The prevailing narrative about the pandemic and innovation is incomplete. Did the pandemic force America’s hand and finally propel innovation in schools? Did schools suddenly embrace new technology and begin experimenting with small learning communities and flexible, individualized learning environments? The answer to these questions is not a simple yes or no.
While innovation did, indeed, take center stage during the pandemic, the reality is that the charter sector has been pioneering many innovative approaches to teaching and learning for years, and yielding strong student outcomes as a result.
Innovation and Accountability Go Hand In Hand
Innovation in education should serve to harness the many unique ways students learn. By focusing on the multiple ways students learn, schools can create stronger academic outcomes, better preparedness for post-high school opportunities, and more. But for all of that to be true, establishing strong accountability practices must be a guiding light alongside innovation. Setting high expectations for student outcomes, providing the support needed to achieve those outcomes, and ensuring rewards for success and consequences for failure should all be non-negotiable. Accountability is what ties innovation to the ultimate outcomes we crave.
Pairing innovation and accountability has produced many different kinds of high-quality learning opportunities. Over a five year period, my organization, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), collected and analyzed roughly 3,000 charter school applications submitted to authorizers overseeing nearly two-thirds of all charter schools nationally. Through that work, we saw clear examples of how charter schools and charter authorizers continue to be leaders of innovation on behalf of students and families.
Innovation in the Charter Sector: Diverse, Responsive, and Evolving
While some may push a narrative that charter schools are promoting only one particular view of education or offering a narrow approach to learning only suiting some students, NACSA found the opposite. Our analysis showed an impressive variety of charter school models and approaches being proposed to, and approved by, authorizers, including classical, career-technical, diverse by design, hybrid/blended, no excuses, and inquiry-based schools. While we still want to see an even greater variety of educational approaches, it’s already true that authorizers aren’t pushing one narrow view of education. Rather, they are constantly adjusting their approaches to the times we’re living in and the aspirations of their communities. By doing so, they’re expanding the opportunity for innovation in a way that’s responsive to student, family, and community values and needs while still being held to the ultimate goal of ensuring strong student outcomes.
On the Ground: What Innovation Can Look Like in Schools
One exemplar of both innovation and results is The Excel Center schools in Indiana. Their model began in 2010, while I was an authorizer, and focuses on providing education for overaged, under-credited students, and has grown rapidly to a number of states. The network was born out of a need and desire from community members looking for a different route to a high school diploma beyond pursuing a GED. Excel Centers leverage practices and programs to remove the unique barriers their students often face. The schools provide flexible schedules, free child care, transportation assistance, support for new mothers, and life, college, and employment coaching.
Establishing these schools pushed me as an authorizer and the state to innovate. We worked to develop additional high-quality accountability measures of success like a five- and six-year graduation rate, what counts as credit accumulation, and what counts as post-high school readiness. Innovation on both sides of the equation, from the school and from its authorizer, has yielded incredible results: 99% of Excel Centers graduates earn college credits or industry-recognized certifications, and graduates report a 280% increase in mean wages within one year after graduation.
The Excel Center story uplifts how a strong base of accountability can breed incredible innovative and responsible models for achieving great student outcomes. But make no mistake: charter schooling and authorizing must evolve to stay at the vanguard of innovation that produces strong student outcomes. New classroom innovations–like micro-schooling, pod structures, and flexible learning environments–should not only be available but should also be actively supported through strong, evolving authorizing and accountability practices. That’s why NACSA and a number of other organizations continue to engage policymakers and practitioners on how to foster more unique student learning opportunities.
Moving Forward: Stay On the Precipice of Innovation
No matter what, student outcomes must remain at the center. Through strong accountability systems, we can assess different models, analyze student outcome data, and continue pushing the boundaries of innovation. That’s how educational practitioners move forward and continue to stay at the precipice of innovation. We take examples and dream of new ways to harness student learning and interests. We examine the data and take calculated risks. And then, last but definitely not least, we adjust to meet the needs of the community—responsibly, smartly, over and over again.
