Can you Chart a course to Success
I was recently driving to Charleston, SC and as I am inclined to do on these drives, I que up a few podcasts. Podcasts were made for long drives as much as audio books are. The typical 40 minute to an hour format works perfectly to get to the heart of a matter while keeping me engaged while the miles pass.
I typically listen to culinary, political, or social podcats with an occasional true crime thrown in. My favorite is Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History I also like How I Built This. There are other more local ones that I also enjoy like NC F&B and of course I like Heirtage Radio's Tech Bites, since I was on it!
I was actually going to Charleston for a launch of a new podcast Something Else About Food from my friend Candace Townsend. She launched a career in the food industry focused on blogging and photography and continues to expand her approach. I always enjoy seeing entrepreneurs craft and refine their vision. This leads me to another recent podcast and the one I listened to on the way to Charleston, The Startup by Gimlet media. I enjoy the series but the one I listed to and linked to here. Is the most recent episode. It explores the Success Academy school. This was the 7th episode of the season and I have not listened to the others. This episode was particularly captivating as it discusses the challenges of Success Academy as it launches high school. Its founder defines it as a start-up and discusses the need to iterate even at the cost of upheaval for students, faculty and parents.
I am sympathetic to this not only as an entrepreneur but as a parent and a frustrated participant and champion of public schools. I have been in many conversations lately about iterations or start-ups, about charter school, about school administration. It seemed like so many of my worlds were converging in this one podcast.
I am going to go back and listen to the other episodes before I comment fully, but I do worry about charter schools being far from their original mission. I believe much of their success is a result of parents who are engaged opting in and thus already screening for the best students with engaged parents. I believe that while originally conceived as areas of innovation free from the burdens and regulations of a larger public school system, experimentation and success can happen. And these lessons learned can be brought back to the larger system. There are still elements of me that believe in all of this. But as I watch for-profit charters rapidly move into my state and public schools forced to compete for already meager funding, we are fast approaching a re-segregation of society. And while it may not all be fully along racial lines, it will certainly not be healthy for broader societal goals.
I am sympathetic to a charter school mission and the lessening of bureaucracy in public schools. But we need to be careful of systematically altering a landscape that sets us backwards. I am a believer that we get the society we develop and right now there are some competing headwinds.
I look forward to listening to the rest of these episodes and will come back and comment more then.
I typically listen to culinary, political, or social podcats with an occasional true crime thrown in. My favorite is Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History I also like How I Built This. There are other more local ones that I also enjoy like NC F&B and of course I like Heirtage Radio's Tech Bites, since I was on it!
I was actually going to Charleston for a launch of a new podcast Something Else About Food from my friend Candace Townsend. She launched a career in the food industry focused on blogging and photography and continues to expand her approach. I always enjoy seeing entrepreneurs craft and refine their vision. This leads me to another recent podcast and the one I listened to on the way to Charleston, The Startup by Gimlet media. I enjoy the series but the one I listed to and linked to here. Is the most recent episode. It explores the Success Academy school. This was the 7th episode of the season and I have not listened to the others. This episode was particularly captivating as it discusses the challenges of Success Academy as it launches high school. Its founder defines it as a start-up and discusses the need to iterate even at the cost of upheaval for students, faculty and parents.
I am sympathetic to this not only as an entrepreneur but as a parent and a frustrated participant and champion of public schools. I have been in many conversations lately about iterations or start-ups, about charter school, about school administration. It seemed like so many of my worlds were converging in this one podcast.
I am going to go back and listen to the other episodes before I comment fully, but I do worry about charter schools being far from their original mission. I believe much of their success is a result of parents who are engaged opting in and thus already screening for the best students with engaged parents. I believe that while originally conceived as areas of innovation free from the burdens and regulations of a larger public school system, experimentation and success can happen. And these lessons learned can be brought back to the larger system. There are still elements of me that believe in all of this. But as I watch for-profit charters rapidly move into my state and public schools forced to compete for already meager funding, we are fast approaching a re-segregation of society. And while it may not all be fully along racial lines, it will certainly not be healthy for broader societal goals.
I am sympathetic to a charter school mission and the lessening of bureaucracy in public schools. But we need to be careful of systematically altering a landscape that sets us backwards. I am a believer that we get the society we develop and right now there are some competing headwinds.
I look forward to listening to the rest of these episodes and will come back and comment more then.
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