20 Years Ago I Started at Noble Charter Schools as a Student. Now I’m a Principal.

As the Noble Network of Charter Schools celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, I’m looking forward and back. Back, because I was a member of…

I’m Concerned But Not Convinced by the NPR-Illinois Story on the Noble Charter Schools

I’m a fan of the Noble Charter School Network in Chicago because parents like the schools, they get good results for low-income kids and they…

Coffee Break: This Charter Leader Says You Have to Love Students Enough to Hold High Expectations

In January, Constance Brewer was named president of the Noble Network of Charter Schools, which serves more than 12,000 students on 18 high school campuses…

If 12,000 Families Didn’t Want School Choice, We Wouldn’t Be Here

Every morning, I come to work thinking about our students. Not politics, or rhetoric, or the news. Just our students—all 12,000 of them. They come…

Every Student in This School’s Founding Class Is Headed To and Through College

“We pledge that in four years we will be better than we are today.” That’s what the members of the Baker College Prep class of…

A Principal Helping Kids to Be the First in Their Family to Go to College, Just Like He Was

First-generation college student Vincent Gay started his journey on a wrestling scholarship at Edinboro University, near Erie, Pennsylvania. Early on, he got into such difficulty…

You Don’t Know a School Until You Know Its Community: Lessons From a Charter School Principal

As administrators, teachers, or any other sort of “expert” in education, we can often come into school communities thinking we know the answers, that we…

We Don’t Need Another Batman, We Need Educators Who Are in It for the Long Haul

My favorite superhero—Batman—is a failure. And if young educators take Batman as our role model, we’re likely to fail, too. You see, every Batman comic…

A Candid Convo With a Chicago Principal Who Says Black Boys Learn Best When Success Looks Like Them

Christopher Goins is the founding principal of Butler College Prep, a four-year-old charter high school on the far South Side of Chicago with a student…

Hey Charter Schools, If You Don’t Want a Union, Don’t Give Teachers a Reason to Organize

Within the last few weeks, efforts to unionize charter schools have seen two major new developments: the first-ever organizing drive in Washington, D.C. charter schools,…