Javier Hernandez’ May 9, 2014 article in The New York Times, Charters, Public Schools and a Chasm Between, highlights the challenges that district and charter schools can face as they compete to educate our nation’s children.  As the article points out, however, successful district-charter partnerships do exist.  The difference is this: when educators come together around the shared goal of helping students succeed, and when schools structure themselves in support of that goal, collaboration – not competition – flourishes.

Envision Learning Partners (ELP), the consultancy division of Envision Education, helps other schools adopt or adapt the Envision Schools model, a model that is succeeding in our three Bay Area charter high schools.  Our schools are perfect examples of the “test kitchen” idea Hernandez refers to: we designed our schools with the goal of giving kids the tools and resources they need to succeed in college and we want as many students as possible to benefit from a system that is clearly working for our mostly low-income and minority students.

We know our model works: 90% of our students are going to college, both 2 and 4 year, and 85% are persisting once they get there, beating the national persistence rate of 60%.  We are happy with these results, but we also believe that every student in the nation deserves to attend schools that will help them succeed.  Our goal is not to get more charter schools to follow our lead: our goal is to contribute to a growing movement to help all schools and students achieve similar results.

For example, ELP is currently partnering with two major school districts, Los Angeles Unified and Sacramento Unified, to define a graduate profile that, when achieved, will ensure that hundreds of thousands of American students are prepared for the future.  This kind of collaboration is exactly what the charter school movement was created for: to test, prove, and then expand successful strategies for offering the highest quality education possible to all students and families.

We find similar collaboration in our own cities as well.  Our San Francisco school shares space with a SFUSD school; faculties from both schools hold instructional rounds together and share practices on a regular basis.  With a common focus on student success, the two schools find not only cooperation but true collaboration.

In Hernandez’ article, Michael Mulgrew likened the charter-district relationship to The Hunger Games: cut-throat, last-entity-standing all out war.  We know that the opposite can also be true.  District schools and charters can instead be The Avengers, joining forces for social justice and educational equity.

— Bob Lenz, Founder & Chief of Innovation of Envision Education