Freedom to Learn

Starlee Coleman on Charter School Victories, Red Tape Battles, & Bipartisan Wins

• Ginny Gentles • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Starlee Coleman, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ new CEO, joins the podcast to celebrate National Charter Schools Week and the 30th anniversary of the federal Charter School Program. Coleman discusses her 25 years of fighting for education freedom, from overhauling over 100 Texas charter regulations to securing bipartisan wins. Get the scoop on federal policy threats, rural charter growth, and the St. Isidore Supreme Court case that could redefine charters.

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Ginny Gentles (00:00)

Welcome to Freedom to Learn, the podcast that champions choice in education, defends parental rights, and exposes the harm caused by school unions. I'm Ginny Gentles, Director of Education, Freedom, and Parental Rights at DFI, the Defense of Freedom Institute in Washington, DC.


Ginny Gentles (00:21)

Welcome to Freedom to Learn and happy National Charter Schools Week. I'm thrilled to be talking with Starlee Coleman, who is the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Starlee's 25-year career of transforming education freedom policy ideas into law includes leading the Texas Public Charter Schools Association and co-founding School Forward LLC. In this episode, we cover a lot of ground. We talk about charter school growth. There are 8,000 charter campuses serving 4 million students across the country. We discuss regulatory threats to the sector, securing bipartisan wins, the rise of classical charters, rural charter school growth, and of course, the big St. Isidore Supreme Court case. Charter schools face numerous obstacles, but Starlee is clearly ready to overcome them.


Ginny Gentles (01:13)

Starlee Coleman, welcome to Freedom to Learn.


Starlee Coleman (01:15)

Thank you so much. It's so nice to talk to you.

Ginny Gentles (01:18)

You recently became the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But I want to rewind a little bit and talk a little bit about your history with charter schools.


Starlee Coleman (01:26)

You know, sometimes when I think about how long it's actually been, it surprises even me. So when I was in college in Arizona, I grew up in Arizona, I went to Arizona State. And when I was in college, I had an internship, one legislative, one semester when it was the legislative session in Arizona. And I had an internship at the time for the guy who was the Senate Majority Leader who had the session before sponsored Arizona's charter law.


and they were doing some cleanup on the law, as happens all the time. And so he assigned some research projects to me. This was before everybody had widespread access to the internet. I still don't even remember how I actually found articles from Minnesota and all of these places. How did we do that? But anyway, ⁓ so I think that my first exposure to charters was


way back in 1995 and in Arizona. And one of the things that really struck me at the time was I had, I was going through the teacher training program at Arizona State and I was in my second semester of student teaching and a little girl came in to drop out of school and to tell me and my sort of mentor teacher that she was dropping out. was 16 years old and he said, okay, well, good luck.


And I was like, what, what, good luck. What do you mean good luck? I like, I am, I don't understand what you're saying. And he said, it's just kind of the way that it is. This was in a low income school in Phoenix. And he said, this is just kind of the way that it is. She's the third kid that's dropped out this semester. And I knew that day, I can't do that. Like I don't have the emotional fortitude to like manage that level of,


Ginny Gentles (03:05)

Whoa.


Starlee Coleman (03:15)

you know, just the intensity, right, of like, of dealing with that. So anyway, I left the teaching program. That's why I needed to get an internship to sort of keep my credits on track. And, ⁓ and I, as I learned more about charters and the purpose of charters and who the lawmaker that I was working for at the time was trying to serve, I thought this is what that little girl needed. Was something else. And so basically for 25 years, I've been in and around education, freedom, school choice, charter school policy trying to make it right for little kids.


Ginny Gentles (03:46)

Most recently, you were in Texas, making it right for Texans, and you were the head of the Texas Public Charter School Association, a very effective head. My understanding is that you worked to pass 10 new laws benefiting Texas charter schools, reform or repeal more than 100 state regulations. As you said, this is a constant process. You don't pass a charter law, and then you're fine for decades. So can you give us a sense of


Starlee Coleman (03:57)

Hmm.


Ginny Gentles (04:14)

what sort of work you were doing in Texas.


Starlee Coleman (04:17)

Yeah, thanks. And thanks for that nice intro. I had fun while I was in that role. anytime you pass a law, things will go wrong. regulations will get passed to implement a law that are not exactly aligned with the statutory intent or with the sort of vision that lawmakers have when they pass a charter law.


And in a state like Texas, where there's lots of kids in charter schools, nearly half a million kids, lots of charter schools themselves, a thousand campuses, you know, a lot of stuff goes on in a place where you have a charter community that big, where we have to, you know, of course, make sure that schools are doing right by kids, following the law, being accountable and transparent to taxpayers, and also just making sure that their autonomy is protected.


And that the operational structure that they are relying on is strong for them and that they're not having to spend more time dealing with red tape and bureaucracy than educating kids. And so we ⁓ have a robust legislative agenda every other year in Texas. That's when the session happens here. Boy, I don't know how these people who have legislative sessions every year manage that. I feel so lucky that I only had to do it every other year.


Ginny Gentles (05:30)

The folks in Ohio, I feel like they're never not in a legislature. ⁓


Starlee Coleman (05:32)

They're never not in session. my gosh, I know, I know. don't know. They must just be exhausted. ⁓ But they also get good things done up there in Ohio, that is for sure. so we had a robust legislative agenda that was really driven around, like, how do we make sure that the policy climate is really strong for charter growth, charter autonomy, and freedom and flexibility for charter school leaders?


And we had big goals every year and then we had little stuff that we were working on too. And of course, ⁓ funding was a big part of that. It's not everything, but you cannot operate schools without it. And so we also did a lot of work around funding. But the regulatory project that you mentioned was probably my favorite thing we did the whole time. We had an opportunity to work hand in hand with our state education agency in Texas to redline the entire code of regulations that applied to charter schools. And when we dug into that project, we found that there were dozens of instances where regulations had been just sort of added up over time to a place where things were on the books that were not related at all to what the statute said that the agency was allowed to do or things that charters were supposed to be required to do or whatever. 

So we were able to repeal dozens of regulations that never should have applied to charters in the first place. And then we were also able, you know, with their really strong partnership to fix a bunch of stuff that was just costing school leaders a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of energy to comply with and made their day not very fun and like took the focus off of kids, ⁓ you know, in a way that was never the intent.

But things just add up over time. And so we had a willing partner in the agency and they were able to come alongside of us and do a ton, ⁓ just a ton of regulatory rework. And when I think about what will impact the day to day for a school leader, even bigger than some of our biggest legislative battles that we had when I was leading that work, it's that regulatory project that made their lives easier. And that is like fundamentally unsexy work.


Who wants to look at hundreds of pages of code and redline the code and match things back to statute? Nobody except wonky people like us. But ⁓ it was wonderful and our schools really appreciated it. And I think ultimately that has become a model ⁓ for some work that a number of charter school associations around the country are doing to help push back on the sort of regulatory creep, creep, creep that happens for schools.


Ginny Gentles (08:14)

Yeah, and it could happen because you've got charters in place for over 30 years now. So as you said, something might have started as a good intention, a good idea, but 30 years of regulations is going to pile on. So you're still in Texas now, I understand, and you have a daughter taking advantage of the charter school world. Is that correct?


Starlee Coleman (08:32)

Yes.

So I am a Texas, I live in Austin, Texas. My daughter is in first grade and she's on a wait list at a charter school. So we would like to enroll ⁓ in a school that is near our neighborhood. It's called Valor, ⁓ Valor Classical Schools. she, like thousands of children are on the wait list ⁓ for that particular campus.

And I was talking to somebody about this recently that, you know, there's all these people that say that charter schools that sort of pick and choose their kids and like cherry pick the best and don't follow all the rules on the random lotteries. And let me tell you, if the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools cannot get their kid into a charter school, like there's probably not a whole lot of gaming of the system going.

Ginny Gentles (09:28)

Yeah, it's a lottery, guys. Let's be really clear about this. And those waiting lists are a reality. going to have to keep having conversations in the future, Starlee, because I think that classical charter movement is something that more folks need to be aware of and excited about.


Starlee Coleman (09:32)

Right.

Ooh, can I tell you something about that? 

Okay, so we have this really interesting feature in the Texas law that passed in 2019.


There's a debate about whether or not charter schools really have waiting lists. Some people say that that is not really a thing, that that's made up by the charter community because we want to get more money so we can build more schools. so in 2019, a law in Texas passed that requires every charter school to report the names of the children who did not get selected in their lottery. The state takes all of that information, compiles it, and creates a deduplicated wait list number for the entire state. And over the last couple of years, they've released more and more interesting data related to the wait list numbers in Texas. And I will tell you, the campuses with the single biggest wait lists are classical schools. When you look at all of that together, right?

The classical school wait lists in Texas would create one of the largest school districts in America. So that is how much demand there is for classical education. And what's even more fascinating about that is demand is increasing, like surging for classical schools among low income Latino parents. So.


It is a super fascinating topic, think, worth lots of discussion because people get a picture in their mind of who goes to a charter school and why they're going to a charter school and what the charter community can offer certain segments or demographics of student populations. And we have it wrong. And one of the ways that I know that, this sort of picture that we have in our mind is because of this detailed level of information, demographic demand information that we never would have had in Texas until that law passed in 2019. Schools grumbled about the law being passed like, hey, there's one more thing I have to comply with, but it has become one of the most powerful tools that we have to understand our community, understand where growth ⁓ needs to happen, and also to understand what parents want.


Ginny Gentles (11:56)

I am so excited to hear about all the things that you've done in Texas and so envious as I regularly complain on the podcast, we have like, I don't know, five charters in Virginia, and you're talking about a thousand campuses and a a thriving culture of classical charter schools. And I'd love to see that in Virginia.

You are now heading up the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

One of your board members, our friend, Derrell Bradford, who's also president of 50 Can, when you came on board, he said, "Starlee can play all the roles the job requires, champion, campaign manager, spokesperson, myth buster, fundraiser, fighter for excellence, and coalition builder." And that is such a Darrell quote and such a statement that reflects the incredible strengths that you bring to this, but also the demands of this role. There's only so many hours in the day

So how are you setting your priorities for the Alliance?


Starlee Coleman (12:50)

The work of the Alliance is sort of, let's call it twofold.


Federal policy, of course, is important. So making sure that the federal regulatory structure and the federal policy climate is strong for charters ⁓ is important. We are the single organization that leads the work around protecting, improving, and increasing the funding in the federal charter schools program. Tiny little niche thing, but it is incredibly important and valuable to our schools. And so we take our work there really seriously.

And then of course, like the stuff we were talking about in Texas with the regulatory structure, regulations just sort of pile up and things change over time. And then we end up with a law and a program now that is just incredibly complex for states and for schools to comply with. It's just a very, very, very complicated grant program. 

So one of our big priorities this year is to make as much progress as we can in rolling back some of that red tape and increasing the flexibility in the program. it could be so much more helpful to the schools that we are trying to help with that program, like new schools and schools that are growing. But the compliance burden is really high for those schools and for the states that apply for the grant funding that they send out. So that's a huge priority for us. We also do work in the states.

The vast majority of charter policy is set at the state level. And when I think about how can we improve the climate for growth and autonomy and increase funding for charter schools, that's at the state level largely. Yes, what we are doing at the federal level is very important and it matters a lot to the schools that get supported through the CSP. 

But the work at the state level to increase the number of states that have really strong charter laws on the books. Virginia is one of them that does not have a good and strong charter law, and we need to fix that. The Alliance works in the states where charter ⁓ law has not yet passed. We just passed a law in North Dakota for the first time this year, a couple of weeks ago, so it's exciting. Then we are increasingly looking at the states where the charter law is weak and where a thriving charter community has not yet had the chance to develop because the law is not good. So increasingly spending time there. I will say, and I don't know if this is on your list of questions, but we have a long list of things that we would love to do to make the policy climate stronger for charters and for families and for school leaders and little kids.


And we are also dealing with the potential implications of a Supreme Court case that could really change the way that charters are funded and the way that our legal and operational structure looks in all 47 states that have passed charter laws.

That's the St. Isidore case that would be the first time that the Supreme Court has ever heard a charter school case. And the question is whether or not charter schools can be explicitly religious. implications of that decision, ⁓ should the Supreme Court decide that charter schools can be religious and that states must allow that would be really significant for us and will require an incredible amount of resource redirection from what we are working on today to changing laws to comply with the Supreme Court decision.


Ginny Gentles (16:04)

To dig in further on what's going on with federal policy and possibly with that Supreme Court case, but let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing with charter enrollment, charter growth, charter law trends. You just shared some good news from this year's state legislative sessions.


Starlee Coleman (16:22)

47 states plus DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam have all adopted charter laws. So we are cranking through the remaining states one by one. Made really, really significant progress this year in Wyoming, lifting a cap there. 

Similar progress made in Montana. Making lots of progress the last couple of years in Iowa, in West Virginia, and in some of the southern states that have had small sectors, but where there's a lot of demand for charter schools.


Ginny Gentles (16:56)

And when you're saying progress, is that always lifting the cap on the number of charter schools?


Starlee Coleman (17:01)

Sometimes it's lifting the cap. Sometimes the cap issue is really an issue in the more rural states, where you can imagine the sort of the battle is not necessarily about the sort of philosophical of school choice, but about the impact to rural school districts ⁓ and the employee base that that represents in many cases. in a lot of the more rural states, when a charter law is passed, sort of compromise that happens in order to get the law on the books in the first place is to cap the number of schools. So we were in a situation in Wyoming where I believe the initial cap was seven schools. And, you know, that's great, but ⁓ not enough. And so, you know, there's never gonna be a thousand charter school campuses in Wyoming, right? There's not enough kids, but there's gonna be more than seven, right? 

So we need to create room for the charter community to respond to the demand that they have. And I will say too, one of the things that is interesting about rural growth of charters is we're seeing in places like Wyoming that the charter law is actually keeping schools open in some communities where the student population has gotten really small and the community or the school district has needed to close the school and then a group of parents and others come in and say, no, we'll keep the school open as a charter. So it's actually being used in that way in some rural communities, which is really fascinating and the opposite of what people fear. So here's sort of big picture snapshot headline on charter growth and enrollment. Four million kids almost around the country in charter schools more than ever.


Ginny Gentles (18:29)

Interesting.


Starlee Coleman (18:43)

We are seeing charter growth in every single state except one and that one state ⁓ is Illinois and it's down a little bit, but they're losing students sort of across the board. But I think ⁓ one of the things that I hear is that, charter growth has really stalled out. No, it hasn't. It really has not. Charter growth continues to be very strong in all parts of the country. It is particularly strong right now in rural states, Idaho.


Ginny Gentles (19:14)

So, Starlee, to push back on that, you do have a state like Massachusetts that's really trying to do its best to stall charter growth and not approve new charters. So when people say charter growth has stalled, are they referring to the number of or the number of students, or they're just looking at the states that they're concerned about, like Massachusetts, and saying that?


Starlee Coleman (19:32)

Yeah. I think what happens for people, first of all, you don't hear, no one ever says in Texas, charter growth has stalled. No one ever says that, right? So it's like, I think maybe a blue state or DC idea that in some places, because the politics for charter growth is really hard.


That there's this sort of sensation that what is happening in those places is the same as what is happening around the country and it's not. But it's not even true in all blue states, I would say. Like in New Mexico, for example, people don't know this. 20% of the students in Albuquerque go to school at a charter school. Yeah, I mean, who would know that, right? Who would know? Thriving, thriving charter community in the blue state of New Mexico and growing like crazy.

Lots of demand, their schools are terrific and outperforming their districts like pretty much across the board. yes, there are pockets where growth is slowing, where the political pressure on charter growth is really hard and it is hard to get new charters approved. But even in Massachusetts right now, we're seeing those schools eke out enrollment growth every year ⁓ under the cap that they're living in.


Ginny Gentles (20:45)

I heard four million kids and how many schools?


Starlee Coleman (20:48)

8,000 charter school campuses around the country now.


Ginny Gentles (20:51)

Okay, 8,000 schools, 47 states. This does sound like a thriving sector to me. I do think as much as you're saying the growth has not been thwarted for the most part, there have been efforts at the federal government level to thwart charter growth, to slow growth. And we definitely saw that during the last administration. So I'd love to dig in a little bit on what you're seeing, some of the biggest federal policy barriers charter schools are facing right now and I'd love to know if the concerns about what happened during the Biden administration have been addressed.


Starlee Coleman (21:26)

To be honest, think right now, when we look at the way the Trump administration is approaching school choice and charter school issues, we're not really seeing any new barriers on the horizon for charter growth coming from the federal level on charter policies specifically. That doesn't mean, of course, that charters are not impacted by some of the other changes that could come, know, changes to Title I funding or whatever. Like these are serious and significant, you know, potential changes for the charter community because


Ginny Gentles (21:56)

Well, Title I funding is set by the appropriators,


Starlee Coleman (22:00)

That's right. So thinking just broadly at the federal level. But we are incredibly heartened by a couple of things that ⁓ have come from the administration specifically. Number one, in the president's budget request, there was an increase for the first time in five years for the federal charter schools program. That's We're super excited. Yeah.


Ginny Gentles (22:22)

Can we say a second thing on that? You all weren't folded into a block grant proposal as well, which is something that has happened with charter schools before, right? So that's a victory.


Starlee Coleman (22:31)

I certainly think so. When many other programs are being proposed to be block granted, think keeping the CSP intact is sign of the value that this administration places on school choice and charter schools as part of that. The January executive order directing various departments to find ways to increase opportunity for students to be in a school of choice, including in charters. That was incredibly encouraging. As the changes have been made to personnel at the Department of Education, the charter schools program office was completely spared of cuts.

Don't know how that happened. It's like a magical miracle, but we'll take it. Like, I mean, we are in a moment where we feel like the administration, you know, the president campaigned on school choice as part of his K-12 education agenda. You know, I joke all the time that charters are like the OG school choice. And so like, we feel like we are very much part, you know, part of the school choice community.

And we are encouraged by all of the things that we are seeing in terms of charter school policy.


Ginny Gentles (23:41)

You said that one of your favorite activities in Texas was talking about regulations, addressing regulations. 


Starlee Coleman (23:48)

Yeah. Yes. Yes.


Ginny Gentles (23:49)

There were concerns around the administration of the CSP and regulations around the charter school program, CSP. So have those been fully addressed?


Starlee Coleman (23:57)

Not fully. So here's where we are with that. So a couple of years ago, the Biden administration department imposed a whole bunch of new regulations on the CSP, which just sort of doubled down on how complicated that program already is to administer and to comply with and to qualify for the funds. In January, the new administration said that they would not move forward with the grant competitions in 2025 using the previous rules. 

So they were going to go back to the rules that had been in place previously that are more tightly aligned with federal CSP statutory language. Huge, right? That is a huge regulatory burden lift for charters that are trying to apply for the funds and for states and organizations that are trying to administer the subgrants. So that is a huge win. We have to complete the process, right? the way the federal government works and the way that the regulatory structure works, you have to finish the whole series of steps when you wanna come up with some new regulations. 

So we appreciate the rolling back and now we need the new regulations to be put in place. We'll have to go through a process on that. Obviously, we anticipate that working through this Department of Education will be much more collaborative and so we are looking forward to that. 

Currently, we have two bills that we anticipate being introduced in the next couple of weeks and a third, I don't know, maybe in June that will that will take a look at the statute, some of the underlying challenges in the statute that make the program so complicated and fixing some of that. So, you we know that there will be some regulatory work that we have to do this year to complete the process of changing the regulations that are on the books now, but we hope that we will have the opportunity by changing the underlying statute through legislation in the House and the Senate that will have another crack at the regulatory structure, which will be like a much more significant rolling back of red tape.


Ginny Gentles (26:06)

Who are your big allies on Capitol Hill these days?


Starlee Coleman (26:10)

I would say that on the Senate side,  Chairman Cassidy, John Cornyn, Cory Booker, Senator Bennett continue to be some of our biggest allies and champions.


Ginny Gentles (26:22)

I'm hearing a bipartisan list there. That's encouraging.


Starlee Coleman (26:25)

Yeah, I mean, this is one of the other things that I think is so interesting. I charters have remained robustly bipartisan at the federal and the state -with the exception


Ginny Gentles (26:35)

Are you sure?


Starlee Coleman (26:36)

I'm sure, I'm sure, with the exception of some administrations, right? Like we, you know, that is true. But generally speaking, when it comes to legislative work, we typically see pretty good bipartisan support. on the House side, Representative Kiley has emerged as just an incredibly strong champion for the charter community.


Ginny Gentles (27:00)

interviewed him on an earlier Freedom to Learn podcast and was blown away by his knowledge of what's going on in the charter sector, specifically in California. But of course he also knows what's happening nationwide due to his role as the K-12 subcommittee chair. So that's wonderful if you've got an ally, Congressman Kiley


Starlee Coleman (27:08)

Same. he's awesome. He's so great. And he's really great in hearings. he's really great. Tom Cole, Chairman Cole, has been also a very strong ally for the charter community through years of appropriations fights. Just so very helpful.

And can I just call out one delegation from one state in particular as just sort of overall, the delegation from Hawaii, all Democrats, Like so incredibly helpful to the charter community, sponsoring bills, helping with regulatory lift. mean, they're awesome. And I think it's because they see, right, in their own state, like the value the value that charters bring to their local communities. So, you know, we have support from all over the political spectrum, including some folks that are in the more progressive caucus and then of course the freedom caucus folks. So I just feel like that's a gift ⁓ that we get and also a responsibility to hold, right? The ability to keep charters bipartisan.


Ginny Gentles (28:30)

As we're celebrating National Charter School Week, you're also celebrating the 30th anniversary of the charter school program, the first grant award. wondering what our charter school is going to look like in 10 years in your mind? Like what's your moonshot vision for the charter sector, for the charter school program 10 years from now?


Starlee Coleman (28:45)

Hmm.

The demand for classical schools tells me that while there is interest from parents and ⁓ certainly policymakers and the sort of donor community in the idea of like unbundling education and kids being able to do a la carte stuff, when parents are given choices,

Still today, the vast majority of parents are picking one school, right? They want their kid to go to a school, ⁓ one school where they know they're gonna get a really solid education. And so 10 years from now, do things look too much different than they do today? I don't know, but I will tell you what I hope happens is that we can continue to create and strengthen the bipartisan working together that whether or not lawmakers support private school choice is like over here. Okay, right? Whatever. But there is no question that the idea that parents are just going to accept the school that the government assigns to them, that is such an old idea. That is not the way parents think about this anymore. 

And we need more lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats to work together to figure out how do we make the entire system of public schools available to all kids? So whether or not that's more charters, more types of charters, more models, but also things like eliminating enrollment boundaries, making school choice available more widely within a district system. Like these are things that parents support, that parents want.

There are questions about how these kinds of things work. Like, what do do with property taxes? And what do you do with this? Like, these are fixable problems. And what I would love for lawmakers to see is to double down on the idea that there should not be any boundaries for children, that they should be able to go to the public school that meets their needs and that their parents think is best for them, whether that's a classical charter school or the district school down the street.

It doesn't matter, right, that they there should just be like complete freedom to move around inside the system of public schools. Whether or not private school choice programs come online, like, you know, that's a state decision, right? And will be made state by state. It's increasingly happening, obviously, with Texas, the dominoes are falling. How many red states are left without a private school choice program? Not very


Ginny Gentles (31:35)

I think that was the last red and the last southern, and now you have over half of the students in the country eligible for a private school choice program.


Starlee Coleman (31:48)

Yeah, I mean, this so, you know, this. Yeah, I know there is debate about that, but it's happening. Right. And so like, how how do we create a regulatory structure that supports parents in the choices that they are that they are making right for their for their kids and making sure that schools are accountable for for results academically for kids is really important. So I hope, you know, there's all these rumors, right, are a bunch of states going to ask for waivers from all of the accountability stuff? I sure hope not. And I hope that the federal government doesn't say yes to a bunch of anti-accountability ⁓ requests from the states. The schools need to be held accountable for making sure kids can read and write.


Ginny Gentles (32:33)

It's an interesting time for rumors. I don’t know where these things originate.


Starlee Coleman (32:37)

Where do they come from? I know, I know. Yeah.


Ginny Gentles (32:39)

Or how seriously to take them. Before we wrap up, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we both testified before a House Appropriations Subcommittee, the one that handles education funding. And you and charters came out the bipartisan winner by far. The other witnesses kind of got into it with the members. Were you surprised that things were all peaceful at your end of the table?


Starlee Coleman (33:04)

No, no, no, I wasn't surprised. I think the dynamic is the same at the state level too. Whenever a private school choice program or like a significant push or a real push for private school choice is happening in a state, charters are like looking real good, right? To everybody who is not on team private school choice. So I wasn't surprised by the dynamic. And also, obviously, you know this, right?

What lawmakers say from the dais in a hearing, ⁓ it can be very different than what happens when they need to push a button to vote for a bill. So, you can.


Ginny Gentles (33:39)

Right, right. It remains to be seen as to what level of funding the bipartisan support will prove to be when it comes to determining charter school program funding levels. fingers crossed that it reflects that hearing because everybody loved you.

What is the big charter school myth that you'd love to just put an end to?


Starlee Coleman (33:59)

You know, I think the thing that drives me the craziest about charters is probably this idea that we don't take all kids, that we're cherry picking kids. I literally do not understand where this where this comes from. I know where it comes from, but I don't understand how that myth ever got any legs. 

I was talking to the school leader in Texas about it one day, and he said, if I'm cherry picking kids, I am doing a damn bad job because the kids that come to his school are kids that are multiple grade levels behind, have dropped out of school and he's trying to get them back in the building. Kids that have been in the juvenile justice system, young girls that already have babies of their own. I mean, these are not the kids that the fancy suburban schools are chasing after because they're gonna goose their ACT scores, right? These are tough kids with real problems coming in the doors. And the idea that charter schools are not following the rules about you know, blind lotteries my kid is on a waiting list. Like all of this stuff just makes me insane. Like where, how do people not know 30 years on what the truth is? And you know, in some cases it's intentional, willful ignorance, right? And then in other cases, maybe it's just genuine confusion. But that is one of the myths that just makes me nuts.


Ginny Gentles (35:28)

I certainly understand that. How can people follow you, follow your work, keep up with what the Alliance is up to?


Starlee Coleman (35:35)

Yeah, so we're on all the social @publiccharters. And that's where people can find us. We will be having lots of celebratory content during National Charter Schools Week to celebrate the success of our schools around the country to thank lawmakers with ⁓ real genuine gratitude for the support that they've shown the charter community through the CSP.


Ginny Gentles (35:59)

Starlee Coleman, happy National Charter School Week and thank you for your commitment to education freedom and thank you for joining Freedom to Learn.


Starlee Coleman (36:06)

Thank you, Ginny


Ginny Gentles (36:09)

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