Courage and Honor

    “We choose to go...not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
     The California economic crisis is significant and our public school system has experienced unprecedented times of loss, constraint and uncertainty.  To be in a public school sector career at this moment is to experience shifting sands and competing priorities; i.e. higher accountability with less resources.
     For California public charter schools it is no less chaotic and for many it is more challenging than it has ever been.  Charter school funding, which was already significantly lower than traditional school district funding (when all available funding sources are factored in) is impacted in the same measure as district funding.  But the dwindling of dollars and resources has created still more adversarial/competitive roles between charters and the traditional system. 
    Recently, my charter organization went through three months of intense negotiations with our LEA district in the desire to find a win-win solution regarding the expenditure of Prop 1d facility funding.  Our interest was to come to a necessary agreement which included using charter grant and debt funding to modernize and expand a district facility as well as to purchase a district surplus property. After months of negotiations and the spending of much charter school funds, resources and time - the district pulled out of the negotiation at the final moment. As an outcome, the charter cannot access these precious facility funds and the LEA does not have modernized, expanded facilities nor does it have much needed additional funds to support district needs. A disappointment and a shame.  It is a shame that creative collaborations to provide facilities for children and also provide mutual benefit to charters and the LEA languish in the chaos and adversarial nature of charter/district relationships.
     Courage and honor:  "I mean any fool can have courage. But honor, that's the real reason for you either do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good. I think that's what the writer was saying, that you should hope for courage and try for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some, too" Michael Oher (The Blind Side).  
My thought and I welcome yours as well - is that we are at a historical moment in public education.  We need to have both courage and honor.  If both districts and charters are focused on providing the highest quality educational choice we can for the most children we can- and we have that 'die trying for something important' attitude - then we will come together in this difficult time and both the system and our children will be the better for it.