If I were King of the district

I've never understood why districts didn't charter more schools.  I take that back.  I think it's sad that bureaucratic inertia has kept some of the people who know education best from being part of the innovative and student-centered charter school movement.

I've been drafting this post for some time, when I saw this today in the Tribune.  (It's next to impossible to find anything education-related in the DNews since they've redone their website--if there is any education reporting going on over there anymore at all.)  The Granite District just chartered a high school for refugees.  Well, that undercuts my point of this post at some level, since they are following my advice before the post went up, but it also strengthens my argument, and I hope that other districts will follow suit.

If I were the King of a growing school district (which is most of them in Utah) I'd be a leader in charter schools.  Chartering by districts is a win-win-win situation.  I hope more districts will break free of their entropic (spell check tells me this isn't a word, but I'm using the adjective form of the noun "entropy," meaning the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system) morass.

Here's my ideal scenario, and this could work in any growing district in the state.  First, identify a non-growing area of the district.  For Canyons, this would be Cottonwood Heights or Midvale, where the school-age population is shrinking, in Alpine it would be older sections of Orem.  Most districts, even large and growing ones, have such pockets of stagnation or shrinkage.  Districts deal with this by transporting students from higher growth areas, at great expense to the district, to older schools that aren't at capacity.

Second, pick one of the dynamic and innovative principals working in the district.  Give that principal carte blance to design the ideal school.  Pretend that union rules don't apply (they don't), that district policies don't apply (they don't either), that you have a blank slate on which to design the perfect school.  Shoot for the moon.  Get really good people to serve on the school's board.

Now comes the hard part.  Close that shrinking school as a district operation.  I know that would cause some consternation among the neighbors, but remember, I'm the King.  I can do this by divine right.  And it wouldn't be so bad, anyway, because any student within two miles of the school would get preferential enrollment in the charter, if they choose to attend it.  Many will, many won't.  Those that don't will get a bus ride to another district school.

Charge this new charter school the one percent authorizer fee that's authorized by statute.  Also, charge the new charter school a market rate for rent on the older school building they occupy.  This is pure profit to the district, since the building was bought long ago and the bonds have already been paid off.  Also, my district would be the new charter's business office, again at a reasonable, market rate.

In case you missed how this is good for my district:

• I've reduced the rate of growth in my district to a more manageable level by shifting students to a new charter school
• I've turned a money-neutral asset into a revenue generating asset by leasing an under-occupied, older school building
• I've increased my per-student funding by taking advantage of local replacement funding and allowed my locally raised property taxes to educate the fewer students enrolled in my district
• I've further increased efficiency for the district by sharing the job of business management and oversight with a service contract and authorizer fee
• And most important, I've empowered one of my star leaders in the district to innovate and provide a working model for educational options that, if they are successful, we can implement across the district.

Parents nearby the school may opt to stay at the neighborhood school that's now a charter, or they may feel more comfortable and think that a traditional program they're used to is better for their child.  Since I was already busing students into this school to ease overcrowding elsewhere in the district, it costs me no more to bus those students to another nearby school.  In fact, overall transportation costs will go down as I won't be providing transportation for families to attend the new charter school.  (I'm sick of calling it "the new charter school," so I'm now naming it King Lincoln Academy, or KLA.)  My transportation system just became more efficient, too.

Parents who have been thirsty for a choice now have a new one.  I'll probably draw some parents who have previously left the district to a state-authorized charter school, each one bringing new funding.  Those students are getting just what they want from a school.  And my dynamic KLA principal is trying innovative new practices and methodologies.  Some of them get great results, and we implement them more widely.  Some aren't so good, and we abandon those before too long, learning a valuable lesson about what doesn't work.

I've now got a training ground for new teachers, a working model where we can test new theories and practices before implementing them widely.  I get to see how union rules really do affect learning and student achievement because KLA doesn't negotiate with the teachers' union. I get to experiment with different compensation models to find out what really draws teachers into the profession, keeps them there, and motivates them to constantly improve.  

And since this KLA thing went so well, I do a handful more of these schools, with different approaches to education, having several different models available to serve different models of students--no two are alike--and meets their individual needs better.  Not everything works the way I want it to, but we can make changes on a single-school basis much easier than we can steer the Titanic School District that has more than a hundred years of inertia and a mess of union rope meant to keep things as they are.

But I'm sick of the status quo.  I know that my results aren't as good as they could be, so I'm trying new things so we can identify what improves things for our students, and what doesn't.  And what works for these kids, and what works for those.  I'm trusting my parents and they return that trust in us.  Now that I have some charters, I see that 94 percent of those parents are satisfied with their school, which is almost 50 percent higher than I used to have district-wide.

I'm really liking this KLA model.  My district wins with models for innovation, increased funding and efficiency, and more satisfied parents.  Parents who choose KLA are getting what they want and are highly satisfied, and parents who choose to stay with the traditional district get more funding and the benefit of the innovations that we've discovered really work at increasing educational outcomes and parent and teacher satisfaction.  Now, which district has a King that is willing to take a bold step and lead out on reform?

A: Granite.

I hope.  I raise a glass to you, Martin Bates and the Granite School Board, and wish you the success that leads to lots of copy cats.