with-macke-raymond/

·      CREDO’s report, As a Matter of Fact: National Charter School Study III, which is the third installment of a multi-decade study examining the academic progress of students enrolled in charter schools compared with those enrolled in traditional public schools. https://ncss3.stanford.edu/

·      Jed Wallace’s article, “The Charter-School Movement Just Keeps On Keepin’ On: Its momentum catalyzed by shifting politics, new strength, better advocacy, and simple staying power”. https://www.educationnext.org/the-charter-school-movement-just-keeps-on-keepin-on/

Hello, Andy and Nina.

Great to see you guys.

Hey, good morning, Jed.

Hey, Nina.

Thanks for being with us.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, we've been looking forward to this one.

Yeah, this one's pretty special to have you here to celebrate, you know,

just an amazing amount of accomplishment.

Maybe we should just make you squirm a little bit here at the beginning, Nina,

by just, you know, saying incredible things about the contribution you've

made over recent years, you'd be too modest to say things yourself,

but, you know, let me start dive in first, Andy, if that's all right,

you know, and you can pile on right.

But, Nina what you've done over the last 11 years has just been astounding and

I think also a lot of people just don't appreciate just the amount of contribution

that you made and how difficult the challenge was when you first started.

There were people that were saying that perhaps the National Alliance for Public

Charter Schools would not continue as an organization, that's the baseline

and you came in and just very quickly.

Changed the entire narrative and got the organization on stride.

Hires a great new team and started making better progress on federal advocacy.

And now we're 11 years later and people don't even remember that moment.

And meanwhile, other things, you know, through your 11 years, growing the

CSP program to a level that's just so much higher than it ever was before.

Navigating during a period when we've had red, blue.

tensions as pronounced as anything that we've ever had.

And then just building the whole strength.

If there was any moment that showed what progress the organization had

made, it was definitely in the spring of 2022 when the Biden administration

announced their terrible proposed regs.

And I mean, the alliance was there and basically.

Turn the administration around in ways that I think will help the

movement for many years to come.

So at least from my standpoint, Nina, you know, just an amazing, amazing run.

And I just want to thank you for everything that you've done Andy pile on.

You know, I think that was, that was well said.

Let me think things I'd add to it.

I mean, first of all, I think you have done a fantastic job.

Nina's done really important things.

She's a fantastic professional, very professional, gets the job done.

She's also the fantastic person is a great, great human.

And it's a wonderful person, a sector and a friend and all of that.

And so I want to call both of those out.

I think like what stands out to me is the problem.

The National Alliance has faced and you're totally right about the challenges when

Nina took over, I think, and I think some of those challenges persist now

is, everybody's always want to be kind of all things for all people, right?

And so there's been just intense cross pressure over the years and I should say

like by way of full disclosure I was a founding board member and I was a board

member of the organization that was its predecessor So I have some history here.

But people it's people have always wanted to be good cop be bad cop do really hard

edged, you know Advocacy for charter schools be really collaborative and

work with everybody all these things you actually No single organization

can do and I feel like Nina has just navigated that with just a poem.

I think most leaders would have either become like really frustrated, and

that would have led to bad outcomes or would have simply failed at that.

And I think that she just deserves just amazing just respect and credit for,

not only sort of keeping that going, but actually really accomplishing

big things despite all of that.

And that, that when I think about that's what I'm most, impressed by as though,

I don't think most people would have pulled off with the employment that

she did, and she has that combination, and I said, she's a great professional,

like just really good political skills, people, instincts, and just a deep

commitment to improving education.

I've known Nina for a lot longer than her education in charter school days and

she's just deeply committed that this system can work better than it does.

And like people who believe that and show up to work every day to try to bring

that to life are incredibly valuable.

So thank you, Nina.

And thank you, Andy, you know, Jed was on the search committee that was

involved in hiring me and Bellwether was the firm that was hired to do the search.

So both of you played a role in bringing me here, so I appreciate your support.

And I'm particularly grateful to Andy because our space is filled with

all these, you know, students who graduated from Ivy League schools.

We went to Virginia Tech and I think the Values you learn at Virginia

Tech and schools like that certainly helped me along the way in terms

of hard work and perseverance.

And, yeah, and so I'm excited.

And also, Andy, we met when you were working at A.

S.

A.

Back when I was at the Heritage Foundation.

So, the things we learned in the nineties, we could also so actually

fit in one room and one table to talk about education reform back , all

of that has changed over time.

So I'm really thankful that I'm doing this with you right before the holidays.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, Nina.

I think after the last few weeks, people might decide maybe they want a few more,

you know, good students from good state schools, land grant universities.Actually,

we're thinking about doing an episode on some of what's going on in higher ed.

You said an interesting thing that you said, like, we could fit in a room and

we literally could, like, I can remember, like, a couple of Hill staffers from

the Democrat and Republican side, Amy Wilkins, who then was at the Education

Trust, me and Nina trying to figure out if there was sort of bipartisan

ways through and literally we could fit in a small side room like at a

restaurant and then education kind of became this big bipartisan thing.

And now I think it's a little bit more back to we're probably back to smaller

rooms and restaurants right now as we try to figure out how do you rebuild a

more bipartisan coalition going forward.

So, Nina, if you were going to talk about the thing that you are happiest

about that's happened over the last 11 years or maybe one of the greatest

accomplishments for the alliance, what would you put your finger on?

You highlighted a few of them, Jed.

Certainly the focus we brought to increasing the size of

the charter schools program.

We didn't just do it because we wanted more money in the CSP.

If you recall, and I don't know if you were in this meeting we held early

on, we had brought all the different stakeholders that were seeking funding

through this federal funding program.

So it included CMOs, a few people who were running charter associations,

those who were tapping into credit enhancement funding and authorizers

at the time, the program was getting about $254 million a year and everyone

was trying to get a piece of that pie.

So instead of focusing on that narrow pool of funding, we decided why don't we

just try to get an increase in funding?

And we were lucky enough to have some supporters in the house and the Senate

who were supportive of these increases.

So it came about through small incremental increases over time.

I give great credit to Senator Blunt when he was heading appropriations

for us every year, he would put the money in and usually with senators,

you know, usually their staff are the individuals who handled these things,

but he himself was very engaged.

I remember running into him at a reception where he pulled me aside

and said, you know, I'm going to do it this way and that way.

So the fact that you had a senator who was that deeply involved

in the work was, was great.

And that's going to continue.

I think so long as there is demand and interest in the program, and

there certainly is, there is also an interest at the federal level

to increase these funding streams.

When you think about it, the amount of money right now, it's a 440 million.

It's a lot more than it was before, but it's still very small compared

to everything else that is spent at the federal level on education

and certainly other issues.

The other thing is the increase in the number of states that

started to open charter schools.

And when I started Washington state had just passed a charter law through

their ballot process, and then that was found unconstitutional.

So they figured out a different way to pass it through the legislature.

These nascent markets, whenever you go into states at a late stage, they are,

it is more difficult not just to pass the law, but also to launch the sectors.

And so I'm.

quite frankly, proud of the fact that since I came here, we were able

to launch eventually in Washington State, in Alabama, in West Virginia,

in Kentucky, although we haven't been able to open schools and just recently

in Montana, Mississippi also passed the law, they had an earlier law that

wasn't generating any or creating any schools and that was revamped.

And then we also made some improvements over time in a few

other places that had laws, but not laws that were quite effective.

During the pandemic, though.

I think this happened by itself, but it's a byproduct of the

sector that we had created.

We just released a new enrollment report that basically summarizes 300, 000

students enrolled in charter schools over the past four years, while 1.

5 million families or students left the traditional public school system.

That's a 9 percent increase for the charter school movement and the 3.

5 percent decrease in the district run schools.

So parents are making decisions and leaving.

The district run system, whether it's, you know, to a private school or

homeschool, but if they have a charter school in their community, this is

probably going to be the school that they first pay attention to because

we're free, public and open to all.

So I'm proud of the fact that it is an option that people are paying attention to

and just think of how many more families would be in charter schools if we simply

had more of them in our communities.

And there are a lot of other things certainly that I can talk about

reports that we had written, and publicity brought, attention brought

to this diversity of the sector.

Certainly that the studies, I mean, I would be remiss not to mention Credo's

final analysis that came out right before, it just came out, but it's

an analysis of data up until 2019.

So when Mackie first started doing her research, she didn't see a lot of

difference between District schools and charter schools, the second installment

of her study showed some improvement.

This last one definitely demonstrate that charters are doing something right.

And what was really refreshing was that the longer our leaders stayed in the

schools they were running, the better they did in terms of the service to the

families and closing the achievement gap, raising student achievement.

So, what else do you want?

I mean, it's growing, it's having an impact, and it's gaining momentum.

So I'm extremely proud of these developments over time and that the

developments happen certainly with a lot of folks in the sector, but certainly,

I'm proud of the fact that we were part of those discussions or leading

those discussions in many instances.

Let's talk about a little bit more than that.

It's so interesting so charters like I mean, and the advocacy conversation

is exasperating as people still use the language like of the first

credo report rather than like a decades worth of new evidence and

things we're learning and so forth.

But you look, you do see that the sector seems to be getting stronger

and qualities improving mackie on recently, we'll put that episode in the

show notes, to talk through all that.

So that's a little unusual.

Usually, when things expand in the education sector, quality

sort of regresses, at least, you know, back towards average.

On vouchers, we're actually seeing that as these programs, these voucher

programs become less targeted, more universal, the outcomes are, we're

seeing, you know, weaker outcomes than you used to see with voucher programs.

So just talk about that.

What do you think that means for charters right now relative to other choice

options relative to where the sector is going and relative to the work that a

national organization, national leaders need to do and then, and state leaders.

So that's like a three part compound questions, it's not very fair, but like

really, really important stuff for us to think about with the sector going forward.

Well, I lost track of the three questions, but let me answer this way.

Quality and scale, quality and scale is going better than you thought

and better than some other choice options.

So how should we think about charters in that context?

And how should we think about like what we need by way of leadership and advocacy,

either national or state or both?

No, I mean, that was a key point she made, which is that these management

organizations that have had steady leadership over time, continued to make

improvements, if they were not doing as well, they improved and became better.

So that that's crucial.

And it's really one of the reasons why, to some extent, some of our

district run schools are not doing well, because you have so many

superintendents who are coming and going and shifting priorities constantly.

But if you keep the leadership stable, the governance of a school stable over

time, in this particular instance, it has learned from its mistakes

and has become better over time.

So that's huge.

And I think it's a great contribution actually to the education sector in

a sense that if you just had a better governance model, you'd be able to

resolve a lot of the issues that both from an academic standpoint and nowadays,

also from a political standpoint.

Now, with all that said, the pandemic was a mess.

I mean, our test scores and that of a lot of other schools are

just not where they need to be.

One of the things that the pandemic also demonstrated is the value of what

our educators were doing by simply having students in our schools, the

expanded school day school year, the fact that they were a second parent

to a lot of these students became more apparent to us as a sector, the human

touch element was really important.

And so we all need to focus on that and make sure we gain the

momentum that was lost pre pandemic.

And quite frankly, the other thing that we need to do is create new schools in

states like Arkansas, the governor of Arkansas made a sweeping set of changes to

its charter law that allow now for charter schools to open throughout the state.

I don't know who is opening schools in Arkansas, but there are these

new places that are ripe in terms of opportunities and we need leaders and

individuals who can come and hit the ground running and learn from those who

have been doing this for a long time.

So the fact that we've been demonstrating we can scale with quality pre pandemic

tells me that we can do it again, but it's just a matter of keeping that

momentum and attracting new people who are interested in opening schools

and teachers who are interested in teaching in our schools going forward.

Serving for I've been saying it's 11 years.

Is it 11 or is it 10?

Or is it 10 and a half?

Is it right in that area?

A little over 11 years.

Oh, it's 11 years.

Okay, good.

So I was right then.

Alright, so serving 11 years, there's a long time there to learn and change,

and I know at CCSA some of the things I was thinking in my 10th year I would

look back and what I was thinking about in the 1st and 2nd year was like, oh

my gosh.I had no idea what I was doing.

Can you just point to a couple of things that you thought might be the case when

you were in the 1st and 2nd year and by, you know, the 10th and 11th year you're

really thinking something different?

Well, look, I mean, when I came to this and you were on our board for a long

time Jed, so you were with me on this.

There was a lot of focus at the federal level, leveraging federal

powers to its max and making sure that we were closing the achievement gets

sending kids to and through college.

I think a lot of focus on college and it wasn't something that I necessarily did.

But I think the sector over time began to understand the importance

of sending students to schools that fit their needs rather than to an

elite school that they may not be able to graduate from or graduate

with a huge debt, the focus on CTE.

I think a lot of these things changed also our focus from as an entity

that was leading on the policy front.

But the thing that I wish I had paid a little bit more attention to, and

it was happening on its own, but it's sort of the state dynamics.

So we have a model law.

We rank states based on those laws on we jump in those places where no one else

is around to pass a law or improve a law.

We haven't played an active role in those places, where others are involved,

we're servant leaders in some respects.

So we go in if we're asked to help, we don't jump in on our own to do anything.

And that's actually a good thing.

But over time, though, some of these inconsistencies have harmed our ability

to grow or have had an impact on student achievement and I wish that I could

have found a way to better help the sector in those states where there were

opportunities to seize or threats to mitigate and right now philanthropy also

more focused on this, which is great, but they're also only in certain places.

So it's great to try to take some sectors from good to great and create

these beacons of hope and opportunity to demonstrate the value proposition

of charter schools in certain markets, but as an advocacy organization as

a political force, I don't know of a lot of other movements that are just

focused on doing certain things in certain communities to create these great

proof points and ignoring other places.

So that's the one thing that I wish I had focused on more, but it's not

too late and hopefully the next leader will be able to seize and do more

in some of these other communities.

What's been the biggest surprise?

Well, this is not a surprise.

I mean, those of us who've been dabbling in politics are not surprised

by this, but I've been surprised at the level of, I can naivete to some

extent around the politics of education and charter schools in particular.

I mean, once, if you have an impact, you're going to get pushback, your

pushback is a sign of your effectiveness.

But I have been surprised at how people see the pushback as a sign of

weakness or a sign that we're not doing something well or something right.

And I think it's important to be really clear on what is it that

you need to fix and you need to do your dirty laundry behind closed

doors to address those issues.

There are certainly a lot of things that are need to be addressed in our sector,

but I have, you know, I think a lot of our leaders are just here to run great

schools and the politics and the noise is not attractive to them, which is

as it should be, most people teaching are not here to be in the field of

politics or to pay attention to politics.

But this is a political system.

And as Shabar likes to say, if you don't like it, go run a private school.

So I wouldn't go that far.

But I do think I am sometimes taken aback as to how certain things that

are really come to me naturally in terms of what you need to do to fight

back, require far more attention and handholding and funding in some instances.

I mean, if something bad is, if a good story is happening nowadays,

you have the opportunity to tape it with your phone and publicize it

through so many different mediums.

And but that doesn't come naturally to most of us.

And I think the process of getting most, more of our leaders engaged in

the political discussions to get them to register to vote, to make sure that

they're showing up to defend what they do or proactively push for it before

they're elected officials, that's just taken more time and something that

in some instances we should have paid more attention to at the beginning.

Is that because people are just naturally conflict averse, do you think,

or, like, I've noticed some of our funders, they make their money they do

everything that you're talking about in terms of being very aggressive in the

political and regulatory space and all that, and then, in their philanthropic

life, they don't want to have to do that.

And so they want everything to be collaborative, but as you point

out, this is a political space.

So is it that?

Is it just people are again?

People are naturally conflict averse.

Is it something about education?

Generally speaking, people in education, they don't want to fight.

You know, people are here on all sides of these issues, they

want to try to do right by kids.

So like, why is that?

Because I totally agree with you.

And it's a very interesting dynamic.

Do you like to just take that like one more click down like,

Why do you think that is?

Andy, I know you have an answer to this, too, since you

think about these issues every day.

For many of us, as those who are, students of this movement and a lot of

the researchers and academics in this movement, the data was really important

and there was a perception by a lot of the individuals who were involved.

We're investing in in in this system that if you just showed up with the

data, if you could just prove that this model works and that you are able to

close the achievement gap, that would have that would be the tipping point

that would then make everything else fall into place, other public schools

would join hands and emulate it.

This would be the case again, if the politics were not part of the mix.

Of course, that didn't happen.

And in fact, in those places where we had the best evidence, that's when the

opposition fought back even harder.

I mean, look at Massachusetts, that ballot initiative, that We were trying

to pass was grounded only on lifting the cap in those schools that had waitlists

in Boston in a very narrow market that was serving black and brown students,

and the opposition made it seem that this would take money away from all these

suburban schools and take arts and sports from all these other public schools.

So, yes, I mean, I think the fact that we thought the evidence.

It's in and of itself would be enough to convince the opposition that

this is a good thing or to catapult the kind of systemic change in the

traditional public school system.

Maybe you call it naive, but from a funding side, though, and I don't

blame philanthropists for this.

They want to go in deep, do something big in one place,

but then if it doesn't happen.

You know, in our space, you just need to do it consistently over a long

period of time until you see results.

So if it's just one effort, on a given day, chances are, even if it

sticks, it might go backwards after a while if it's a political win.

Certainly you have to protect it constantly.

So not investing in the political side of the spectrum by electing the right

people to office by protecting those who are sticking their necks out those

things have had a negative impact on our sector and things that certainly people

are paying more attention to, but that has nothing to do with education and

what's happening in schools and I think that's maybe surprised some individuals.

And the other thing, honestly, is most of the people who are running

charter schools who are sending their kids to charter schools are Democrats.

And the fact that the Democratic Party in some of these instances or Democrats

are not sticking their necks out has surprised a lot of individuals and, but

some of that is changing and I know that once you, the great thing about our

movement is the minute people notice a flaw, they're quick to go and address it.

So I do think people are paying more attention to this and.

by giving, by paying attention, hopefully we'll be able to also bring

the resources necessary to fight back.

You know, I'm wondering if you can give us a backstage pass

to what it's like to lead an organization like this for 11 years.

I know that now that I've been out of CCSA for five years, there are

certain anecdotes that I'm telling now more to the kids and to friends.

A lot of it just kind of fades away, but there are these moments just that seem

to crystallize, in my memory anyway, what it was like to serve in that role.

Do you have a couple of just anecdotes, like moments you know you're going

to remember, you're going to be talking about with your family and

friends for the next 30, 40 years?

Your tenure at CCSA was very different from mine because you

started at CCSA and it's heyday.

You had a lot of charter schools in the space who were Funding the

association, you had Kerry Penner and Reed Hastings on your board.

So mine, you know, as you noted earlier, I came when the organization

was kind of teetering and funders were not sure if they would, they

wanted to continue supporting it.

For me, it's felt like drinking out of a firehose the minute I started the

work and I've loved every minute of it.

I think the thing that I will most remember is actually the

day we decided to go home.

They announced that there's a pandemic and you should go home.

You know, as a leader, I can't tell you how many years I lost in the few weeks

that when we were home and thinking about the ramifications of the pandemic, both as

in terms of fundraising, am I able to keep this organization running, both in terms

of how do you serve schools, how do you make sure that these students are getting

what you know, the resources they need.

And again, we were not in the business of running schools, but

what can we do at the federal level to make sure funding is available?

And at the time we fought for both SBA loans and ESSER funds.

So a lot of the things you had to do in that period of time were very different

than what you were doing before.

So I'm always going to remember those first few weeks, certainly of the pandemic

at home, trying to figure out what this new world means and how do we leverage it.

And I'm glad that we came out ahead and our sector certainly responded very well

in the first few months of the pandemic.

The rally last year where parents and educators came to fight against

the Biden administration regulations on the charter schools program

are definitely going to be missed.

One of the highlights certainly, both because it demonstrated that there is

an interest in coming to Washington to advocate for something as obscure

as a regulation, just think about it explaining what that regulation did was

very complicated, getting individuals who are not living our lives and are not

thinking about rules and regulations, especially in communities that honestly

didn't stand to benefit from CSP money.

So the fact that they came that it got its You know, requisite publicity

and all that was one of those moments that I'm always going to remember.

But personally, it's the team that, works for me that I guess I'm going

to miss the most and the day to day interactions with them that, I don't

think there's one point in time, but I do think all the efforts that goes

into building teams and certainly now adjusting to remote work and all that

is, yeah, I will always remember that.

And also making sure that the legacy of what we created continues.

I like to tell people like we're celebrating our 20th anniversary

next year, so in a way, I came here when the organization when it was

in its tween and teenage years.

Now it's officially, you know, entering adulthood.

So hopefully it can do great things and learn from the things that's

learned in the past and move the sector forward in a very evolving world.

Let's stay on this point on sort of political leadership.

You mentioned, uh, you mentioned Senator Blunt earlier.

You've also had, you know, you had, like Senator Landreau, Mary from Louisiana.

Tom Carper, the former governor of Delaware in the Senate, was

a enormous leader on charters.

Like you had, like some really bipartisan Folks who really were leaning in on this.

Who do you see sort of as the leaders now?

And what do we need to do?

You talked earlier about the partisanship, like what do we need to do

to maintain bipartisanship, especially in this time of just really intense?

Hyperpolarization.

So we have some great friends, some Democrats and strong Republican

friends in the Senate, in particular this bill that we just introduced

this summer, which opens the door for CSP money to go to educators who

want to apply to charter schools.

I was introduced with the support of Senator Bennett and Senator Booker,

as well as Senator Hassan from New Hampshire and Senator Schatz from Hawaii.

So these are all four Democrats.

Senator Scott from South Carolina, Senator Braun from Indiana,

Senator Cornyn from Texas.

So, look, whenever we have an opportunity at the federal level

to push for charter schools.

We do have bipartisan support, but to me, the federal government is a few steps

away from what it's a lagging indicator of certain things in some respect.

So I would pay a lot more attention to what's happening locally and make sure

that our local elected officials First, you're inviting them to your schools

that they know who you are through the stories and the faces of the movement,

that you are staying in touch with them.

And if they're your supporters, that you are protecting them because chances

are those elected officials are going to move to higher office and I would pay

attention at all levels of government.

At the mayor level, mayoral level, the city council level, state

legislative level, governor level.

I would move from that point up and make sure that bipartisanship

continues to exist at every level.

But at the federal level, look, the Senate has always been our backstop and

it's going to continue to be that way because they're a little bit shielded

from a lot of the ebbs and flows and the influence of a lot of interest groups.

That's not the case everywhere, but some of our biggest supporters right now are

not able to say they're big supporters, but they're steady hands in this process

are Senator Murray and Senator Baldwin, these are Democrats who have also been

supportive of the teachers unions, but they're also good on our issue.

A house is a little different in the sense that it's just more

volatile and you have more action.

And in that respect, again, in the, in the house, we've had a good.

It does seem a little volatile over there these days.

But a lot of congressional black caucus members have been steady

signatories of our annual charter schools grant program funding.

And I think in that sense, if the leadership of Senator, I'm sorry, if

Congressman Jeffries becomes the speaker, that would be quite interesting because

he is someone who is not just familiar with the sector and has been supported

by many of our advocates and leaders and funders, but someone who also really has a

personal understanding of charter schools.

So if the house flips, it will be interesting to see what Um, if his

influence and his position will influence, uh, the party's posture on

charter schools, what I'm most focused on, though, is the 24 elections.

I know a lot of people want to go to sleep and wake up after it's

over, but I do think we have to pay a lot more attention to the

conversations that are taking place.

A lot of these candidates are not talking policy or just using soundbites.

But as time goes on, and as these primaries move through, it's You know,

you know that the issue of choice is going to come up and it's going to be

important for us to go in with the right questions and hopefully for those who

are running for these seats to give good, solid answers to questions of

choice, accountability and education.

On the Republican side, have you heard any, any of the

candidates who are particularly like compelling on these issues?

Well, you see the same debates that I see.

Certainly, I try

not to see them actually.

So that may not be that may not be

true.

Well, they all talk about choice and school choice is definitely a buzzword.

The Republican Party is from a message discipline standpoint, knows how to

use talking points very effectively.

Um, What is sometimes disappointing is that those talking points don't

always translate into strong policies because they tend not to be as focused

on the federal role in education.

That wasn't the case when, when I was working at the White House, certainly

President Bush was Education reformer and wanted to go down in history as

someone who impacted education policy.

But with that said, um, on the Republican side, they all have a viewpoint on choice

and they talk about choice broadly.

They haven't honed in on charter schools specifically, but that's where they are.

And Democrats haven't had debates that I know of.

So, um, we'll see how this conversation goes.

Is the secret to maintaining bipartisan support just not being

perceived as veering in too far in either direction or and try to have

some centrist orientation that's not totally offensive to either side?

Or is it having a mix of things where like, Hey, there's an

aspect of charterness that really resonates on the Republican side.

Emphasize that in your engagement with Republicans and vice versa on Democrats.

I mean, you've, you've made this look pretty effortless, Nina.

I mean, this, when you've had Trump as your president, you have a base that had.

very different views about all sorts of different issues.

And you managed to keep us together.

Um, how did you, how did you do it?

And, and how would you recommend for us going forward to, to deal with some

of those really vexing issues that are sure to intensify in the years ahead?

Well, I mean, you have some experience in this too, Jed, uh, when

you were at CCSA and, um, You know, it's important to focus on what you're

trying to accomplish and not get too distracted by the political noise.

So our posture has been one of just sticking to what we know how to do

and not opine too much around issues that are not central to our work.

Now, some would argue You know, and this is not the case just in our case

in our in our particular business.

I think if you if you look at, um, other sectors, there's a greater

focus on making sure leaders are offering comments on a whole host of

issues around their enterprise, not just what they're doing on a daily

basis, whether it's, um, you know, and certainly it started after George Yeah.

Floyd and it's continued.

And really, in order to attract people to your workforce and to be seen as an

authentic leader, there is a greater um, emphasis on being vocal and showing

empathy and giving voice to a lot of these social issues because people don't

feel that politicians are necessarily in a good place to represent everyone.

Um, so my, my focus has been on focusing on, you know, getting this done.

And even then I You know, there's certain been arguments about not

pushing more around other things that impacted the students in our

schools going forward, though.

I do think it's important if you are going to dive into any of these issues

at the federal level to understand your strengths and weaknesses first.

And in many of these instances, if you're going to advocate for title one funding

and school nutrition and other things, and this is what we currently do, it's much

better to go in and coalition with other groups that know how to do that work.

Well, for a living, then for us to try to become an expert in areas

that are not just complicated, they're important for us for sure.

But they're not our bread and butter.

And so if you if you start to, you know, advocate for all these other

things that other advocacy groups are already advocating for and

arguably doing a better job at it.

If you also do that, first of all, you're too small.

So your voice is not necessarily going to register.

Um, and it will potentially take away from the other thing that that is

really unique to you, which is just charter school policy and politics.

Um, but right now we're dealing with it by joining coalitions, like the

Community on Education Funding is one of the groups that we belong to.

Um, but there are going to be other coalitions that are going to be formed

and we should not just be a part of it, but also in many instances, maybe

lead the coalition and be a more active participant of it, especially if it's

an issue that impacts our families.

That's a really

interesting strategy, because traditionally, a lot of those

coalitions have been fairly hostile, cold, indifferent to hostile.

And so that's a, I mean, that's a sign of the growing size of the Charter

movement and in some cities, how it's instrumental in other places, how it's

just pretty significant in terms of, uh, in terms of its size and scale.

And so that if over the next 10 years, charters emerge in a leadership role

across these coalitions, that does seem like it has the potential to really to

change the politics around the issue and change how to have charters are perceived

and make the job of this, the sort of reflexive opponents that much harder.

Yes, I

get to

a place where it seems like you could have a dynamic and you're talking

about you're talking about the Jeffrey.

So it does seem like if you had if someone forced you to bet 1000 on to the

next speaker, the house was going to be.

Well, actually, I shouldn't say that because we're probably probably a

couple more Republican speakers between now and November after the election,

the next speaker after November, you know, it seems like things are

lining up pretty, pretty well for him.

And some other leaders who behind the scenes, like Patty Murray, people don't,

you know, think of her as like a charter school champion, but, you know, she runs,

she runs her committee pretty effectively with, um, uh, yeah, I think I forgot how

you said it, but basically like stability and predictability around things.

Um, so is there, is there a scenario you see where you essentially, you'll have

all the big fighting, the people like the unions, everybody gets to have their big

public fight, but like behind the scenes.

Well, they'll actually be like a fairly, just, just a fair amount of

like, you know, just path dependency for charters kind of moving forward.

And is that a pretty, is that a pretty good outcome in the big scheme of things?

Um, let people have their theater, but charters actually get the policy

and the resources that they need.

Oh, yes I do.

I mean, I think again.

The Senate, again, it's hard to predict a year in advance.

I think our politics and everything that's happening is so different from

what it's what's happened before.

So whenever people make these broad predictions, even around the presidency

based on today's polls, I just have to question whether you can really count

on what people are saying right now to guess at what's going to happen next year.

But look.

It's the one big benefit of charter schooling is that these

are created at the state level.

So the federal government can have some influence and it has had influence because

Bill Clinton started talking about charter schools on the campaign trail as an idea

before there was any charter anywhere.

It was just maybe one in Minnesota and he talked about it ad nauseum.

That's highly unusual because he was a wonk and he was interested

in ideas and education back then.

It was cool to be an education governor.

So he talked a lot about it.

So it's usually not the norm for someone at the federal level and

certainly a president to talk about something that hasn't quite started

to brew at the state and local level.

The fact that all of our laws are created at the state level shields it

from any kind of federal influence.

The thing you have at the federal level though is the bully pulpit.

The fact that there is the charter schools grant program, which has now

been around for quite a few years.

When something has been around that long and has a constituency,

it's hard to get rid of it.

So I'm not worried about the CSP, but if you want to grow it, if you

want to, you know, turn it into an engine that's driving, um, not the

CSP, but if you want chartering to be part of the discussion around.

You know, education, reform, policy, issues of economic

revitalization, chartering and the charter school movement.

Education can be part of a whole host of other discussions that

our country is dealing with.

And I would hope that whoever becomes president next and whoever is leading

these parties pays attention to that.

Because if you get education right, all these other problems go away.

And certainly a lot of people in our movement are doing some really interesting

things in their communities that go above and beyond just running a school.

So, um, so I think regardless of who's in power, chartering is going to have

a seat at the table, but it's going to be up to us to constantly resell

the value proposition and be visible.

You can't just say, okay, well, you're doing this thing really well.

And the academic performance is good.

And look at how many kids were graduating and assume that people at

the federal level know who you are and what you do and how well you do it.

So now, unless there is a huge sweep and you all of a sudden have

a lot of, you know, and Jed was witness to that in California.

Um, I think federal is always going to be this way.

You may not see a lot of things happen and that's the case right now.

Bills are not moving.

You just, you basically.

looking at appropriation cycles and watching the theatrics.

Um, so anyway, I would focus most of my political energy at the state

and local level, especially in those places where there is forward momentum

to make positive change, bring about.

And I would also quite frankly, pay attention to that 28th

presidential election, because there are some formidable governors

on both sides of the aisle who are poised to run for office then.

And those individuals.

Right now, if you look at them, if you were to take Shapiro, polis, you know,

these individuals just are good on charter schools and a whole host of other issues.

And I think by then.

You know, we're talking about a very different world, of course, but I think

our odds going to be better in terms of leading again at the national level.

Yeah, I think you're right.

The 24 elections highly consequential, but the 28 one seems much more interesting

in terms of different theories of government and on both sides of the

aisle, the cast of characters who might.

Make a run for it.

And so different governing styles and philosophies.

Um, uh, it seems 2028 just seems much more interesting

than the way down.

I mean, a lot can happen between now and then, of course, but, um,

I know we're running out of, you know, we only have

a couple more minutes here.

I'd love to just hear you push us on something.

Um, is there.

Any one area where you're, where you would say, Hey, this is what we haven't

figured out yet, or this is what we've struggled with in the, over the last

decade, or this is the, you know, one of the central weak spots that we need

to improve to be able to stay on the trajectory that you're talking about here.

Is there any place you, you push charter folk in particular?

Um, you know, look, I do think paying attention to the pipeline of

talent, uh, that's not something that's.

We necessarily are involved with at the National Alliance, but you can have,

you know, I was talking to a charter school leader in Texas after all these

extra funds were distributed and, you know, certainly the other sources

of funding that It's philanthropy and other entities made available.

And I was like, okay, so what can we do to help?

Because well, for the first time, I don't really money is not my problem.

I just can't find people to teach in my classrooms.

I don't have enough bus drivers.

So, you know, this could be another piece of legislation that attracts people to

just teach in schools and especially in needy communities and more specifically

in innovative public charter schools.

But I do think.

If we want to stay at the forefront of education reform and innovation, um,

we do need to pay attention to who are we going to attract and how quickly

can we get them to hit the ground running in communities that are not

as familiar to us as past communities.

So, as I mentioned, places like Arkansas and Utah and Iowa.

Um, so I would pay a lot more attention to that because all the

policy and politics, I mean, these things are par for the course.

They're always going to exist and groups like ours.

And state associations and others are going to have to do a better

job of mitigating the risks and leveraging opportunities.

But on the education side, fueling the talent pipeline of the next

generation of leaders and making sure they don't make the same

mistakes that previous leaders have.

And I think that the way that this is made is going to be really

important, and I don't know who's paying attention to that right now.

Um, and then on the political front, as I said earlier, I mean,

I do think there is a greater need to draw dollars to C4 efforts.

I know there's no tax deduction attached to it, but you can see the fruits

of your labor much faster when you invest in a C4 activity, whether it's

an election or some other political activity, and I think we need to Uh,

do more and in many states, the cost of doing these things is not as high.

Uh, so if you go to Mississippi, for instance, so I think paying attention to

some of those, um, dynamics is going to be hugely helpful, especially if it's in

service to some of our rising Democrats who are, again, sticking their necks

out and could suffer huge consequences.

Thank you.

We are almost at time.

I know you had one, you have a great, you have a great final

question for, for Nina that I'm very interested in the answer to as well.

I was going to ask you this, the Tim Ferriss question.

I don't know, Nina, if you listen to Tim Ferriss at all, but he often

asks his, his guests the billboard question at the end of his interviews,

which is if you had a billboard.

And you could put a, you know, a few words on something to broadcast

out into the universe, you know, what would that billboard say?

And it just seems like a moment to ask you a question like that.

If there's something that you would want the charter school world to know,

or more broadly, what, what, I mean, yes, free public and open to all.

Okay, great.

But beyond that, what's the, uh, do you have any just

general message that you could.

I think my billboard would be, you know,

honestly, I don't, I don't mean to summarize it this way, but it's, you know,

this is the ticket to the American dream.

And if you want to, if you want a challenging job and have some fun

along the way, this is the sector that you should get attracted to.

That's too many words for a billboard.

So I'll think about and give you a better answer.

But the message needs to be aspirational for people to get drawn to it.

And, and to me, this movement and everything we do is about offering the

door to not just equitable access, but to some extent equitable outcomes in a

way that boosts everyone into excellence and a future that's better than the

one that they're currently living in.

So that would be the way the billboard, which some of the words that would pop up

and hopefully with a lot of bright colors.

Um,

access to access to dreams or a pathway to dreams or something

that charter schools provide

truly are.

I mean, it is about fit.

It's about bringing the potential of every child and the uniqueness of every child.

So, um, so those are the messages that I think we need to talk

more about and ones that resonate with just about every family.

And when you talk to the average family, they're not interested in

charter schools or private schools or public schools or magnet schools.

They just want a great school.

And I'm proud of the fact that our schools are some of the most innovative public

schools out there that are striving to meet the unique needs of our family.

Yeah.

And our families still believe in the American dream.

People in our sector, you know, spend hours in workshops debating, you know,

whether you're supposed to talk about the American dream or not, but when you're

actually out in communities, there's plenty of surveyed really to share has

done work on this, to show like the, the people were serving, they believe

in it, they want it and they deserve it.

And I feel like Nina, your life is a little bit, you could

have lived the American dream and the promise of this place.

And, and so I think that was such an interesting way for you to,

uh, Uh, and it's I just want to say thank you for your leadership,

your commitment, your friendship.

Like the sector is lucky to have, uh, lucky to have leaders like you.

And I think a lot of people are excited to see what's next for you.

Well, thank you, Andy.

And I, yeah, no, I was just thinking about this American dream story.

This 40th anniversary of when we moved to the United States.

And it's also the 30th anniversary of when I became a citizen.

Um, So that's, you know, it's a big year, not just because I'm leaving

the National Alliance, but for those two reasons, and also the year

that my daughter went to college.

So a lot of change afoot and I'm excited about what's ahead.

And I know that whatever I do, I'll still be in touch with both

of you and hopefully get back on.

Wonky folk one

day.

Yeah.

Well, we'd love you're welcome back anytime you have a standing invitation.

That

would be great.

All right.

Thank you so much, Nina.

Uh, and both of you guys have great holidays.

I look forward to talking to you guys soon.

Yeah.

You will be back in the new year.

Bye.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.