Photo courtesy Capital Preparatory Schools.
Yesterday in Part Two, we briefly considered Dr. Steve Perry and his efforts to create the best possible schools for children from low-income neighborhoods. In a moment, we’ll consider a few comments made by Dr. Perry during his keynote speech at the 2025 Colorado League of Charter Schools annual conference in February.
From the Capital Preparatory Schools website:
The genesis of Capital Preparatory Schools was a parent demand for more educational options. In 2000, a mom asked our founder, Dr. Steve Perry, “Why is it that only rich kids get good schools?”…
…After a more than a decade of successful school development operation, thousands of students that continue to apply for enrollment, and a model that delivers 100% college acceptance rate for graduates, we will continue to seek to expand the reach of the model to serve more communities…
Please note, that we are talking here about ‘neighborhoods’ and ‘communities’.
At the most basic level, a child’s public education might seem to depend mainly on the child’s relationship with their parents, and with their schoolteacher. But it’s only the larger community that has the means to create ‘schools of choice’ — the outcome intended, for example, by the Colorado Charter School Act of 1993.
During his keynote speech at the League conference, Dr. Perry mentioned the process of “re-authorization” that charter schools must go through. Charter schools are publicly funded and tuition-free, just like conventional public schools, but charters typically must go through a re-authorization process every three to five years, and prove to their ‘authorizer’ that they are worthy of educating children.
Conventional public schools, of course, are not required to be “re-authorized”. It’s assumed that they should continue to be funded, year after year after year. No proof of excellent performance is required.
Anyone who has worked in an organization of any type can imagine the stress (and insanity) of such a situation — having to apply to an elected board every three to five years for the privilege of continuing to operate on behalf of your community.
One of Dr. Perry’s Capital Prep schools recently sought re-authorization, and — in spite of showing an outstanding record of educating its students — was initially granted three more years of operation and funding.
From Dr. Perry’s keynote speech, to the charter school leaders in the auditorium:
“So as you folks know, it takes two years to get your renewal application together. ‘So you gave me three years? You basically gave me nothing!’ For being Number One in the entire state of Connecticut?…
“But this is the point:
“With all the Democrats on the State Board of Education… who want to see minority children be successful, and who see how important it is to have dual college enrollment… One of them stands up and says, ‘We want more dual college enrollment.’ You want to know which school had the most dual college enrollment?
“Three years. Then they finally negotiated down to four years… We’ve already started the renewal process [for the next renewal].
“Meanwhile, the district that we’re in is $32 million in the hole. Some of the lowest performances in the U.S. You know what is happening to them? They’re getting more money. The Governor has already said, ‘We’ll take care of the hole… we want to protect public education…’
“We have to understand who our allies are, and who are not. When we understand that, we are more equipped for the fight.”
That would be, the political fight.
“I am here to tell you that you have an obligation to make the organizations, that you spend so much of your lives fighting to make real, be here long after you’re gone.”
He spoke about ‘institutionalizing’ such things as longer authorization terms, employee benefits, bonding, facilities funding, and “whatever is necessary here in Colorado, to make sure that your organizations are not driven by you.”
Parity, in other words, between conventional public schools and charter public schools. In fact, Colorado has made strides in that general direction — parity — since 1993, thanks in part to the constant political work done by the League of Charter Schools.
“I asked one of my colleagues back in New York: ‘Would anyone on your team sleep in your building?’
“They just started laughing. They said, ‘Have you slept in yours?’
“More times than I care to share.
“It’s not that we like sleeping in our buildings. The point is just that this means so much to us; that it is our home. It is where our children grow up. It is where our families know us. It is our sense of identity. It is our passion. Our purpose. Our calling.
“So many of us fall into the trap of, ‘I just want to be an educator. This politics stuff is not for me. I don’t want to do that. That’s for the League to handle.’
“I dare say, you’re wrong.
“Dr. King wasn’t writing his letter from the Birmingham jail to the women out there, screaming about public education. He wasn’t writing to the Klan. He wasn’t even writing to the Government.
“As you know, he was writing it to people just like you… He was writing to his own community… He was saying, ‘You know these conditions are real. You know that we are being harmed. And your concern is about the solution… not about the problem…’
“…,The most political thing that you can do, is to educate those who were never supposed to receive education. The most powerful thing that you can do, is look into the eyes of a five-year-old child, whose parents came here by whatever means necessary… and talk to them about being an astronaut.
“…What you are fighting for, are the schools that will be the hope of this state and country…”