The Learning Curve Sean Woytek And Robert Maranto
[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Hey everybody. How’s it going? Welcome to another episode of The Learning Curve podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts this week, Albert Cheng and co-hosting with me this week is the charming, articulate, witty, Walter Blanks.
[00:00:14] What’s up Walter?
[00:00:15] Walter Blanks: Hey Albert. It’s so good to be with you. Thanks for having me once again.
[00:00:18] Albert Cheng: Oh yeah, yeah. Love having you, uh, co-host and then on the show. So thanks for doing this. We’ve got an exciting one today we’re gonna be talking about charter schools that focus on academics. I mean, that feels a little weird to say, like, what do you mean?
[00:00:30] Don’t schools all kind of focus on academics at the very least? But you know, as you and I know Walter, we’ve seen some schools kind of lose their way a bit in terms of focusing on basic academics.
[00:00:40] Walter Blanks: Yeah, I mean it’s what a what a novel idea, right? Teaching students in school how to, you know, read and think critically and do math.
[00:00:47] That’s a crazy idea these days, but I believe we’re starting to see a shift towards that in that direction. And so really excited to be a part of this conversation.
[00:00:55] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, to recover some of that. And I don’t think you and I are of the camp that academics is the only thing that matters in school.
[00:01:01] I mean, there’s lots that matter for. Forming people and our students. Well, but man, I mean, some of the stuff out there where academics is completely ignored, that feels, you know, something’s missing there. Which I think takes us to our news stories. You know, speaking of a focus on academics, you caught something about math education, or at least preparing teachers to teach math.
[00:01:21] Walter Blanks: Yeah, so this article is from Joanne Jacobs. Her side is thinking and linking, and the title of it is Math Teacher was trained on Equity and Culture, but not how to teach Math. And it’s just a great lead into what we’re talking about. And this article talks about how students are spending more time talking about and discussing what she calls social issues, right?
[00:01:43] And so they estimated that 10 to 15% of the coursework. It was about math or teaching, and then the rest of it was dedicated to social issues. It says the adolescent development course had one chapter on psychology. There was little discussion. The class went on six chapters dedicated to social issues, and it is, it is.
[00:02:04] So wild, because of course in education and schooling, there is a place for those debates and those kinds of conversations. But can we at least get the foundation established first? Right? Reading on grade level, thinking critically and executing math at a high level. I think that’s far more important and, and kind of in my circles.
[00:02:24] There’s this kind of adage and this joke that end quote that says, you know, if those kids could read, they would be disappointed. Right? And it’s like, yeah, like that’s a real thing. And there’s has been such a push over the last probably five or six years, maybe even longer, around this. Like I. Social justice, social warrior perspective, and I think there is a place for that in education, but I think it’s far more important to focus on the technical Sydor education and academics first, and then allow students to kind of gradually step into that.
[00:02:54] It’s a progression. Yeah. And when you have people. You know, identifying with, you know, their race or their culture before they can, you know, do their times, tables or order of operations right. In school, that’s a big issue. And so I think with the current shift in education, we’re seeing a push towards backs to normalcy, right back to what made our country great, which was actually educating our young.
[00:03:15] Albert Cheng: Yeah. You know, and, and I mean, I caught that article too, and, and look as a former math teacher and, and math major, I mean, I’ve kind of long held the position that both at the high school and even at the elementary school levels, you’ve gotta beef up the math content expertise. I mean, I’m not expecting every kindergarten teacher to know everything about Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, but.
[00:03:36] There’s something about being familiar with the tradition of mathematics to be able to teach it. Well, I mean, in the same way I like to say, you know, I wanna learn Shakespeare from someone who’s an expert on Shakespeare because that person is gonna help me see things and help me fall in love with Shakespeare, and is able to draw on tons of knowledge and experience with it and to bring me into it.
[00:04:00] And I think there’s something, there’s an analog. When we think about math education too. And to do that though, we, we’ve gotta focus on preparing teachers to have that kind of content knowledge. So great find of an article certainly caught my eye too. And, you know, for my article, I, I just want to maybe look at the reading Sydor things.
[00:04:16] You know, I actually happened to find a different article on Education Week that was featuring a, a new study that came out. It was actually a study of studies. Um, so in this study they found over 50 different prior research articles on. Teaching spelling. And the main headline there is that, you know, with this empirical research, there’s pretty good evidence that teaching spelling boosts reading skills, which I dunno, maybe seems kind of obvious to me.
[00:04:42] But, you know, Walter, I don’t know about you, but I find sometimes my. Basic spelling skills are atrophying because of all the spell check type stuff that we have on our devices. And I can’t imagine what it’s like for our kids who now grow up with this technology and don’t need to exercise that spelling muscle.
[00:04:59] But beyond that spelling, I think we give it a bad rap. And even some of the, the literacy initiatives that we’re seeing across the states that you were alluding to, they don’t really. Call out spelling explicitly. And so we’ve got a lot of work to do here in terms of drawing some attention to this focus on basic literacy and spelling in particular to really boost our reading skills and, and make sure as you say, you know, make sure our kids can read well.
[00:05:23] But anyway, I, I dunno if you have reactions on, on the, uh, literacy Sydor things.
[00:05:27] Walter Blanks: Yeah, it’s, and it is super important too to go, to, go back to basics, right? And it’s a progression. And so being able to read and spell check and think critically once again, is such a, an important dynamic. And like you said, I, there are times where I just am so dependent on spell check and all of these different things, but even now with, with my 18th month son, right, we are like thinking about those like technical things.
[00:05:49] And sometimes I even have a hard time like reading cursive. Right. I had it in cursive and I was really struggling to read it. And so just once again, emphasizing the basics before we get into a lot of these high level conversations. And it’s simple, right? It’s not easy to execute, but I think it’s so important to go back to what works and it’s like you said, spelling, reading in math.
[00:06:11] And if children can get those core foundations early. They’ll be in a much better spot throughout their college career.
[00:06:16] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, well said. And, and just one last note be of cursive I, I’ve actually made it a little personal practice of mine when I sit in meetings and take notes on my little notebook to write in cursive.
[00:06:28] ’cause I wanna keep that fresh and make my handwriting beautiful. And speaking of other things to emphasize teaching cursive, not just for anything practical, but hey, ’cause it’s beautiful and we want our kids to do beautiful things. So anyway, I think that’s another show. So, uh, we’ll have to pin it there.
[00:06:46] Stick around. We’re gonna talk to Dr. Robert Morrano and Sean Ek about basis charter schools and the great work that they’re doing there. So that’s coming up after the break.
[00:06:58] : When all that, once a mighty heard red eye cows, he saw plow ragged ski, end of cloudy draw.
[00:07:10] Albert Cheng: Robert Marto is the 21st century chair in leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.
[00:07:17] Previously, he taught at Villanova and served in government. In the Clinton years, he has also served on his local school board. Bob Edits the Journal of School Choice and with others has produced 18 scholarly books, including Educating Believers Religion and School Choice Education Reform in the Obama era, the Politically Correct University, and most recently, the free inquiry papers here earned his bachelor’s from the University of Maryland and his PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.
[00:07:49] Sean EK serves as the Associate Vice President of Academics and Instruction at Basis Education Texas, where he is responsible for the academics instruction and leadership development of 11 charter school campuses. His distinguished career as a head of school includes leading a high school ranked 58th in the nation, securing $19 million in funding for a campus.
[00:08:12] Built on the grounds of Fort Lewis College and establishing the sole bond and mill levy collaboration between a state charter and a Colorado school district. He holds master’s degrees from Walden University, the University of Denver, and the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, in addition to a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.
[00:08:32] Robert Marto and Sean ek. Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Great being here.
[00:08:38] Sean Woytek: Yeah, nice being here.
[00:08:39] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s start by talking about your article, who actually you also co-wrote with Jameson White in Education. Next, it was entitled, why Academically Intensive Charter Schools Deserve Our Attention.
[00:08:50] So Sean, let’s start with you. Tell us briefly about your work, and then why. Why did you and and Bob decide to write this piece?
[00:08:59] Sean Woytek: I mean, I think looking back, I had, so I just got done writing my dissertation. I was presenting at a conference and when I was writing my dissertation, I couldn’t find a model of schools that, that encompass what I was trying to do.
[00:09:12] ’cause I was studying basis, basis said for my dissertation. And you know, you look, there’s PBL L schools, there’s no excuses schools, there’s Montessori schools, and there wasn’t a category that explicitly fit. Basic schools or schools like that. So I, you know, I did my presentation, did my dissertation, and Bob came up to me and was like, Hey, this fits perfectly with this passion project, essentially, that him and Jameson had and asked, you know, do you want to continue exploring this new category of model of schools, of academically intensive charter schools?
[00:09:43] And I said, you know what? That sounds great. I work at Basis, I wanna continue to explore what this looks like. And so from there, we started dialogue between the three of us of. You know, what does this look like and, and how can we make people aware of this type of model of schools?
[00:09:58] Albert Cheng: Let’s talk about basis and maybe some, I mean, I think a lot of our listeners would be familiar, but not all.
[00:10:03] And so 1998, the first basis charter school serving 56 students, opened in a low income area of Tucson, Arizona, and now it’s grown into a network of 40 public charter schools in five different states. So can you tell us about the origin story of that network and things like its academic mission, the student body and, and how it’s doing?
[00:10:27] Sean Woytek: Yeah, definitely. You know, I think Basis is not really necessarily unlike any other charter school founding in terms of the founders. Michael Noga Block had a daughter that they looked at the public education sector in their area in Tucson, obviously, and, and said. You know, this isn’t good enough. We want something that is different and for the blocks and for basis overall that difference is that, going back to our paper, that academically intensive charge aspect of combining the rigor and education found in Czech Republic, in Eastern Europe, with the student advocacy and and questioning dialogue that is prevalent in the US with that explicit goal of holding students to a high expectations.
[00:11:05] And I would say, you know, 25 years later. We’re still upholding that vision of, of really holding those high expectations for our students and providing that rigor while also allowing them and pushing them to think deeply about these topics. And that’s really where those two combine. And, you know, you’d ask about what is our mission?
[00:11:22] Our stated mission is to empower students to achieve at globally competitive levels with our transformative K 12 education program. What that actually means is we uphold these high expectations for students. And I, I’d say it’s one of the few systems I’ve been in where. If you go to any of our schools, every teacher believes that students can achieve at these levels.
[00:11:42] And it’s really that compact with our families of, we’re gonna pull these expectations, we’re gonna push these students. Are you willing to put in the work? Because it, it’s tough. It’s, it’s, you know, nerds are cool. Hard is within our core values, and I think it pays off in terms of, for example, our Texas high school last year averaged over $260,000 in college scholarships.
[00:12:03] Like if our students are willing to put in that work and uphold those high expectations, the results are there at the end. And then, you know, thinking about the fact that US World News ranked our Tucson schools, number one high school in the country, 11 of our high schools are ranked in the top 100. If you look at Arizona specifically, the top 10 best high schools in Arizona are all basis schools.
[00:12:24] The number two high school in DC is a basis school. The number seven high school in, in Texas is a basis school. And so, mm-hmm. You know, our results are there in terms of our students do phenomenally well on those AP exams and and exams in general, and it’s because of that hard work, those high expectations that we truly believe every student can achieve that, and then we just walk that journey with them together.
[00:12:46] Robert Maranto: I would just jump in. I do a lot of field work in basic schools back in the two thousands and, and early 2000 tens, and I was struck by the love of learning and that came in part from the founders, Mike Olga or, or intellectuals. They’re, and, and the current team too, they’re really into learning. Something that struck them immediately was that you needed an external standard.
[00:13:07] So they grab the ap. It’s a, it’s a good external standard, the advanced placement test. And part of that is to unite teachers and students. Everyone wants to beat the test. So you get teachers and students working together to learn much as a coach. And football players will work together to beat the team on Friday night.
[00:13:24] And that’s really a beautiful thing to see. So teachers and students are working together to learn more, and different students are working together because. If somebody gets a five on the ap, that doesn’t mean I get a three. We all can do well on the ap. It’s a national standard, so I think that’s a beautiful part of this that maybe is, is sometimes easy to miss, but that was very intentional and very much true from the beginning and still there.
[00:13:46] Albert Cheng: So you know the way you’re describing these schools, Bob and then Sean, you mentioned you guys routinely top, you know, US News and World Reports, at least their rankings. But in your article you both write quote dozens of what we call academically intensive charter schools like basis get little attention from scholars or policy makers.
[00:14:06] So why is that? I mean, we hear about NAPS scores and kind of an era marked by academic decline, but schools like basis don’t get much notice.
[00:14:15] Robert Maranto: What’s going on? I think some of it is educators and policy makers have been very, very into equity, into closing achievement gaps or, or more recently someone denying they exist.
[00:14:26] Before that, we’ve been very into compliance into following the rules and I think along with those emphasis, sometimes academic achievement has been lost. We don’t focus on it as much as other countries do. I think that’s a huge mistake and I think there’s also this view something a little bit basis in schools like it is.
[00:14:44] Students and teachers of agency, there’s a sense that if you work, if you work hard, if you study, you really can learn more. I think in too many systems. It’s just the belief is that some kids are gonna make it and some aren’t. And there’s not necessarily a lot that schools can do about it, and that’s just deadly.
[00:15:01] Hmm. So I think that’s why we partly, why we overlook basis. Something that struck me, it’s kind of interesting. My daughter’s now at a, at a top 10, 10 STEM school. She’s one of the only people she knows who went to a traditional public school. She’s also one of the only people she knows who’s never exposed to multi-variate calculus schools like basis.
[00:15:19] Really push high level academic achievement. Everybody has exposure if they want it to, a multivariate calculus to high level courses like that. The view is we want to be the best in the world, and that’s something that even in pretty good public schools, like the one my daughter went to, it’s not really part of the culture and I think that’s a huge issue that really needs to be addressed.
[00:15:39] Sean Woytek: Yeah, I think, I mean to Bob’s point, like just that idea of, and it’s I’ll, I’ll keep it short of, it’s much more newsworthy that to point out all the negatives and the bad things happen in education. ’cause it’s a lot, it’s not as sexy to point out these amazing things that are happening in schools because we’re upholding these high expectations.
[00:15:57] Like you can’t develop a policy that says, let’s fix this for something that doesn’t necessarily need to be fixed.
[00:16:03] Robert Maranto: Yeah, we know we do it. We do it on the football field, we do it on the basketball court. We don’t do it as much in academics, and that’s something I really love about basis. They’re into academics.
[00:16:12] They celebrate academics and they think this is like playing sports. This is a joyful thing or can be a joyful thing.
[00:16:19] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s talk about some of the other charter school models there. I mean you, so you write in your article that you distinguish academically intensive charter schools from other specialized schools, like the ones focused on stem, the arts, classical education, vocational skills, and you also distinguish them from the uh, no excuses charter schools that.
[00:16:39] We’re familiar with. Could you unpack some of these distinctions? I mean, Bob, you’ve done a lot of work field work in in charter schools. What are some of the distinctions that are separating some of
[00:16:48] Robert Maranto: these different types? That’s a great question, and Jamon really, really pushed us on this. I think correctly, he’s at the National Association of Public Charter Schools.
[00:16:56] He is more of a charter day than anyone. I think the beauty of a charter school is that you can develop your own distinct mission, your own distinct focus. So the big thing, distinguishing saying no excuses or so called no excuses, charter schools, the people running them don’t like that term is that, that they want to take kids who are often a year or two behind, often in unsafe neighborhoods and have a safe, orderly environment, emphasizing, catching up, and then surpassing academic norms and preparing those kids for any future they want, including futures at leading colleges, if that’s what they want.
[00:17:30] So there’s a huge emphasis on class mobility. Also huge emphasis on good behavior on safety and order basis. In schools like it, the academically intensive charter schools are a little different. The safety is usually assumed. A certain level of order is usually assumed. And so a lot of times the behavioral rules, well, there there were very few behavioral roles.
[00:17:50] Sean, were you the one who said that a, a kid could. Being a basis, you know, wearing Vulcan ears, a tutu and flip flops, and as long as they’re doing their work, no one will notice. Right? It’s a different, it’s a different atmosphere. And I think that’s not to criticize either model, but they’re different cultures serving parents who want different things.
[00:18:09] Some really like to say the tech school, vo-tech, charter school, and an arts based charter school. These are all potentially really good models that might not. Have as much measured success in test scores. Certainly not in advanced placement, but might nonetheless be doing really important work, which their teachers and their parents value, and we need to honor that.
[00:18:28] Walter Blanks: Yeah, no, that’s, I think this is, this conversation is so, so exciting, especially as we recently got the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which we often call the the Nation’s report card, which it showed 35% of high school seniors were proficient in reading, which is the loan score, since the assessment started in the nineties, early nineties.
[00:18:51] The New York Post reported the math scores for 12th graders were even worse with just 22% achieving efficiently the lowest scores since the current test began in 2005. So looking at basis charter schools and other academically intensive charter schools, what are some of the key lessons that would help school leaders and state policy makers address some of these issues that have not just been really bad in the academic?
[00:19:20] World. The K 12 world would also have been going on for decades.
[00:19:24] Robert Maranto: I think the schools really, we just don’t focus very much on academics. And that starts with school boards. I’ve done some writing on that. So is AJ Kray Bill, uh, vide Hogan just did a wonderful book. Uh, no Adult Left Behind. Only a tiny percentage of the work school boards do.
[00:19:40] Is related to academics. Mostly it’s on finance, compliance, athletics, actually quite often, sometimes culture issues. Academics is some measures one to 2% of what we do. If you look at the contracts, I used to be on a school board that that we do with superintendents. Academics are typically and curricular are typically not.
[00:19:59] Noted, they’re typically not mentioned in the contracts. I think those are big issues that we need to bring attention to, and I think Ed schools also don’t emphasize academics nearly as much as they should. So this is a broader problem. My hope is that academically intensive charter schools, as they spread, will start pushing districts.
[00:20:22] To emphasize academics more. And that doesn’t mean that every kid in your school has to spend, you know, 30 hours a week studying. But if you have strong, gifted and talented tracks, if you strong, have strong advanced placement tracks, you can do a good job competing with academically intensive charter schools and similar sorts of options that might be out there.
[00:20:42] Walter Blanks: Yeah, I think that’s super important, especially when you talk about funding and, and different funding mechanisms and, and how dollars are being dispersed throughout just the K through 12 education system as a whole. So you guys wrote that academically intensive charter schools spend about $12,350 per student, which is well below the average estimated district school costs of a little over $17,000 per student, but pretty much online with other charter schools which spend around 12,600.
[00:21:11] Could you talk about the return on investment of these academically intensive charter schools, average charter schools, and traditional district schools as a whole?
[00:21:21] Robert Maranto: We have actually not calculated that, and I think that’s a great idea for the next. Phase of the research, it will be somewhat hard to calculate because what our article does, we essentially look at test scores overall, but also across different subgroups and academically intensive charter schools as compared to other charter schools and compared to traditional public schools.
[00:21:44] And we, we find that academically intensive charter schools do a lot better for every subgroup except for Asians and African Americans where they do better. But it’s. Fairly significant, and that was before COVID. After COVID, the results strengthened, and then the results were very strong for every subgroup, including African Americans and Asian Americans.
[00:22:05] But we really need, I think, to do a good job of a cost benefit analysis, we would need value added scores for individual students. And we, we don’t really have that. And our research team could probably get those, and I think that would be a good future thing for research. What we’re doing here is exploratory research.
[00:22:23] We’re telling people what these are, we’re saying what the concept is, and we’re also saying that, you know, if you’re, if you’re a policymaker, maybe you wanna be open to creating a few more of these kinds of schools.
[00:22:34] Walter Blanks: Yeah, and that’s super tricky too because as we all know that parents pick different schools for different reasons for each of their children, right?
[00:22:42] And so to think about the value add or why a parent may choose a different school, right, is kind of a hard thing to quantify because the school that they’re in could be performing very well, but it’s not a good fit. Maybe that kid is getting bullied or maybe that kid is being exposed to things that their parents don’t want ’em to.
[00:22:58] So that’s something that I would love to help think through because I think that’s such an important component of just. Education in general, but thinking about the fundamental policy bargain of public charter schools have always been more school autonomy. In exchange for more accountability, the critics of charter schools often claim that on average charter performance is only slightly better than that of the traditional public schools.
[00:23:24] What do academically intensive charter schools have to teach other average charter schools about accountability for students’ academic performance. I,
[00:23:32] Robert Maranto: I think one thing is to make accountability. A joint, a joint matter. It’s up to the students. It’s also up to the teachers and the parents. I think that you have to explain it and think of it in that way, and that’s something that I think all schools can copy.
[00:23:47] Have clear expectations of what you want, and work with the students and parents to realize those expectations. And that means traditional public schools, we serve a lot of different populations. We need different kinds of teachers to serve all those kids For charter schools, in a way it’s, the job is simpler.
[00:24:05] You can define your mission, you can hire teachers for that mission, and you can recruit those kinds of parents and students. That’s in some ways, an easier mission. You also have more flexibility. A little less emphasis on compliance and that makes it possible to do things cheaper while still paying your staff well.
[00:24:21] So, you know, I think those are some of the, the lessons from this. But I think any big district could carve out, it could create its own magnet schools, it could create its own charter schools sort of options. My district actually has done that and we’re doing a few more of them and replicate some of the magic that works in the best examples of the charter schools.
[00:24:38] Sean Woytek: Well, Walter
[00:24:43] Bob had said of. Like one thing that isn’t directly tied to accountability is, is that learning environment of, and it might be a lagging factor, but at schools like basis nerds, nerds are seen as cool. When I walk into Basis Schools, the academic high achieving students are celebrated in a lot of schools.
[00:25:00] They would still probably do all right, but they would be doing well in spite of the environment. You know, they’d be getting bullied or be made fun of or like, Hey, you know, you’re the nerd who isn’t doing this or that. In basis, the kids gravitate towards those students who are doing well and they all try to help each other to get those classes, as Bob had said.
[00:25:17] And I think one lesson that we can, we can spread to all schools is, is really. And it seems cliche, but you know, learning is cool. The idea of we need to celebrate our top academic performing students as much as we celebrate our athletes, as much as we celebrate our extracurricular, phenomenal students, and that just.
[00:25:34] Doesn’t necessarily happen, and that that really is kind of where the secret sauce is. Our students compete within themselves and they help each other to achieve those goals, which in basis is getting the five on AP scores. And I’ll say just anecdotally, you know, my son is a sophomore in basis and he took AP physics, AP pre-calc and AP gov last year.
[00:25:56] He got done with those tests, got five on all three of them. When he got done, he said, dad. Our basis exams, our basis expectations were higher than what those college board exams were. He said, those are easy compared to what I do on a day-to-day basis. And that, I think that speaks volume to, we need to raise the level of expectations and make learning actually cool in our schools.
[00:26:18] Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful
[00:26:19] Robert Maranto: thing. Let me add something to that. Albert, who’s, Albert and I have done research in the past on this. It’s interesting to ask who becomes a high school principal and who becomes a superintendent For women, it’s often, uh, it’s often someone coming outta a curricular background.
[00:26:34] That’s a third of, of those and curriculum. Fine, but it’s, it’s largely about compliance. For the most part. For men, it’s, it’s overwhelmingly athletic coaches, most male principals and superintendents or former coaches, athletic coaches, and that’s important. Those are good things. But it’s interesting how few people in leadership came out of teaching and gifted and talented programs are teaching and advanced placement programs, and I think sort of who you promote.
[00:27:00] Sends a message on what you value, and an argument I’ve always made is that any district of any size should have some people in leadership who are from those more academically oriented parts of what schools do.
[00:27:13] Walter Blanks: Yeah, I think that’s a super important component too. When you think about, you know, how culture is shaped within a particular school.
[00:27:21] I mean, I remember in the neighborhood that I grew up in, in Ohio, the football field was always, you know, turf and looking nice, and the bleachers were, you know, phenomenal. But you get into the classroom and supplies are falling apart. There’s not a ton of resources in there. Books are older than my parents are, and so, yeah.
[00:27:39] Shifting that culture to, you know, we are going to have a high standard of excellence, not just in athletics, but also in academics and teaching that to the students that, yeah, learning is cool that the teacher asks you a question and you raise your hand and you get it right? Like, that should be celebrated, should be looked down on.
[00:27:58] But it’s important to start that from the top down and then watch students kind of take up that sense of culture because it’s definitely going to, to serve them well. In the long run. So to switch gears a little bit here, back to the piece you wrote, you concluded it by writing, by defining this understudied category with the charter school sector, identifying its exemplars and documenting their distinctive practices.
[00:28:21] Our new research seeks to enable mainstream educators to learn from A ICS. Yet the most promising way to use the A ICS model is to increase the availability of academic rigor. May simply be for educators to fund and policy makers to fund more of them. Would you close by just kind of explaining that closing idea for us?
[00:28:45] Sean Woytek: Yeah, I’ll be quick within and I’ll let Bob chime in of, I think, you know, the biggest thing is, and this is a charter school issue across the board of, you know, we have 20% less per people funding. Generally charter schools have debt service that we have in our buildings. And I think looking at basis in general of, you know, we’re expanding Texas pretty quickly, but what the biggest barrier to us being able to access.
[00:29:07] The different markets in Texas and and really truly be able to have this amazing school environment for all students is, is that funding aspect of we just can’t get past that barrier of opening enough schools because our debt service is there because, you know, we’re spending 20% less in terms of paying our teachers and everything else.
[00:29:27] It just, that inequity in funding really does inhibit us to be able to expand quickly and to offer this to more students.
[00:29:35] Robert Maranto: I think that it’s really unfortunate. I hope that external funders come in and, and make up the difference there. And I, I would tie this in some degree to, to national economic growth.
[00:29:44] Like I said, my, my daughter’s at a top 10 stem college. It’s sad to say very, very few of the students there were educated in traditional public schools. They generally had their K 12 education overseas. Are in private schools, magnet schools or charter schools like Basis, her roommate actually went to Basis.
[00:30:04] And I think that we need to spread these sort of opportunities either through districts upping their game or through more academically intensive charter schools. I am more optimistic about the second given school district existing cultures.
[00:30:18] Albert Cheng: Well Sean and Bob, thanks so much for giving us some of your time to talk about your work and hopefully inspiring our, our listeners to do their work.
[00:30:27] So appreciate you guys. Thanks so much. Really enjoyed it.
[00:30:30] Sean Woytek: Yeah, thank you.
[00:30:47] Albert Cheng: Walter, I feel a little bit inspired and I hope our listeners, you know, especially those who are leading schools and, and doing some of the work to support schools and even, you know, for those who are volunteering at schools. Yeah. I hope they’re inspired just listening to Dr. Marto and ek.
[00:31:02] Walter Blanks: Yeah, and this, this stuff is always super interesting to me, thinking about ways to innovate within our education system.
[00:31:08] And so ibel, I hope that, like you said, people who are listening are inspired. It’s not, you know, the most glamorous type of work, but being committed to student success in a lot of different ways in their education journey. It’s such an important task that we all have to take seriously. So I really enjoyed this conversation.
[00:31:25] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, the other thing is, look, if, if you’re listening out there and you feel alone, ’cause no other school seems to be carrying back academics. Well, you know, I, I think what this interview shows is that you’re not, and that there are folks who care about this stuff. So I hope folks are encouraged if that’s what they’re looking for.
[00:31:42] But anyway, Hey Walter, thanks for, uh, co-hosting the show. It’s, we’re gonna draw to a close, so appreciate your time.
[00:31:48] Walter Blanks: Of course. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:31:50] Albert Cheng: I’m gonna leave everybody else with the tweet of the week. This one comes from Education. Next quote. Despite the disparities in funding, charter schools usually outperform district public schools in student academic performance.
[00:32:02] That is a quote from an article by Joe Viti, but it’s actually talking more than just charter schools and funding. He’s actually weighing in on lots of the. Perhaps debates around school choice policy and programs and strategy these days. So check that out. It’ll be well worth your time before I bid.
[00:32:21] Farewell next week’s episode, we’re gonna have Jack Johnson Pinnell. He is the head of school and founder. A Trinity Arch Prep School for boys in Arizona. So we’re gonna have another school leader talk about some important work, valuable work that they’re doing to serve our kids well. So hope you join us for that episode.
[00:32:43] Until then, as I said, farewell and see you next time. Hey, it’s Albert Cheng here, and I just wanna thank you for listening to the Learning Curve podcast. If you’d like to support the podcast further, we’d invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.
