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The New America Foundation convened a panel discussion to “cash the check,” as Senior Researcher Conor Williams put it, on the information expounded in a recently published book entitled Our School: Searching for Community in the Era of Choice. The book follows two elementary school classrooms, a kindergarten class in the start-up charter school Mundo Verde, and a third grade class in the traditional district school Bancroft Elementary, for a full academic year.

In writing this book, author and former educator Sam Chaltain hoped to reveal the complexity beneath the polarized surface of the charter vs. traditional school conversation. “Teaching is heroic, underappreciated, and largely unsustainable work,” Chaltain remarked, in that “we expect teachers to succeed in a system that no longer serves our interests as parents and American citizens.”

Several panelists were invited to respond to Chaltain’s thoughts: Abigail Smith, Deputy Mayor of Education; Laura Moser, writer and DCPS parent; Scott Pearson, Executive Director of the DC Public Charter School Board; and Evelyn Boyd Simmons, DCPS parent and community leader.

Jumpstarting the discussion, Chaltain noted that the primary strength of either charters or traditional schools is the greatest weakness of the other. A start-up charter brimming with innovation faces a significant risk of implosion; a traditional district school with the scale to succeed may be hampered by stultification. Chaltain asked: what efforts are being made by each system to learn from the other?

In response, Smith highlighted the collaboration of charters and traditional schools on both curricula and development. She asserted that the entrepreneurial nature of charters energizes district schools to develop their own “brand,” which helps create a sense of ownership among parents and students of their district school. Pearson noted his personal collaboration with the DCPS Chancellor and added that any lessons learned from the charter school movement must ultimately serve efforts to improve all schools for kids.

Chaltain also pointed out the dichotomy of liberty and equality that permeates the American political and educational systems. He asked: how does the “me” of school choice lead us as an American community back to the “we” that fosters a common life?

The two parents on the panel, Simmons and Moser, responded with concern that the breakdown of the “neighborhood school” concept leads to the breakdown of the neighborhood itself. Moser expressed the internal conflict she faced when her child was selected by lottery to attend a charter school. Despite a positive experience with DCPS, she is choosing to leave because “everyone else leaves.” This phenomenon, which Moser termed “peer insanity,” leaves neighborhood communities fractured as each parent seeks the next great thing for their child’s education.

Simmons echoed Moser’s concerns, likening the presence of charter schools to Kmart moving in next door to Walmart: Walmart can’t continue selling the same products at the same price with the same advertising concept and not expect to lose customers. She issued a challenge to DCPS leadership to decide what the system should be and to pursue innovation and value in a visible way for parents and neighborhood communities.

Smith interjected that while the culture of choice in DC education (charters, vouchers, selective schools, etc.) can create instability and transience, it also opens the door to providing better education to everyone. “Historically,” she reflected, “the only way you could ensure a quality education for your child was if you could afford to buy a house in a certain neighborhood. Period. Today, that is no longer the case.

She continued wryly: “The genie of choice is not going back in the bottle. The question is, how do we use it to achieve quality and equity in our school system?”. She asserts that DC leadership is working hard to improve every school through new policy initiative like choice sets, which would allow students to choose from several public schools nearby rather than having one chosen for them.

Chaltain concluded the discussion by observing that before the advent of technology like the smart phone, education meant content distribution. Today, the concept of a good education encompasses “a set of skills, habits, and dispositions to guide young people through life.”

This new world of expectations for education puts educators in a difficult spot as they attempt to meet new demands within an old system. Charters and other choice opportunities help redefine educational practices, challenging the status quo and fostering dynamic improvement in the quality of education for all children. Though the present course may be muddy and riddled with mistakes, conversations like this one offer hope for achieving clarity and success in the future.