In this episode of WonkyFolk, Andy Rotherham and Jed Wallace kick off the year with a deep and thoughtful conversation with Baxter Parker, longtime Denver-based education leader and policy thinker. Together, they explore how Denver’s school reform journey—often hailed as a national model—has evolved from being described as “historic” to something more complex, contextual, and nuanced.

Parker shares insights from recent studies on Denver’s portfolio strategy and its impact on student outcomes, and reflects on the shifting narratives, local politics, and policy lessons emerging from over two decades of reform.

📌 Topics include:

• What Denver got right—and what it’s still grappling with
• How closures, autonomy, and accountability played out in practice
• What the data actually say about academic gains and equity
• Why local nuance matters more than national hype

🎓 Whether you’re a reform skeptic or a die-hard believer, this conversation offers grounded, data-informed reflections on one of the most watched experiments in urban education.

👇 Show Notes and Resources:

• Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs
• Education Systems Leadership and Policy Institute

Key Research Studies:

• Student-Level Study – 2024 - Study SummaryS | Technical Reporth | ​Slide Deck​o | Bennet-Boasberg Essay
• Systemwide and Intervention-Specific Effects of Denver Public Schools’ Portfolio District Strategy on Individual Student Achievement – Anna Nicotera, Erik Fuller, Jakob Panzer, Todd Ely, and Paul Teske
• District-Level Study – 2022. Study Summary | Technical Report
• The System-Level Effects of Denver’s Portfolio Strategy on Student Academic Outcomes – Anna Nicotera, David Stuit, Margot Plotz, Todd Ely, and Paul Teske

Related Articles and Essays:

• “Dismantling Denver” – Education Next, Spring 2022, by Alan Gottlieb
• “Redesigning Denver’s Schools: The Rise and Fall Of Superintendent Tom Boasberg” – Education Next, Spring 2019, by Todd Ely and Paul Teske
• “Mastering Change: When Charter Schools and School Districts Embrace Strategic Partnership” – 2012, by Elizabeth Cooley Nelson, in CRPE
• “Denver Education Research Going Forward but Not Without a Fight”– Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat, July 13, 2023
• “Closing Struggling Schools Helped Student Achievement in Denver, Study Finds” – Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat, September 27, 2024
• “Denver Public Schools’ Controversial Reform Strategy Led to Significant Learning Gains for Students” – Jenny Brundin, Colorado Public Radio, September 24, 2024
• “The Inconvenient Success of New Orleans Schools” – Ravi Gupta, The74Million, August 25, 2025
• “How Denver’s School Reforms Raised Grad Rate, Got Kids Years of Extra Learning” – The74Million, February 23, 2025
• “Education Scarcity: A Picture Worth a Thousand Words – The Five Points of a North Star” – Jed Wallace, CharterFolk, September 14, 2025

Hey, Andy.

Hey, Jed.

How are you?

Good.

you always beat me on the tacky Christmas sweaters.

but I, it seems like you might be like doing tacky sweaters all year.

Ro all year long now, dude.

Tacky.

This is just some old fisherman sweater.

these things are classic.

I'm going hoodie on you.

The classics Never go outta style, Jed.

I, all right.

I, like it.

and knowing that you're fishing in it, I guess I'll give it a, and

it's freezing cold here.

It's actually really is legit sweater weather in Virginia.

I'm glad that we're starting off the new year, with, and

maybe we'll be disciplined about it.

and we'll remind everybody.

Hey, this is Wonky folk.

This is Jed Wallace, and Andy Roth room.

We've, It had been doing this now for a few years.

If you guys can hit likes and if you can hit subscribes, that's all great stuff.

We really appreciate it.

meanwhile, we're delighted to have, a great guest to get things started.

Andy, you've actually known Parker longer than me.

You wanna start with the intro here?

Yeah, look, I'll like Parker's one of my favorite.

So like other like bias fully like on display.

Parker's one of my favorite people in the sector.

He's smart, he's fearless, he does creative work and he is just

a absolutely wonderful human.

I've been doing a thing last few years.

It allows me to suspend some informal, time with him fishing out in

Colorado, which is where he is based.

and he'll talk more about the different work he does.

He runs a really fascinating fellowship that I'd urge you if you are a Colorado.

Person who is either into ed policy or, leading that way that you would look at.

He's based in Denver, but it's the University of Colorado, but

it's a, they're based in Denver.

and he can tell you, he can tell you more about all of that.

But, just a fantastic, longtime person.

I don't even know.

I'm trying to remember.

Parker, you're one of those people I can't even remember actually when we just

literally first met, but he's someone, if I'm out in Colorado with teams, I try to

get him to come by and sit with them for a little bit so they can learn from him.

Just a fantastic person.

so expect

lots of hard, expect lots of hard hitting questions.

Hi.

Hi both.

Thanks for having me.

Great.

Yeah.

Look, I, don't know how it is that you and I

haven't, crossed paths earlier.

I've been like quoting your stuff for a very long time.

I'm from Colorado.

You've been sending me decks.

I'm already sending them to my parents, just to share with all of their old

retired education, folk about just the progress that's been made in Denver.

But, thanks for joining us and I, it's, I for our guests that may, know less

about you, how do you talk about your experience in the ed reform world?

You're in Denver now, but I was intrigued to learn about all sorts of things that

you've done earlier in your career.

So can you just set a little context for our folks about, what you've done

previously and how it's put you, in this position to make the unique contribu

contribution you're making right now?

Sure.

I, I guess in some ways I, my, my career is I follow the trajectory of ed

reform a little bit in the sense that I was in college when charter school.

I'm sorry to hear that,

Parker.

I thought, you were doing better than that.

No, I, I, have, I was in college, when charters

were first created and, in, in Colorado, went to Colorado College.

And so I had a, firsthand view of the beginning of that, work in Colorado.

And even as a college student, I was just fascinated by frankly, the

debate over whether there was some other way to provide public education,

than the traditional system.

And so I, I actually then joined Teach for America.

I, was one of the early, in the early years of Teach for America

and actually taught in New Orleans, before Hurricane Katrina at a, high

school called Booker t Washington.

and to be frank, it was a, it was, I was a witness to a crime.

It was an ongoing denial of the American dream.

and, I, here, I fully admit, I'm, privileged white boy in a lot of ways,

had a white savior complex and, yet, like that was really the most humbling

experience of my life, but also just really fundamentally shattered my naivete

about the American dream and about.

The reality of equal opportunity in America.

And I actually went to law school then 'cause I wanted to sue New Orleans Public

Schools for, special ed violations.

but also knew I didn't wanna be a lawyer forever.

So I got a Master's in public administration, worked on Capitol

Hill for, a year for the late senator Ted Kennedy, on the health education,

labor and Pensions committee.

And that was right when, there was an effort to reauthorize

No Child Left Behind.

And this is actually, Early years, or at least I think for me, when I first

started reading edu wonk and, couldn't stop, couldn't, I know why it all,

now we know why it all went sideways.

Yeah.

No, you're,

yeah.

You're such

a promis, you're such a promising young

man.

No joke that a lot of what you wrote at the time really,

resonated with me as someone who, here I was probably Senator Kennedy had

never hired a Teach for America person.

That in itself was, controversial.

The fact that I was at that point already really, interested in, Choi

public school choice, chartering as

as a, what I view as a progressive, Way to, think about

reinventing public education.

And I got, it sounds crazy, but I got lucky because I, moved out to Colorado,

with my wife, but we didn't have jobs.

and, somehow I got, lucky enough to be connected to Michael Bennett,

who was then the superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

And I got hired, to be in charge of what was then only a small

number of charter schools.

When I first started in Denver in 2000, eight, there were

about 17 charter schools.

And by the time I left, three years later, there were almost 50.

and today there still are, almost, 50 charter schools in the city.

So that, that whole experience of teaching in a really dysfunctional.

Environment where I could, it was just obvious that the system had not

been designed for, for my success as a teacher or for my student's success.

And, and then I, was really inspired by, frankly inspired by what,

what Denver was proposing to do.

when I arrived, they had just launched this whole strategy to fundamentally

reinvent the school district.

that's where I started, and I've been obsessed ever since

with many stops along the, way, including working at nsa,

which I, was not remembering before.

You mentioned it when we last spoke.

also now you're at the University of Colorado, Denver.

And, it's an amazing perch from which to, to look at the Denver experience now.

You're doing just some amazing work out there.

Why don't we just dive into that.

I think there's probably some contextual questions, but you've done sort of two

landmark studies on student achievement in Denver as part of these reforms.

and it's, interesting that, you talked about getting to know Michael

Bennett and he was, then, the super, he became the superintendent, then

he was appointed to the Senate, and now he's running for governor and is

in a contested primary for governor.

And I think that's, some of that we can, when we get to the

politics is a backdrop for this.

But he, put in place a number of changes, and then you went, and you've looked at

them now twice in two different ways.

So why don't you, why don't you talk about that, like both

those studies and your work.

Sure.

I guess I, I think I should say that,

When I, first started learning about charter schools, I was very,

sympathetic to the concerns of, of those who were, who were worried that

they would simply provide an escape patch from the existing system and,

not engage in how to, reinvent it.

and so part of my interest in Denver really does, come from what I believe is

it is real unique about Denver, in this, in that, rather than just pursuing these

various reform strategies, charter schools were one of them, but there was also a

pay for performance program for teachers.

Autonomy for district level schools, et cetera.

these different,

reform activities, were tried in different pla have been tried in different places.

But what I think is different about Denver is that like the model, the

portfolio strategy, from Paul Hill and his colleagues, like the, just

like that strategy is intended to provide an alternative model for

providing public education at scale.

I think Denver's, effort is a very explicit, and, from the very beginning

was a very explicit attempt, not just to improve the existing system,

but to fundamentally transform it to the point of replacing it with an

alternative paradigm oriented around different operating assumptions, namely.

Choice for families, empowerment for schools, and accountability for outcomes.

So for me, like I, I've been working, I spent most of my

career as a practitioner, right?

I did work for nsa, but I also, I worked primarily in authorizing and fascinated

by, the, regulation of, new public delivery systems and how do we, how, can

we, how can we find ways to fulfill the public and private purposes of government

in ways that are adaptable to current realities And, and that, ultimately can

be hopefully more effective and equitable.

And so for me, the fundamental question, about the Denver reforms and.

Part of what fascinates me so much is that I really do think they

call the question of whether it is possible to provide public education,

through some mechanism other than the traditional unified school system.

And

I also,

I've always been a politics junkie and so I, I, really, especially after leaving

DPS and then I've worked, in, education all over the country in almost every

state as a result of my work with nsa.

And I ended up working in Louisiana for the State Department of Education there.

And I've seen all these different educational contexts and it was just

fascinating to look back on Denver.

'cause I was, I've been tracking Denver since I left there,

in a pretty obsessive way.

And it was just it was, frankly.

Mind blowing to me that, Denver could be having the conflict

that it was having circa 2015.

at the beginning of the conflict, nationally, but also in Denver.

it was just mind blowing to me that conflict could occur without a recognition

of the vast array of different ways that this, these kinds of reforms are

actually taking place across the country.

And so I had witnessed places where there were real inequities, around things like

special education or, equitable access during enrollment and things like that.

and, yet, here Denver was, and I think, I hope we'll talk some about.

The various ways that Denver actually is explicitly designed to address the

very real challenges that autonomous schools present for the provision

of public education at scale.

And

what I mean by that is that, there, there are real fundamental features

across Denver's reform strategy that acknowledge that, the introduction of

these autonomous independent operators into what is intended to be a centralized

system can create externalities in, economists talk, but, negative,

consequences for the, broader system.

and that especially as those schools grow, get to scale, the, it

becomes all the more important to be attentive to those challenges.

And

yeah, I think Denver, I think on then the last thing is, just that, it was

just fascinating that the, that how little the conflict over the reforms

in Denver was focused on the actual outcomes that the reforms had produced.

And so for me, and that ultimately is probably the thing, I, really wanna give

a shout out to Paul Teskey, who was, for many years the dean of the School of

Public Affairs here, at cu, but is also.

one of the pioneers of school choice research, and was in the nineties, writing

about, parents and their preferences for schools, and most importantly for

me, frankly, the obstacles that those parents, particularly low income parents

faced in accessing those choices.

And

I, met Paul very early on, when I first started working for Denver

because I was reading his work and realizing how much it spoke to what

we were trying to do in the, district.

and he and I have had a great relationship, but, and I really am

grateful that he's given me this opportunity because part of what I,

remember, we were both looking at each other what is going on here?

Like these reforms.

Are demonstrably effective.

And we didn't even have the kind of rigorous empirical evidence that we

have now then, but there was lots of descriptive evidence that the

reforms in Denver, were successful.

just the fact that the district went from the bottom fifth percentile, of

all districts in the state in 2007, a 39% four year graduation rate,

all the way up to above the 60th percentile of districts in the state

performing near the state average.

even with, a much more disadvantaged population.

And so we really just, we both of us wanted to, dig in and really

try to understand, as much as we could about, about what, happened

in Denver and what it might, show us about, the future of reform.

Parker on several occasions at, charter Folk,

I've cited your research.

and I usually find a slide or two that uses the term historic.

You use historic progress or something like that.

now that might be historic as it's relative to Denver over a long

period of time, but I also think the use historic is relative to what's

happened across the entire country.

When you're using terms like that, can you just be a little bit, just

put a little more color on it.

Why did you use that terminology?

Why is Denver's progress historic, in your opinion?

Yeah, so first of all, I think Denver is really

one of the first districts,

in, in US history to willingly, voluntarily give up its authority to.

Operate all public schools within its jurisdiction and in without giving up

its authority to govern public education.

And, for me that's a massive, Lee important, shift because, as many

of us are well aware, historically, the unitary school district model,

the, direct connection between governance and operation is, it is,

one of the core features of, public education in the United States.

And, so I think, it is really important to recognize how rare and

even radical it, it was for Denver to.

To say, Hey, this traditional model, it's fundamentally broken and it's not working

and unlikely and is unlikely to work for the students we have, here in Denver.

And we need to be willing to, fundamentally change the model.

And I do think, the reforms are, historic in that sense.

there's another interesting just aspect I have to just note 'cause I am a

real history junkie, but part of why I'm still so obsessed with Denver is

because when I first got into academia about eight years ago now and really

started, digging into this, I discovered that for, lots of different reasons,

Denver actually was a model school system at the turn of the 20th century.

And, it was actually viewed by, educators all over the country as, this, example of

what was called the modern school system.

and so it's just fa it's been fascinating for me to, dig back into that history

and to realize sort of the connection between the historical realities that

led to the creation of very large school systems in the beginning of,

public education in the United States.

Even as we had over a hundred thousand one room schoolhouses in, cities due to

mass immigration, industrialization, these systems became massive almost overnight.

And for example, Denver went from 150 students in 1875.

To 30,000 in 1910,

30,000 students in 1910.

And, so what we, part of what is so fascinating to me about that is that the

modern school system, from a structural point of view, was designed to address

that, that rapid, massive growth and to figure out a way to, to do it at scale.

today it's just blows my mind that we have, we continue to

essentially operate that way, more or less all over the country.

And That in itself I think is, just interesting is how much Denver, by

the way, was the first city also, and perhaps not coincidentally, to have a

single salary schedule for teachers.

it was, the teacher's union in Denver had the first contract

west of the Mississippi.

And, so Denver has, since its very beginning, been this sort of site

where it could, on the one hand be a model, for, others, but also has gone

through like the exact challenges that I think are, representative,

of the entire sort of struggle of public education in the United States.

similarly, Colorado itself is an interesting place where we have 178

school districts, but a hundred of them have less than 2000 students.

So it's, this dynamic of, how do we operate education,

public education at scale?

I think is a really, fascinating question and important one for the

future of education in the United States.

But, yeah, that's part of, again, what, what drew me to Denver

and is keeping me obsessed.

So before we get to the, some of the analysis, which we

will get to, if you were listening probably I thought we were gonna,

real quickly, you mentioned a moment ago there, pieces of Denver.

Let's talk about those and then also I think for people who may not be familiar

with Colorado, if you could just real quickly just universal public school

choice, open enrollment in Colorado.

So there's some features there that are not, that you don't find everywhere.

I,

yeah.

I think it is important to know that, that Colorado has had public

school choice through o mandatory open enrollment within districts and

across districts lines since 1994.

so over 30 year, for over 30 years.

parents in, in Colorado have a legal right to enroll in any school

in their school district and any school across district lines.

So long as there's capacity, there's some restrictions around that.

But that's a very important feature because, and then Colorado

also was the third state, to adopt a charter school law.

and, in 1994, around the same time that open enrollment.

And I think one of the interesting things and essential to understand about.

the beginning of Denver's reforms and the rationale for them is that they were

launched in response to the disruption that had been created by open enrollment

and the introduction of charter schools.

And, and also,

wasn't there, there was pressure still out there for

private school choice as well?

There was a referendum and so Yes.

Yeah, there were, certainly have always been people, some

people in Colorado who really have, been dedicated to private school choice.

But I think even more remarkable for me is that, that there, there

has just been this, long lasting bipartisan support for open enrollment

and choice in education in general.

And I think that's just an important thing to remember because when we first

started, looking at how to improve the functioning of school choice

within Denver Public Schools, one of the things that we realized was that,

45% of the district was choosing a school and other than their school of

assignment, and this was in 2008, 2009.

And that in itself is remarkable.

And it was this, I still remember this because it was a real sort of awakening

moment for the leadership of the district at the time because they realized that

this reality was already here, and yet they were not managing it in any way.

And, I think it's, I, it's true.

I was there because.

I think that actually was a real problem for the leadership of the district

because they viewed that not just as a threat to the district from a financial

point of view, but as a real threat to equitable access and equitable provision.

And so from their point of view, just letting this thing happen around them

and not trying to actually lead it, was from their point of view, causing the

district harm and actually was gonna prevent it from ever being able to

actually take control of its own destiny.

So I do think that dynamic, another dynamic that's just important to

recognize is that Colorado is a, is really one, one of the, it's one of

the few states in the country that is really a local control state.

In the sense that there are about six of the 50 states that have some

provision in their constitution that references local control.

Colorado is one of those states, nonetheless, Colorado also has

a relatively unified governance structure, and in that there

are 178 approximately districts.

But the state board of education is directly responsible

for oversight of the state.

And so this is, again, I think a tension that we see still today

playing out all across the country is, is education actually a state

function or is it a local function?

And to what extent should we try to balance those things.

And so again, these are all the kinds of things that I just, that are, fascinating

to me on an intellectual level.

but and so then the point there is that.

the state board does have the authority to intervene in districts.

they could shut down a district entirely or whatever.

And interestingly, Denver, sued, color, the state back in the late

nineties to block charter schools because they claim that they were

a violation of local control.

And, the, Colorado Supreme Court denied that, claim on the grounds that the

state still maintains the authority to, intervene in cases where they think, it's

necessary to promote equity of access or opportunity or, performance or, any

of those, fundamental public purposes.

And so I think it is really important to recognize when I was first hired in DPS,

the district had for the first time at the time.

Just tried to close an extremely low performing charter school

and was overturned by the state.

And, I remember Michael Bennett telling me, we're never

gonna let that happen again.

And that's your job, Parker.

and part of that is what he meant was like, we need to actually own

this in a way that we can demonstrate to the state board that this school

should not be receiving public funds because it's not fulfilling its public

responsibilities and it has nothing to do, whether it's a charter school

or district school or anything else.

And the only way to do that is it was from Michael Bennett and Tom

Berg's eventually point of view was to actually become the best charter

authorizer we could possibly become.

And so it's no joke that a lot of the work, in Denver around trying to become

a strong charter school authorizer was to ensure that, that the district

actually maintained its authority to govern public education in the city.

Well, Parker, I the use of the term historic

that, I was referring to, yes.

There are historic things about the unprecedented nature of the reforms,

especially in the continuum of, public education across the United States.

There's also just the historic progress.

There's not that much reason to pay any attention to Denver, if they've made all

these changes and it hasn't done anything.

but your research shows in two very compelling bites at the Apple that what's

happened in Denver is unprecedented in terms of growth, of improvement, of equity

and excellence, and the job's not done.

But, it's in a, in an environment where Denver's itself is not even aware of this.

And I know Andy, you wanted to talk about, just the publicity and communications,

what was going on related to Denver?

I, for whatever reason, school board elections happened, started

happening in 2015 or 17, and sending things in the opposite direction.

But seemingly, without even being aware of the fact that Denver

is one of the national success stories, how, do you gr that?

And Andy, if there's something different around the messaging and communication.

no.

Before we get to that

though, we still haven't just gotten to, I think Park you should,

like you have, you did two studies.

Yeah.

I'll briefly summarize them and then you should fill in some details

just briefly and then we can, I think Jed's question's important.

One was looking at, data across the district and you found gains,

but it wasn't student level data.

You then spent several years trying to get student level data against

a fair amount of resistance.

And we could talk about that.

That's a weird thing.

that people were so reluctant to want you to have data to be able to do a

good, a better, even better analysis.

You then did a second one that had student level data and

found very significant effects.

And I guess I disagree with Jed a little bit in the sense of.

All this work in Denver.

If we, if, the results hadn't found anything interesting, I do

think that would be important.

That would be like we, we'd wanna know why and so forth.

Okay.

because it was such an ambitious set of reforms, but in fact

you found the opposite.

You found really substantial.

Jed used the word historic level gains for a, school reform project.

So what am I missing in the story there?

Phil was filling color.

Yeah.

So, thank you for, bringing me back to the present.

'cause I really do love the historical, but, but I do.

Yeah.

So just briefly to explain, we, we set out, when we first started this research,

to answer the question of whether Denver's reforms improved educational performance.

Citywide districtwide.

And, I should note that in itself is, relatively difficult to do almost

everywhere else other than Denver.

And, there are reasons for that, that we can talk about if we want, but Denver's

unified structure in which all of these different schools are operating.

So there were two, there are 200 total public schools in Denver,

50 of them are charter schools and 50 of them are innovation schools.

And the question, is it, does this actually result in better educational

outcomes and especially does it result in better educational outcomes

for the students who the district has historically failed to serve?

And through a series of two different studies.

we have examined this question, this basic question, did the

reforms work in the sense that, did they actually improve outcomes?

And so what we find is, on average these re these reforms resulted in

large academic gains in both subject areas for the average Denver student

across almost every subgroup and, and over multiple years of reform.

And we, look at 40,000 total students.

20,000 of them are part of the Denver reforms and 20,000 of them

are, are comparison students in surrounding districts who've been

matched on their demographics.

And so what we wanna know is, did a student, an A, the average student.

Benefit by going to Denver Public Schools instead of one

of the surrounding districts.

And

part of what is so historic is that it is, educational, improvement is rare.

in, to, it is rare to find strong educational improvement in

education research in itself, right?

Most interventions actually don't have an effect, and, are either negative or null.

But, part of what is remarkable is that not only are the results we find

consistently positive, but they, are among the largest ever observed in education

research in terms of their duration, their scale, and their actual size.

and

We see that the average Denver student who experienced the reforms, and it's

important to know we only look at kids who were in Denver before the

reforms began for at least two years, and then who were then thereafter.

So there's no way that, that something could be different

about this population of students.

And that was the critique of your first study, which was

like, from a descriptive standpoint, it told an important story, but we

couldn't quite, you couldn't say, 'cause you, it wasn't at that student level.

So you came back and what you're talking about now is you're able to

actually track the students so you can make sure these are actually students

who were there, not just on them.

Yes.

And

that's important.

That's important because another, again, interesting fact about Denver,

is that it added 20,000 new students.

When, between, from when these reforms first began all the way till 2019?

that's almost unheard of, right?

For a, large urban district that had a graduation rate of 39% and was among

the lowest performing in the state.

And so that in itself is a fascinating question.

Like what, that's part of what led us to looking at this.

But yes, our first study included all of the students that entered into DPS and

was at the school level, and so did not allow us to separate improvements that may

have come from, better performing students or students with more opportunities

coming into the district later.

Now it's important to note too, that's actually still an out, a

positive outcome of the reforms.

In many ways, that was actually one of the, points of the reform was

to bring people into the district.

But it is almost certainly the case that population that came in later

did have advantages perhaps that, that students who were in the district

before the reforms began really did.

And so another fascinating example of this, and again, another indicator

of success of these reforms is that, during the reform period, the percentage

of students enrolled in private school in Denver was cut in half.

and so from 15% to seven 8%, it's gone up now since the pandemic

some, and, as the reforms have.

Have, been changed, but I, that, in itself means that there are students in Denver

today who would never be there otherwise.

and, anyway, so that, that's, we, and let's

talk real quickly about getting that data.

'cause I think this is an important part of the story that sort of, I

suspect the average person who doesn't work in our sector is just watching

or listening to this and is of course you'd wanna evaluate this stuff, but

actually getting access to that student level data so you could come back and

do the more fine grained analysis.

That was a whole fight and you ran into sort of nonstop resistance, on that.

So talk a little bit about that.

that's, just a very illustrative thing about the politics of the sector.

Sure.

I think first of all, it's just important to remember.

That, 2015 we had this whole backlash against standardized

testing, opt out, et cetera.

And, in Colorado that the sort of anti-testing movement has

always actually been bipartisan.

There are people on the right who, wanna get rid of testing and

who don't like, data collection.

And there are people on the left who, who for different reasons, don't

like testing and data collection.

And yet that had, that's those two sides coalesced, during that period

to make it what kind of almost known within Colorado that it's hard to

get access to student level data.

So I think in some ways my, experience with the politics of education reform

before I became a researcher helped me.

to see that landscape before I began the research.

And so I definitely approached this research knowing that it, was going to

be difficult to get the data needed.

Interestingly, it might be interesting for your listeners, I

did not intend to do two studies.

IOI, it took me almost four years to get the actual student level data.

And the reason why I released the first study is because I, we, we were doing

the study, the goal was to do this entire study, this comprehensive study

that would look at both the system level indicators and student level indicators.

But, as we were proceeding, we were running into, Opposition.

And so first, the district itself refused to work with us

or, or acknowledge the research.

and, and then, I, were they doing a different evaluation?

did they have 'cause you would think, given all the

conversations of the sector about continuous learning and transparency,

they'd be excited to have high quality evaluation happening to learn from.

So was there I'm, trying.

I'm yeah.

And I'm trying to give them, they're doing steelman there.

What, seems a tricky position that they took.

is there any, is there any reason for it other than they didn't want, because

they had been elected on a platform that this was terrible and you were coming

in to see, is it in fact terrible?

Yeah, I think that's, it's just very difficult to separate.

There, the district's response from the change in leadership at the

school board and superintendent level.

and so if anything, I think the leadership of Denver public schools

during the reform period welcomed this kind of scrutiny, frankly, 'cause it

was confident that, what it was doing, would uphold, but, would, would be

able to sustain that kind of scrutiny.

I think, what's interesting is, that,

I think that people on, at both extremes of the education reform

debate have an interest in preventing nuanced understanding of these issues.

and so I think there's like a combination of factors where the district.

Was able to just say, we, aren't interested in exploring this.

we're going in a different direction.

I think also it's important to remember at the time that the

rhetoric, the political rhetoric was

was so comprehensive and so longstanding that lots of people actually believed

that the reforms had been harmful.

and I think still do believe, and so one extent the district just may have

not thought it was worth looking at.

I think, again, it's important to recognize even in a local control

state, that ultimately though the authority over, this data does come

from the State Board of Education.

And interestingly, the State Board of Education has, members that are

elected by congressional district.

And that also was a, an interesting process where I needed to try

to convince a majority of the members at the time it was nine,

to, to vote for in favor of releasing this data.

and so that process even after, getting rejected by the district, took, another,

year or so, until I was able to finally,

access the data.

I will share with you just a little bit of inside baseball, but, I was, trying

to get the state board to acknowledge my request, because that meant that they

would then need to place the item on the agenda and actually have a public

meeting about it and potentially ev vote.

but they, internally.

I, they were basically slow, walking the whole thing.

And, so finally, I threatened to show up at public comment, and to

basically make my request in public.

and, I was told, that wouldn't be necessary and that it would be on

the next board meeting's agenda.

and so I did go, and you can watch on YouTube, but they grilled me

for two hours, in a public meeting.

And there was a vote, which I, won by, one vote, a five to four.

fortunately two, moderate Democrats, two moderate Democrats, joined with the three

Republicans in favor of this research.

and and the four Democratic members who have been most.

Vocal about their opposition to education reform broadly in charter schools.

And,

so I'm ask you

to speculate on something, Parker, that you may not be

able to, but what would you estimate the percentage of the people who

are fighting against you on this?

What percentage of a sign on their front lawn about how much they love science?

Yeah.

I, won't, speculate.

I won't speculate on that, but

I'll just, say that, that part of the challenge of even talking about this

is that it sounds so unbelievable.

No, I tried to tell people this and they were like, they assumed

you had to be embellishing for a fact that like you struggle to get the data

Yes.

Yeah, no, an honor of, Bobby Weir, grateful Dead.

One of my favorite li lines is if you knew all about what went down,

it would burn off both your ears.

Oh, I thought you were gonna go with the

black throated wind line.

You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know.

Hey, now you're, now we know why Andy and I are Soul Brothers.

But, yeah, I, I, I really, it is, it's, it is, this is happening in almost

every area of our political life right now, where it feels like to talk about

reality is to sound like a crazy person.

Yeah.

And, yeah, I think it is really, it's really unfortunate that, that this,

this played, or this got to this level.

I guess I would just say where was media?

Oh, sorry Parker.

I just like talk.

Where was the media?

'cause this seems like a classic David and Goliath story that they would

like, the media generally wants stuff to be out in public and so forth.

That's their project.

So like where were they on all this?

We can talk about, I was stunned by the deafening silence when

the second study came out.

But prior, like where were they when you were fighting to try to get this release?

Were they just not aware of it?

'cause you were trying to do it discreetly behind the scenes?

I think that's, the main reason that they were not aware of it,

for most of the two years was that I really was trying not to play politics.

and one of my strategies in the face of extreme politics is to not play along.

and, what I mean by that is that I made my request where I. Work.

I'm, on the faculty of the, of a, state University School of public affairs.

I have, institutional review, board approval.

I did it all in a very straightforward way and did not try to pull strings or lobby

or anything like that because I wanted it to stand on its own because I knew that

it actually was deserving of approval.

Irrespective of any lobbying that I, or strings I could pull.

I think ultimately that, that was helpful because once I did decide to

contact the media, which was right around the time I was preparing to go

and give public comment, I, alerted them.

And I want to give a shout out to Erica Meltzer who, was at the time,

or just transitioning at the time from, from her role as bureau chief

for Chalkbeat, Colorado to, to her role today as, bureau ch, bureau

chief of, Chalkbeat, nationally.

she, bel she believed me and, then did her due diligence and discovered that

what I was telling her was correct and the answer she was getting from people

about why were not satisfying to her.

And so she actually wrote a series of articles.

that encourage anyone to, dig into, because they really

do tell, we'll, put those

in the show notes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

but then when the study came out though, I was struck how little national

attention there was and there was plenty of national attention to the fight

over the school board and all that.

So how little national attention there was to the results.

And even in Colorado, relatively, and honestly in the education

community, even the reform community, like I, it, it, there was like

a, the silence was deafening.

was that your, experience?

yes.

You know what I mean?

It's hard because honestly, academics are not very used to having their research get

publicized anyway, so I wanna be sure to, note that in and of itself, it's strange

to get a lot of attention, but I think.

Yes, in terms of the stakes at play, right?

How high the stakes are here, and in light of the really, intense politics

and, very explicit rhetoric around these reforms, I do think it's somewhat strange

that there has not been more coverage of,

of these improvements.

and I guess I would just point your listeners, and I imagine it, many

of you already have seen the article by Ravi Gupta, about New Orleans and

the reforms there, and this, I think it's the inconvenient truth of, of

reform in New Orleans, but I think it's essentially the same story.

You can read that and it's essentially the same story.

And, what I mean by that is that I think both.

New Orleans and Denver in different ways and to different extents and in different

context represents something that is truly threatening to both wings of the

education and policy debate in America.

They're, they, are truly threatening to the defenders of the existing

system because they, really do provide a, an a different alternative, model

that, evidence rigorous, empirical evidence indicates can be more,

effective than the traditional model.

But then also because they, for those on the right who are I think more

interested and more willing to basically blow up existing systems, the idea

that you could in fact create such dramatic improvement within, without.

Doing that.

it, both systems are radically different than the traditional

one, but they are, still within the paradigm of public education.

And I think for people who are, concerned with,

abandoning the paradigm of public education writ large,

I think it's very threatening.

I think another important thing to, to think about is the extent

to which traditional school systems are really one of the last remaining

entitlements for the middle class and even the upper middle class.

They are this thing that, that operates in ways to, to, provide privileged

opportunities to people with privilege.

And, so I do think that there is, almost like a cultural aversion, to,

to challenging the one best system or traditional unitary model in a

way that would really cause massive,

consequences all across society.

And the politics on that

are pretty through the looking glass, which I think is hard

for people to get their heads around.

I have to say though, I'm not, having grown so cynical,

I'm not at all surprised by the response of other parties.

This is what I would've expected.

The thing that, I just can't understand is the response of the ed reform

world ourselves, and especially of charter school people too.

I just, we have this last election and, the, press coverage afterwards talks

about, charter school advocates really saying the same thing that the teacher

union, advocates were talking about.

and it's like we ourselves can't claim that this has been, historic progress.

We ourselves can't, tell the Denver story.

It's like we shy away from it.

I think we shy away from New Orleans too.

The first thing we say, as Ed Reformers in urban context is, oh, we would

never wanna get to New Orleans.

Don't get me wrong, we're not talking about New Orleans.

Oh my God.

Not New Orleans.

when really there's nothing to be ashamed of about the progress that's been made

in New Orleans over the last 20 years.

All sorts of problems, all sorts of mistakes.

Like we made mistakes in Denver too, of course.

but Parker, what's your reaction to, that?

how do you think the ed reform world ourselves are responding to this?

And are we telling the story as we should be?

Yeah.

So this is a complicated question and with a complicated answer,

but I'm gonna try, I'll try not to, go off in lots of different

directions and try to stay focused.

But, it's important to recognize that the reaction of reformers to both New Orleans

and Denver is can't be disconnected from the larger campaign of opposition that

has been in place for over a decade now.

and.

And so I think especially when we consider just the comprehensive nature

of the existing system and how truly dominant it is even still today, 30 years

after what we first began introducing these alternative delivery mechanisms,

it is, still, I think, true that, that many people have an almost instinctual,

sort of sympathy for the traditional system.

And so I think the more that people heard that messaging, the harder

it was for them to, to feel brave enough to even, challenge it.

And these things are complicated, right?

And so in some places, some of these claims are true.

In other places they're not.

I guess one thing I think is important.

I'm gonna try to say this as concisely as possible, but I think

that within re within the reform movement, there have always been

these multiple wings of, reform.

And so I think that certainly, Denver is representative of a particular wing,

but there have, but there also have been others with, who have supported

the reforms, but not necessarily for the reasons that the people who

led the reforms in Denver and in New Orleans, might have for themselves.

And so what I mean by that is that I think, there is still a big contingent

of people who consider themselves education reformers who are primarily

about improving the existing system.

They're the Marshall Tuckers of, the, basically trying to, double

down on, on the core model.

and I think what's interesting about one of the things that's interesting

about Denver is that it combined these people who were really trying to

improve the traditional system, without necessarily changing it all that much.

and then other people who actually were on a, on, it really saw a, an opportunity

to completely re reinvent everything.

And so I think that part of what happened in Denver was that you,

have people who, as charters and innovation schools continue to

grow, and as that generates more and more backlash from the traditional

system, including from teachers,

Though, the people who maybe were not necessarily on board with the theory of

change, that created the reforms, but they were supportive of them in general,

started to get uncomfortable with them in a way that made them, unwilling even to

defend them even in the face of success.

and I, do think,

that is definitely,

partly responsible for this.

I also think another aspect of this is that context is so different everywhere.

There's so much variation across the country, in the

way that these things work.

That there are lots of features in Denver that I don't think people

ever really fully understood or even were willing to believe were true.

and, that, then, on.

That combined with the nationalization of the political debate around

these reforms meant that, it became really difficult to hold on to the

differences and, to live in that nuance.

live in the question like I like to tell my students, but that I think that

the more, and, certainly as polarize, things get more and more polarized.

The, center actually shrinks.

and the space for that kind of nuanced, reform, goes away.

You said an interesting thing there that I, mean we need to, we

don't need to double click on it, but just, you've got people who kind of wanna,

there's almost like three camps now.

You've got people who wanna double down on the existing system.

You got people who wanna double down on the existing principles, but are open

to new ways for delivery and so forth.

And then you got some people who, neither of those things is very

interested, interesting to them.

They're pushing off in new, very different and sort of radical directions.

And they're

and, maybe it's part of the reasons where it's a stasis around reform

is none, neither of those camps are entirely strong enough to carry the day.

Yeah.

Yes.

I, think that's right.

And,

and that, the attempt to do these reforms in a way that was not like explicitly

adversarial to the district itself did I think, cause this, Create a dynamic

where people may have been unwilling to, do things that in other places, in other

contexts they would absolutely have done.

and so just to give you an example, I mentioned there are

50 charter schools in Denver.

Half of them are in district facilities.

And so it, it's just a very, that's, it's a fundamental thing that then

arguably compromises charters, right?

In the sense that maybe then they aren't as, autonomous and willing

to be themselves, et cetera.

We can talk about that, but it's, not clear that we would have 50

charter schools in Denver if the district hadn't offered half of

them space in its own facilities.

And so it, it, we have to be real about, about the,

politics of the possible, right?

And, that like what it takes to actually make progress here it is, I don't, I

think is probably some level of compromise between these sort of idealistic visions

of what we think should happen and what is actually possible, on the ground.

I'm glad that you, believe that there are some

idealistic visions that are out there.

I'm not aware of any.

and,

let me give you one.

let me just say it as an example.

Like the idea that we are going to just like suddenly flip a switch and

we could make all schools, charter schools is I think some people's vision

and yet not, I think a realistic.

vision for the immediate future or one that, likely.

And so the, and the reason for that, again, I'm not like, part of this is

my own learning through this, where it is just remarkable how durable the

existing, traditional model really is.

And, and as we all know, there are lots of places where charters are really

operating at the margins, of the system.

And, and I am, I, one of the lessons I learned from, from, Paul Hill and,

also I guess from Ted Calie is just the, importance of recognizing that

charters are an institutional innovation and that what they're really about

is, providing an alternative model.

For fulfilling the public and private purposes of education in a free society.

And from my point of view that if we're serious about that, then that means,

trying to recognize the extent to which autonomy at the school level, choice among

schools, accountability for performance are all things that are actually,

that actually require public action.

And that probably can't be done solely through the private sphere.

And so I think that, I don't want to try to characterize anyone in any, kind

of generalistic sense or, whatever.

But it's more, I'm just trying for us.

To say, to recognize that likely the answer is going to be different

in different contexts everywhere.

And that there are like different stages of this, work that actually we are at

different, like there are different places that are at different stages.

And so I think we need to be much more thoughtful about what that means

and, like what it would look like to have, a sort of unified theory

of change amidst the reality of that kind of diversity of experience.

So I don't know if that,

this, this, I could go on for another half hour here.

We, I, but, we, but I have at least another question or two here.

I, appreciate Parker, you spending this time this, and I love the nuance.

this conversation is great.

I like, I will also say, I think there's just some broad swaths that are true here.

One is that the backlash has just been scary.

and it's making people, some people lack the courage to go through it.

And, the experience in Indianapolis right now and what people are living

through there, I think speaks to that.

if you, name the, unnameable, this is what happens to you.

Second thing is, I don't know if it's our natural impulses or if we're being

coached to, into a point of saying.

Don't say anything negative about the traditional system.

The, on the margin voters don't like it, so give up your critique and

without any critique, then we don't have any fuel to keep going forward.

But the thing I think more than anything else is.

In places where we get to 30, 40, 50% of kids in charter

schools, we run out of ideas.

We run outta gas.

What's happening all over the place.

And the thing that's just interesting about New Orleans is I don't think

that the storm was the anomaly.

The anomaly was the vision.

An idea for finishing the job and the way we finish the job

is not the way we start the job.

You've got to bring all sorts of schools into innovation

status or something like that.

In New Orleans, they were unapologetic about it.

There are gonna become charter schools, that's fine.

In other places we might wanna call them different things.

Mayoral academies, innovation schools, renaissance schools.

I don't care what they are, finishing the evolution of the system toward

an end state, consistent with what we started in the first place.

And our inability to say what that thing is and to call it a noble thing to aspire

to is, in my mind, the central failure.

Yeah.

That's holding us back right now.

So,

let me, respond to some of this, in a couple different ways.

'cause I think you're, I think this is a really important issue that I

certainly think about, maybe all the time.

but so I think, First of all, part of what, we talked earlier about what, I find

so interesting about, Denver and one of the things I find so interesting about

Denver is precisely this point, is that the reforms were built around the idea

that the traditional model was failing and was destined to fail into the future.

And not only was it ineffective and un and, inefficient, it was unjust.

And, I think we have somehow lost the ability to claim this injustice and to

name it and to stand for the idea that we can and must do better as a, free society.

And, and so yeah, I mean I think this is really one of

the things that is, definitely.

most fascinating for me is how much pressure there has been

to abandon that, that kind of, that way of talking about this.

because it really does mean that actually today, even at, systems in, most places

actually still have almost all of the pathologies that led to the creation of

this reform movement in the first place.

And so it's something that again, is, why, is another reason why it's very,

important to recognize the elements of Denver's reforms that are not about

charters, not about innovation schools.

They're actually about making the traditional system function.

More equitably for everyone.

And we've talked a lot about charters and I know, that's in, in, innovation schools

are an example, but, or another example, but, things like forced teacher placement,

Like one of that was one of, Tom Boberg.

I'll never forget, I, witnessed how angry it made him when he learned that

the, only schools that were receiving forced place teachers were the schools

serving the most vulnerable students.

And so it, people need to know that, that, Tom Boberg, made a change in 2010, said an

after a state law that helped, passed by.

Mike Johnson, now mayor.

but at the state and district level, they were working to fundamentally change

these elements of the traditional model, which are, demonstrably inequitable.

and, and that, that's a great example where people may not know, but the,

Colorado Education Association, the Statewide Teachers Union and

the Denver Teachers Union spent a decade stewing in court to block the

provision that ended force placements.

And I think it, that's just, if we could talk politics for a second,

it's really important to think about when were they doing that?

Why did they sue instead of fight publicly?

I'm almost sure that it's because Obama was in the White

House reform was bipartisan.

The idea that we weren't gonna address things like last in,

first out or fourth placement of teachers or in equitable internal

district funding allocations, right?

Like those were not gonna probably, at least at that

time sell well with the public.

So they went to court and they lost repeatedly and finally

lost at the Supreme Court.

But like those are still issues that people fighting about today in Colorado

and, like you need to understand charter politics and choice politics

in connection to that, those politics also, that we're actually still fighting

to defend the existing system tooth and nail, even in places where there

has been massive change for the better.

So lightning round question for you.

How much of this overlay every, a lot of people are watching?

So Michael Bennett, he worked for the former mayor, became the superintendent,

was appointed to the Senate, has won reelection, multiple times since then,

but he's now, his term was then for a few more years in the Senate, but he is

running for governor and he's running against the state's attorney general.

And the big flashpoint seems to be like, how much are we about, we democrats

about building for the future versus how much that just fight Trump now?

is there an education overlay to that primary?

sorry, I said lightning round then I asked you a long question, but, okay.

Oh, oh.

Is there an education overlay to that primary education reform

overlay related to some of the stuff we've been talking about?

Number one and number two, do you

have any predictions on how that primary is gonna go?

I definitely do think there is some overlay, in the upcoming

primary, it for, the governor in Colorado.

I think really, and this is again, in some ways why it's so interesting

is that Denver in many ways is this microcosm of the larger national

challenges around these issues.

And democrats are debating whether we should, whether Democrats should

moderate or whether they should, double down on and move left.

and I think that in some ways, like that actually is a question in this,

in this upcoming election is whether, whether there is actually still a

vital center, whether there is still a place where people can agree, that,

We may, not be able to agree about whether to keep the system exactly as

it is or whether to blow it up entirely, but at least we can agree that we should

be doing things that, make progress.

and there's lots of evidence that Colorado has had, lots of progress

with, not just in Denver, but across the state, through many of the reform

strategies that have now become so unpopular among a certain set.

that's one point I would just make though about this, is that I do think

it's, a mistake to think that reform is unpopular in Denver be because

of the flipping back and forth.

First of all, part of what makes Denver so, interesting is that,

reformers held almost un unanimous control for almost a decade.

Five board elections.

Four bond elections.

So that is, the change is actually post 2019.

And I think if anything, what we're seeing is the incoherence of trying to

undo reforms which have created better outcomes and more equitable access.

And so it's the, I hope that the, the debate doesn't devolve into these

national level, talking points, because I think actually what's most exciting

about Colorado is that we can be a place where people actually focus

on what's real and what's in front of them and, and are practical and

pragmatic about, about what's possible.

And, and so I'm hopeful there,

I, do think it does, it will come down to whether Democrats in the state

and other, moderates, we have lots of independents, whether they will be

able to come together and stand up for, improvement, even if that improvement

requires challenging the status quo.

Status quo.

Love it.

On the macro, any, my, my last You got away without the predict.

Do you have a prediction or is it just hard to tell yet?

Oh, I think it's very hard to tell.

I think, I think definitely, Michael Bennett has a lot of support.

bill Wiser has lots of support too, but there's actually lots of overlap there.

And so that's where it get, perhaps will get interesting.

But I think, yeah, I think I do.

Just if we could just make sure to talk about, what concerns me about, the future

more broadly of this work and, About, some of the sort of immediate points

in terms of, the need for leadership.

I think you know more.

Yeah.

This is your,

moment to do that because I think Jed was about to bring us in for a

landing, so you get this, as well.

This is, it was really in this, I this is fantastic as you lawyer,

as you lawyers say, this is

your closing statement.

Yeah.

But it was, it give us the future, in Denver specifically too.

Optimism, pessimism, and it seemed like you were going there naturally Anyway.

Pat Parker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

so I think it, it is, tempting to look at Denver and say, oh, reform has failed.

And look, it, we had to do something else.

And I think, that is a mistake because it underestimates the extent to which the

reforms have really changed the allocation of power and control in the city.

and, I think also.

Underestimates, the extent to which the system has been, changed in ways that make

it demonstrably more effective and more equitable that are gonna be hard to undo.

On top of that, remember we have 30,000 students out of 80,000 that are in

autonomous public schools in Denver still.

And, and if anything, I think one example of this is that, even though all of

this stuff is still so controversial, the school board, the new school board,

which is now controlled entirely by, candidates that were supported by the

teacher's union, and they have been very vocal about their opposition to

reforms, they're likely to approve.

next week unanimously the renewal of five.

Charter schools and just, and, are also likely to renew, Denver's one innovation

zone with seven innovation schools.

And it's just important to, to not yeah, sometimes we can get distracted,

by other things that are more, maybe more sexy or more exciting.

but actually the, sort of long-term sustainability work is, I think the

kind of work that is what will actually get us to scale, in, a more broad way.

And so I really respect and admire the work that Brandon Brown is doing in

mine trusts in Indianapolis because it's so representative for me of

exactly what we've been talking about, this whole conversation, where as

that system has fragmented over time.

the new operators who actually care about public education as a goal and not a

particular set of institutions, right?

Big lesson from Paul Hill, but the people that are in that city that are there to

provide public education and that have that as their goal, they recognize that

something has to change in the future if they are gonna go to the next level.

And I think, again, that Denver has lots of those elements already in place.

And, it's rather than trying to, which is better, which is worse, like for

me, both of them need to be held up as examples because this kind of work is

going to be different because we have 50 different states with vastly different,

educational governance models, et cetera.

And I am,

I, am very hopeful that,

that, the.

These examples will actually, become the foundation for the,

this a new vision of the future.

one thing I just gotta say about your, some of your, focus on the

North Star, the need for North Star and the short movement.

I think one thing I'm concerned about is that I do think there is a tension

between the growth goal there, on the North Star and the goal to the

question to what's next, all kids.

and the,

the, the other, what is the,

the, the, other on the star, remind me of your, sorry, I'm, blanking on

your, but basically that there's a tension between Oh, public that, apol, I

apologize, but this tension between the growth of, these alternatives and then

the desire to hold strong to the idea that we're not actually trying to do

something other than public education.

We are actually trying to provide education at the public

expense in the most equitable and effective way we possibly can.

And for me, that's intention with growth, especially because we know that these,

sectors are so different across the country that I think it's possible that

some growth in some places actually doesn't move us towards the question

two or to, or, and, doesn't provide a new vision for what public might mean.

So I don't know if you wanna respond to that or if we have time, but I just, I

wanna, think about whether that, whether the, pol, the political pressure to

maintain coherence within the movement might limit our ability to actually,

message what we're trying to do more clearly to the public.

we could definitely go down this for one, for quite, quite a

while in terms of landing this plane.

I will just say that I do, I did choose the five points of, a,

star for the charter school world.

very intentionally, and I don't think that you can make it work with four.

And what you're basically saying is, Hey, if you pull out, the part

of qe the question two part that results in all schools getting

better and all schools getting fairer, then it, falls apart on us.

And and I think it's really great to have people like you pushing on us and

saying, Hey, you've gotta make sure that this all wraps together into, a

comprehensive vision for the future.

but I also just think what you've shared today, Parker, along so

many lines, it's just so helpful.

It's just so help, I've learned a ton from this.

I'm looking forward to our beer and coffee time as I come and

visit my folks in the months ahead.

But just thank you for this.

Thank you for your work.

I, can't wait.

I know you're working on a big book.

I can't wait to see that.

just really appreciate everything you've shared today.

Thank you very

much.

Just, yeah.

Fantastic.

Yes, a lot.

I think a lot here for people who listened and not just a deep dive on Denver

where I agree with you, by the way.

I don't think reform failed.

I think reform politics failed and we've talked about that before and there's,

some reasons for that.

and so on that, but also then just the more larger implications

of it and, what it means.

So thank you just so much for your, your

time.

lemme close on one, one point real quickly that I hope will resonate with

your listeners is that one of the most,

hopeful aspects of my work, now that I'm teaching, and researching is that

I now have students who are in my graduate courses who went to schools in

Denver that did not exist a decade ago.

And, that I'm hopeful because there are thousands, tens of thousands.

of those students that are, in, in coming out of better systems like

Denver and in New Orleans and in Houston and all over the country.

And that, there really is a, new generation of, young people that I think

are gonna be unwilling to have their experience denied and, and are, going to

challenge the idea that, that there is only one way to provide public education.

And, that, that keeps me hopeful.

Love that.

Love that.

Thanks.

Thank you so much, Parker.

Thanks Jed.

Good to see you.

Yeah, you too.

You guys take care.