Cross what is known as malcolmx park. Four years earlier she was a student at brown. When see saw the November Times cover of her holding a broom and clean house she decided the Nations Capital is where she would start her career. She believed she had the chance to up the level of rigor in urban classrooms and help the kids that were most poorly served in the past by refusing to keep doing things the way were done before. She was placed at a school in Mount Pleasant named after the founder of the u. S. Naval academy. It was a bumpy beginning and six weeks in the first year she was switched from first to third grade to replace a teacher who had a nervous breakdown in front of children. She had two stable years to hone or craft and felt like she was starting to warrant praise she often received. As she turned on to the sidewalk of the only place she ever worked she felt certain this year would be her last. She entered the gym to search for her coteacher and meet the 60 third graders they would soon escort up the stairs, pass the colorful mural to room 121. Children as young as 3 and old as 11 sat on the floor waiting to go to their home room. Near the gym door, she approached a young boy she had heard the second grade teachers complain about last yee year. How are you doing . Did you have a great summer . He shrugged and had his head down. Nearby two girls smiled at each other each holding the leg of her father and performing her own distinct dance. And this is the principal of the Charter School. In the new apartment she had moved in after the separation that was a longtime coming, she closed the door to the batrochr and got herself ready. She looked across the street at the Walter Reed Medical Center hospital and selected her first day of work attire. She thought back to the apartment in Corpus Christi as a child. That is where the wanting gbegu. It started after visiting a friends house on ocean drive. Why dont we have that . How can i get that . Her dad saw the change in his oldest daughters face in the following week and saw the building anger and resentiment. There is a difference between being schooled and smart. Education is a bridge or a border chose. As a child she often fished with her father. Leave it there her dad would her her when she recast too quickly. Wait it out, dolly, wait up till it tugs. Learn to tell the difference from the tide and the fish pulling on the lure. One time she felt a tug that left no doubt. She tried to pull back with enough force. Daddy, i cannot do this. Dont ever say that. The rod dipped lower and lower and her father got behind her, added his hand to the pole and screamed reel it in. The child strained as hard as she could until a stingray emerged. The father grabbed it, reached for a pair of plyers and pulled the stinger out. The ray was back out of the boat and struggling into the waters. Father and daughter laid exhausted and breathing hard. She felt like crying and laughing then and now. He was always getting her into situations that were bigger than she could handle and pushing her threw through them. He was making sure i had some of it in my. It would not surprise me if some of you are like that doesnt sound like a book about education. It may immediately be self evident but part of what became clear to me over the course of the time that i spent in the schools when i knew i wanted to write a book but i wasnt sure what form it would take is that first of all people are interested in other people. They are not interested in programs. And so a book that explains the specifics of lucys readers and writers workshop could be found in the book shelf even though that is something that is talk about. But also what became really clear to me in watching the cultures of things unfold and this is what folks in the room in education and maybe not in education but worked in successful organizations know is that always the main currency that defines a culture is language and relationships. And always the most effective schools or environments are the places where people know one another which means they dont just know what their tendency is like in the classroom. They know that her father meant everything to her and to understand her is to understand the relationship she had with her father and what he taught her about life that directly impacts the kind of principal she is. I think the reason where bring this up and we will go on to reading number two is because when i look at the field of k12 School Reform it is so contention and twodimensional. It is the landscape of the rightious and the dam. And there are folks out there and people who are doing work that is unrecognized. For the rest of us it is more complicated than merely determining that for example that because Rebecca Leibowitz moved to washington, d. C. Because he admired Mitchell Reed that we should love or hate or or we should celebrate the principal has a here or condemn her has part of the effort to privatize education. It is more complicated from a that. And in almost every city, including and not limited to this one, we need to begin having a different, more pointed conversation about the ways in which School Choice begins to unlease unresolved issues among race and class and place and democracy and the ways in which School Reform, if it is works, is supposed to unleash better approaches to teaching and learning. The first conversation we have to have is what is it that our schools should be more effective at doing and in what ways might we unleash a cycle that creates a rising tide that lifts all boats . That is not a conversation we are having broadly enough to impact the work we need to do on behalf of kids and on behalf of our community. All right. Reading number two. I think speaks very specifically to some of the things that are happening in both washington, d. C. And in chicago. And you will get a preview of what is coming in this by knowing this is a chapter entitled building a house. This is a very beginning of that chapter. When romy pitman was growing up on the maryland farm her farmly owned since 1725 she fantasized about being a doctor and working in a large office with a dark desk with a roster of parents dropping children off, the 8yearold added an extra twist. A secret trapped door behind the desk to which she and the children escaped to an environment in the woods free from adult supervision and that is what would heal them and their parents would never need to know. Years later, she fashioned an adult life that honored her fantasy. She designed her own major calling it Socio Economic culture. And studied the ways different children and cultures could expect different experiences in school. As a professional, she spent stretches working with troubled boys and girls and chased against the ridged structure of chasing against a high school and finding her own. Her efforts to build something lasting fell short. What she learned was that the challen challenge of a great education is almost all motivation and every school she worked in, ever even the ones she built, took too much meaning. What she realized was the opposite extreme was just as problematic. If you replace pure structure with pure freedom you get the same result. The art was striking the right balance between planning and impr impr improvasion. The first house she moved in took three years to complete and burned down the first night. The only thing she built before that was a homemade doll. She had a healthy dose of fearlessness and bought a 14 inch chain saw and ignored everything she didnt know and dove in. He stood before the biggest accomplishment and a testament of the learning by doing. She cut down trees and peeled them by hand. She welcomed friends who added touches. On the night of the moving in Celebration Party she felt like she was showing off a masterpiece. She overlooked an important component of bracing in the chimney. No one was hurt but the wood from the fire spread from the wood to the cabin and everything they worked for and everything they had acquired over the course of their lives was gone. She decided to start again and used bails of straw for insulation and a lime plaster on the outside and earth plaster on the inside. Was fire resistant, sustainable and you network. And this time they moved in 11 months later for good. I like the balance we struck between a lot of forethought, planning and innovation in the moment she explained one winter afternoon. With you build something from scratch you must have the right balance. The same is true for schools. Everything you do as a school desi designer is based on need and you leave enough room for things to happen and recognizing you cannot do everything on the fly. I was particularly struck by her insight. R romy was working with the Charter Schools. She works for a National Network of all kinds of schools called expeditionary learning. It was formed with the Harvard School and Outward Bound which gives you a sense of what they are about. Her work is about advising schools to help them embed these principles. She and i witnessed over the course of the first year, which ended well i should say, was the insanity of the starting a school from scratch. It is insane. It is exciting and leads to remarkable stuff. It is insane because you have to build everything on there fly. Things that you take for granted like report cards or professional development calendars. So the flip side was in the time i spent in the Neighborhood School, professional development was like a game of telephone. The principal of the Neighborhood School was sent a set of power point slide from the District Office and the professional development was her presenting the slides to her faculty which was like you know it is very hard for something to maintain its meaning when it is being passed down from other people who are not deciding what to use. So what i saw was in a way what each sector most needs is the others strength. The only way you can continue to populate is if you close other schools there is no other way to do the math in a city like chicago. So i wonder to what extent is there a proactive conversation that yes coming in is important to build new things and by renovating we can just mean renovating the space but figuring out how people will go there and not be sold to falling in how we can both benefit from the strength. This is not happening in d. C. There but it is interesting to see how much it has changed to see how much more relatively speaking will be in a york city tomorrow the climate around choice in new york is closer to chicago and washington d. C. Is to chicago. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and the insight has a little bit of wisdom i will share another reading then the rest to be determined by your questions. It is a bit later in the book you just need to know this is an excerpt about one of the two parents that i followed there were looking at Charter Schools and one of them was on it like attended 30 open house is knew exactly what she was looking for and got it. This woman was not so sure. So what you are about to hear with the enrollment open house after she died in somewhere spirit by the time karen received a postcard in the mail that heard daughter won a preschool see at the Charter School she had just about given up hope. Every other school drew her status so far after the akashi has not even attended an open house is offer a of a commission she now holds but she started to remember to be impressed by a Creative Minds international she found of handout with the image of two childrens faces is. With art and for the bridges and handson projects the Charter School isnt new school for children in washington d. C. To create an International Curriculum with an arts based activity to foster creativity and self motivation and social and Emotional Development as well as academic excellence. , can the school says it offers something of a doesnt exist . Then she read more an emphasis on the arts, the founding principle with the phd with a deeper understanding how children learn and in spite of herself as she started to feel the fortune of her winning number. She also had no other option the fact that tempered her enthusiasm the following week. This is the actual reality of School Choice is school chance. The most established Charter Schools are anything other than a true Lottery Ticket because most of the younger spots are taken by siblings and for those who want to play the game the was the sound great on paper and may actually become a great the yet dont exist in any real form. You buy low and hope the stock will jump. As she walked in the front door she saw other families coming into submit materials. The flier features the posters of the current tenant as the highschool moves across town. One set of parents from pearson. I dont like it he said moments after injuring at which point his bothered knelt down beside him and said this is not your school yet. He stared back blankly. What is it . One pear it handed over materializing gave the teacher a bear hug if you need any help getting ready let me know. That gives me goose bumps i think my cry. And then the principal was addressing prospective families how much can you maintain once the School Year Starts . She has 17 years of schooling left and allow her to be pushed too quickly into the academic focus. I know exactly what you mean i started the school at the same frustrations searching for my son several years ago that is why we want to make sure our kids are just as focused to address the social and emotional needs as on the academics. The other parents were nodding and affirmation. Are these future friends . Will she be spending time at their home . Should i believe with the principle is telling me . We left shortly thereafter and she thumbed through the enrollment packet. I get excited every time i learn more about the school. At the same time did you see how young they were . The rising expectations of the parents and increase understanding have outstripped the capacity of the teachers to deliver the goods. Some of that sounded like election speech but what about practice into a water to be part of the experiment . The more i think about it im not as concerned it is preschool by the time she gets to first grade they will work out the kinks. I go back and forth were my priorities are. I am okay with her switching schools but i cannot help but think down the line it is a leap of faith by suppose that is true anywhere she liked and unlocks her car glading we will still move out of the city just not right away. So the peace at the beginning the front chest piece is the code at the beginning of the book i just learned that. Now you know,. [laughter] the front just peace is from platos republic i never read it like i imagine most of you . In school may be but a show of hands. Who did . Of course. [laughter] pretty good but while i was doing this research there was a not been in the Washington Post that the author quoted that piqued my interest because they never before thought like you always talk about school . Of this made me realize that platos republic talked about i have to read this. So i did so for those of you that have not read it and playdoh and imagines that socrates his mentor is visiting athens which is the highest model of a Democratic Society in Human History and only lasted 250 years nobody has figured out how to sustain an experiment end democracy beyond the point were not right now. Saugerties happens to be visiting any he is hanging now with the other dudes and theyre talking about what the ideal city should be like. A major question is how were they to be reared and educated in how do we answer that and Everything Else that we do to consider and in what way does justice and injustice, to a city . In what way justice and injustice come into being in a city. That is right in what way can the Ongoing School experiment braying justice into the city whether chicago or washington d. C. . This is crazy so the way you bring it to win it comes to education is you have trays and children in a common pen where nobody knows whos kid is too because unless you do that parents will disproportionately lobby for their child potentially at the expense of everybody else. I share this observation someone thought it was a policy proposal. But it captures the attention when it comes to democracy between the meat and though we. We will not be raising our kids and a common pence a how was a possible to honor the desire of parents to forcefully advocate for their kid . With the Charter School movement one of the central rallying cries was my child, my choice. It sounds pretty good. Right . But also the notion of the we and founded to be institutions primarily responsible for insuring we participate in some sort of share and i would say a lot of use the Elementary Schools may be the only spot that bring diverse groups together. There is not a lot of public squares any more. So to me and we will decide together we have to figure out some sort of a way democracy doesnt require that all of us live in in a quality but it does require that we share substantially in a common life. Some of the question that we will not resolve in the queue is a part of the program is in what ways can ongoing efforts to have more high functioning Public Education systems honor both the me and the day we . Three and the reality is really is valued liberty more than equality. To meet whenever away School Choice takes it will be a failure that leads to our own demise unless we very intentionally and courageously and consistently confront core issues tha