Ana Ponce grew up in a Los Angeles neighborhood where dropping out of school was a part of life. But she managed to become the first person in her family to attend high school. She then graduated and went on to college.
She became a teacher at a bilingual school where she offered to tutor students — sixth graders who couldn’t read or write in English or Spanish. “That, really, was what called me to this work,” Ponce said, referring to her work as CEO of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. The network of public charter schools now serves more than 3,200 students near downtown Los Angeles.
“I grew up with those families that live in that community. I’m very much connected to who they are and all of the valuable assets that they bring to the schools and to themselves as individuals.” That connection has made all the difference in her schools, where graduation rates for local students have skyrocketed. At a briefing hosted by the Black Alliance for Educational Options and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Ponce said, “We have to understand who the kids are in order to serve them well.”
Research generally shows that students learn better from teachers and school leaders who are the same race as them. Yet in the top-down world of traditional public schools, it can be difficult for minorities to make their way into positions of power. The bottom-up model of public charter schools empowers minorities to open schools with leadership that reflects the local background.
For example, when Emilio Pack founded STEM Preparatory Academy in Los Angeles, he was able to reach out to minorities to serve on the school’s board. “As long as I have a school, the majority of my board will be minorities who come from the communities we serve. I want that board looking like the kids we serve,” Pack said.
Given their relative autonomy, charters can also be intentional about hiring minority teachers. Alisha Morgan, the executive director of Ivy Prep Academies near Atlanta, says charter principals have much more flexibility in hiring teachers than their traditional public school counterparts. “We absolutely have that level of autonomy and not those bureaucratic systems in place that prevent you from finding the right talent that meets the needs of your school,” Morgan said.
Native American students face challenges that few other students do. So it helps when they grow up and come back to be teachers in their communities. Kara Bobroff, the executive director of the Native American Community Academy in Albuquerque, N.M., says some of their graduates want to come back and teach at their school. “It’s a huge opportunity to be able to identify people in our community who can bring in knowledge that doesn’t exist in a textbook,” Bobroff said. “Our greatest strength is our mission,” and she said her school has the power to find teachers that identify with that mission.
For now, there’s still a pipeline issue: Too few minority students are getting a quality education that enables them to be teachers or school leaders. “We need to have a pipeline, and role models, and kids that are being taught by people that look like them and come from experiences similar to theirs. And that has to be very intentional, and in charter schools you have that autonomy,” Ponce said. Camino Nuevo is doing its best to fix the problem. The school’s minority students are thriving. That accomplishment is possible in a school where a majority of the staff are people of color — teachers, administrators and executives.
Correction: a previous version of this article said STEM Preparatory Academy is in Nashville, Tenn.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
