“Trust Us. We’re The Educators.” And Other Reasons Public Education Needs ReformersCopy of Every School Stands for Something. The Question Is, What?
Breaking Institutional Groupthink Through School Choice and Reform-Minded Leadership.
“Trust us. We’re the educators.”
I'll never forget hearing those words during a school board meeting.
At the time, I was serving on the governing board of a charter school facing serious academic challenges. Our school's letter grade had fallen to a D. As board members, we had a responsibility to ask difficult questions, examine results, and ensure that our students were receiving the education they deserved.
And yet, there it was. Five little words that seemed to suggest our questions were the problem.
Trust us. We're the educators.
Well, that's certainly one approach to accountability.
I have tremendous respect for educators. Great teachers possess specialized knowledge, develop their craft through years of experience, and carry responsibilities that deserve our gratitude.
But being an educator doesn't make someone infallible. Neither does being a superintendent, a curriculum expert, or, for that matter, a governing board member.
Professional expertise should strengthen the answers we give. It should never become the reason we stop answering questions.
That moment in the boardroom illustrated something I have come to recognize as a significant obstacle to meaningful education reform.
Institutional groupthink.
And it reinforced my belief that public education needs something more than experienced professionals maintaining established systems.
It needs reformers willing to challenge them.
When Expertise Becomes Institutional Groupthink
Every profession develops its own language, practices, assumptions, and standards. Education is no exception.
And that's not inherently a bad thing.
Shared professional knowledge helps teachers collaborate, develop instructional strategies, and improve their craft. The problem begins when accepted practices become unquestionable simply because they are accepted.
When the answer to “Why do we do it this way?” becomes “Because that's how educators do it,” we have a problem.
Institutional groupthink can take hold when organizations become so accustomed to their own assumptions that questioning them begins to feel like a personal attack.
It happens when parents who question curriculum are treated as uninformed. When governing board members who challenge academic outcomes are told they don't understand education. When reformers proposing different approaches are met with some variation of, “That's not how we do things.”
And here's the irony: Parents have every right to question the education their children receive, and governing boards have a responsibility to do exactly that. Whether the concern involves academic performance, curriculum selection, or developmental appropriateness, asking questions shouldn't be treated as evidence that someone is unqualified to participate in the conversation.
After all, asking questions is not the same as rejecting expertise.
Parents and governing board members should be able to question educational decisions, whether they involve academic performance, curriculum selection, or developmental appropriateness, without being dismissed as unqualified.
Accountability should not be an insult to professionals. It's a responsibility of leadership.
But when an institution becomes more concerned with defending its methods than examining its results, something has gone wrong.
The question is no longer whether those methods are serving students. It becomes whether anyone has the authority to challenge them.
And that's the danger of institutional groupthink. The institution becomes more focused on defending how it operates than questioning whether it should operate that way at all.
That's precisely the kind of thinking education reform should challenge.
Charter Schools: An Opportunity to Challenge the Status Quo
One of the most important developments in public education has been the expansion of educational choice.
Charter schools introduced an opportunity to rethink how public education could be delivered, organized, and governed.
They created space for different educational philosophies, instructional approaches, and leadership models. They also gave families more choices about where and how their children would be educated.
And in Arizona, those purposes aren't merely philosophical.
Under A.R.S. § 15-181, charter schools may be established to improve pupil achievement and provide additional academic choices to parents and students. The statute also expressly identifies charter schools as public schools serving as alternatives to traditional public schools.
Think about that for a moment.
Improve academic achievement. Provide additional choices. Offer an alternative.
That's not exactly an invitation to preserve the status quo.
At their core, charter schools offer an opportunity to challenge assumptions about what public education must look like.
They provide room for distinctive academic models, different approaches to school culture, and leaders willing to rethink practices that may no longer be producing the results students deserve.
And they introduce something powerful into public education: meaningful choice.
When families have options, schools have another compelling reason to demonstrate their value.
Of course, charter schools aren't automatically better simply because they're charter schools. They must earn the trust of families through academic achievement, integrity, transparency, and results.
But that's precisely the point.
The promise of school choice isn't that every school will be perfect. It's that no single institution should be the unquestioned answer for every child.
And the opportunity created by that choice extends far beyond giving families another address at which to enroll their children.
It creates room for reform.
Breaking the Monopoly Means Breaking the Mindset
For generations, American public education has largely operated through geographically assigned school systems, established administrative structures, and longstanding institutional practices.
These systems have employed countless dedicated educators and served millions of children.
But large institutions can also develop deeply entrenched ways of thinking.
And without meaningful alternatives, families have fewer opportunities to seek something different when the existing model doesn't meet their children's needs.
School choice helps challenge that concentration of educational options.
But breaking up an institutional monopoly involves more than creating additional schools.
It also means challenging the assumption that education can only be delivered, managed, or led in a particular way.
The purpose of breaking up a monopoly isn't to create a hundred smaller versions of the same thing. It's to give families something meaningfully different.
And that requires a willingness to think beyond the established system.
To question instructional approaches.
To reconsider organizational structures.
To examine whether academic expectations are high enough.
To challenge policies that may serve administrative convenience more than student achievement.
And to recognize that a practice doesn't become effective simply because it's been accepted for decades.
The goal isn't to reject every traditional educational practice. Some of the most effective approaches to education have endured for generations precisely because they work.
The goal is to distinguish between practices worth preserving and assumptions worth challenging.
School choice opens the door to alternatives. Reform-minded leadership determines what we do with that opportunity.
Which brings us to one of the most important questions facing charter school leadership.
Why Education Needs Reformers in Leadership
There's a difference between being an expert in a profession and being equipped to reform the institutions within it.
Both kinds of expertise have value. But they aren't necessarily the same.
Being an educator and being a reformer are not mutually exclusive. But possessing educational credentials does not automatically make someone a reformer.
I don't trust a real estate agent just because she has a license. For all I know, she's never sold a house.
The same principle applies to educational leadership.
Credentials can tell us what someone has studied or what qualifications they've met. They don't necessarily tell us whether that person can lead organizational change, challenge institutional assumptions, or produce meaningful results.
Expertise matters. Experience matters. But results matter, too.
I believe this distinction deserves far more attention in conversations about charter school leadership.
Excellent teachers, instructional leaders, and curriculum specialists are essential to excellent schools.
But knowing how to teach is not necessarily the same as knowing how to lead organizational change.
Understanding curriculum is not automatically the same as knowing how to build a culture of accountability.
And possessing an advanced degree in education does not, by itself, demonstrate the ability to challenge institutional assumptions, develop strategic vision, or transform an organization.
Leadership requires additional disciplines.
Strategic thinking. Organizational development. Financial stewardship. Talent development. Performance management. Culture building. The willingness to make difficult decisions.
And perhaps most importantly, the humility to recognize when something isn't working.
Reform-minded leaders can emerge from classrooms, school administration, business, nonprofit organizations, or other professional backgrounds.
What distinguishes them is not simply where they came from.
It's how they think.
Are they willing to challenge assumptions?
Do they welcome meaningful scrutiny?
Can they separate established practices from demonstrated results?
Will they acknowledge failure and change course?
Do they have the courage to make decisions that may be unpopular but necessary?
These are leadership questions, not questions answered by credentials alone.
Even the Arizona Charter Schools Program, administered by the Arizona Department of Education, identifies selecting, monitoring, and assisting transformative leaders as central to its mission of ensuring high-quality educational choices.
I find that language particularly compelling.
Transformative leaders.
Not simply administrators.
Not merely caretakers of existing systems.
Leaders capable of helping organizations move beyond where they are today.
Transformation doesn't require dismissing the knowledge and experience of educators.
It requires combining that expertise with the strategic leadership necessary to produce meaningful change.
We don't need fewer excellent educators in charter schools.
We need leaders willing to give excellent educators the freedom—and accountability—to do excellent work.
And we need governing boards willing to embrace their own responsibility to question, evaluate, and guide the institutions they oversee.
Because governing isn't the same as agreeing.
And leadership isn't the same as maintaining.
The Difference Between Running a School and Reforming Education
Running a school is difficult work.
There are budgets to manage, regulations to follow, facilities to maintain, teachers to support, parents to communicate with, and countless operational responsibilities that demand attention every single day.
These things matter.
But there's a difference between maintaining an organization and transforming one.
Maintaining an organization requires ensuring that it continues to function.
Reforming an organization requires asking whether the way it functions is actually producing the outcomes it should.
And those are two very different leadership responsibilities.
Reform-minded leaders ask questions that may make people uncomfortable.
Are our students truly mastering foundational academic skills?
Are we measuring academic progress honestly?
Are our instructional methods producing the results we expect?
Are we selecting curriculum because it's effective or because it's familiar?
Are our discipline policies teaching responsibility and reinforcing high expectations?
Are we genuinely partnering with parents, or simply communicating decisions after they've already been made?
Are we more concerned with defending our educational philosophy than examining whether it works?
And perhaps the most important question of all:
If we were building this school from scratch today, knowing everything we know now, would we build it the same way?
That's the kind of question institutional groupthink discourages.
It's also exactly the kind of question reform-minded leadership should welcome.
Because the goal isn't to defend every decision we've ever made.
The goal is to make better ones.
And when the lives and futures of children are involved, we simply cannot afford to confuse consistency with effectiveness or tradition with excellence.
The Freedom to Reform Comes With the Responsibility to Lead
If charter schools have been given the freedom to do things differently, shouldn't they also accept the responsibility to lead meaningful reform?
I believe the answer is yes.
Charter schools have something extraordinarily valuable: the opportunity to rethink education.
But opportunity and responsibility go hand in hand.
Arizona's charter school law identifies improving student achievement and expanding academic choices as core purposes of charter schools.
That's not just an invitation to operate another school.
It's an opportunity to demonstrate what is possible when educational leaders are willing to think differently.
And I believe the responsibility to seize that opportunity has never been more important.
The onus is on charter schools to lead meaningful education reform. And the time to lead is now.
Not when the next generation of students arrives.
Not when the next legislative session begins.
Not when someone else figures out how to fix the system.
Now.
Because while adults debate educational philosophies, children are moving through classrooms every single day.
Every year spent defending ineffective practices is a year of opportunity those students cannot get back.
And reform doesn't necessarily mean abandoning everything traditional.
In fact, sometimes the most innovative thing a school can do is return to something education should never have abandoned: rigorous academics, mastery of foundational skills, meaningful discipline, high expectations, and genuine partnerships with parents.
Innovation isn't always about inventing something new. Sometimes it's about having the courage to restore something that worked.
Other times, reform requires recognizing that an approach we've defended for years simply isn't producing the results our students deserve.
Either way, reform demands something more than maintaining what already exists.
It demands action.
Charter schools have an opportunity to develop educational models worth studying, academic outcomes worth replicating, and cultures of accountability that demonstrate what happens when students—not institutions—are placed at the center of every decision.
We should be willing to share what works, acknowledge what doesn't, and learn from others who are achieving better results.
We should be challenging assumptions, developing effective leaders, restoring high expectations, and demonstrating what meaningful educational accountability looks like.
And we should be doing it with a sense of urgency.
Because leading reform shouldn't be about proving that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools.
It should be about proving that public education can be better.
School choice opened the door to greater educational possibilities.
Now it's up to reform-minded leaders to show what can happen when we walk through it.
The charter movement has an opportunity to do more than provide an alternative.
It has an opportunity to help redefine what's possible in public education.
And that is a responsibility worth embracing.
Trust Is Earned. Accountability Is Expected.
I often think back to that school board meeting.
“Trust us. We're the educators.”
I don't doubt the value of professional experience. I have seen firsthand the extraordinary difference great educators make in the lives of children.
But respecting expertise and surrendering judgment are two very different things.
Schools exist to educate children, not to protect professional egos, defend institutional habits, or preserve practices simply because they're familiar.
Parents are not outsiders in their children's education.
Governing boards are not ceremonial bodies whose responsibility is to applaud whatever administrators recommend.
And charter schools have an opportunity—and I believe a responsibility—to demonstrate what reform-minded public education can accomplish.
That requires leaders willing to look beyond the walls of their institutions, listen to the families they serve, question prevailing assumptions, and measure success by what students are actually learning.
It requires educators who welcome meaningful questions, governing boards who take their responsibilities seriously, and reformers who understand that challenging the status quo is not the same as disrespecting the profession.
Above all, it requires remembering who education is for.
Not the administrators.
Not the institutions.
Not even the educators.
The children.
And when we remember that, the conversation about trust becomes much simpler.
Don't trust us because we're the educators. Hold us accountable because your children deserve an excellent education.
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