The purpose of public education, as introduced by the nation’s founders and repeated throughout the constitutions of all 50 states and territories in numerous ways, was to ensure a system would exist for the provision of teaching children and students. When that system began to fail to do just that, it was challenged, then slowly began a transformation. The result today is a slowly but surely changing environment for education, one that moved us in many states and cities from a public school ‘system’ to a new, more responsive and more relevant ecosystem of schools.
Because we have seen the sheer magic created when citizens, leaders, and educators are given the ability to create or manage their own schools through the 27-year-old charter school movement here, because we have seen what happens when the less-affluent have access to the private schools that affluent people have always chosen over low-quality public school, because we have seen the innovations that can occur in traditional public schools when educators are given wide berth to innovate, we know that more than just one model is necessary to educate kids, create community, and help all achieve prosperity and happiness.
