Veronica Thompson: There is a lot of concern, what with the changes in the neighborhood, that people who live nearby can't send their children to this school. Who does the charter school serve?
Tim Knowles: The charter school is a public school funded with public money that admits students from across the city by lottery. We serve anyone who enters the lottery and then is selected to attend. We have very few slots open each year because-by and large-families stay.
VT: How is the charter school different from other schools?
TK: In a charter you get increased flexibility. You get more control over the use of time, such as the length of the school day. You get flexibility over resources, rather than being told how to spend your money. And you get a governing structure that includes a parent and community advisory board.
John Gay: What's the trade-off?
TK: In exchange for all that flexibility, you are held to a higher standard of accountability. A charter school can be closed if it fails.... There is a lot of debate about whether charters are succeeding or failing, and I think the answer is that they are doing both. We are succeeding; there are a few charters that are not. It would be wrong to write off the charter school idea because there are some that have not been successful. But it would also be wrong to think of charters as a panacea.
VT: When you talk about the success of a school, the focus has to be on instruction, doesn't it?
TK: Stacy Beardsley, the director of NKO, focuses very directly on ensuring high-quality instruction. We want to create irrefutable evidence that no matter who walks through the door, we can get them to very high levels of achievement. Our students are equipped to succeed at any high school in the city.
Kenya Edwards: Where do charter schools get their funding? TK: A charter school gets the same funding from the city per pupil as a regular school. Charter schools need to raise additional money, because in our view that [city funding] isn't nearly enough, given the kind of services that we try to offer. That's partly what the University supports, in the range of $160,000 to $180,000 a year.
JG: There are a lot of people in the community who think that the lottery is fixed.
TK: The lottery is videotaped every year. We handle that with unbelievable transparency. If you were to ask some very powerful political people in this community if the lottery is fixed, they would tell you from personal experience that it is not fixed-because they haven't been able to get their children into the school.... We have so many children on our wait list, even children who are siblings of students who are already here.
JG: What is the track record of students who have graduated?
TK: About half of them get into the very competitive public [high] schools. There's a group that go on to private schools as well. Some students go to their neighborhood schools or elect to go to some of the new small high schools the district has started.
VT: How about college?
TK: Many of these students will be the first generation in their family to attend college, and the data on first-generation students sticking it out in college is not very good. We want to hold ourselves accountable by looking at the success of completion rates in college, not just college attendance. We believe what we do is directly related to where the kids are when they are twenty-five.
VT: As far as teacher accreditation, what do you require?
TK: Our goal is to meet or exceed the federal requirements. Our school has a dual mission: first to educate students at a high level and second to serve as a professional development school, where teachers are trained and CPS teachers come to see what good teaching looks like. Because of that dual mission, attracting and retaining really high-quality faculty is essential.... We must have the very best.
KE: What is the effect of the Parent Teacher Community Organization (PTCO) in the school?
TK: Very few things are consistent in the school research literature, but one that is clear is that good schools have parents and community deeply engaged in the life of the school. We're trying this year to pull together a really effective PTCO, which will be asked to make recommendations about the budget and will be involved in hiring faculty and making key personnel decisions. It was directly involved when Ms. Beardsley was selected Director.
JG: Since you mentioned engagement, can you explain how NKO is engaging the community?
TK: NKO tries to engage the community every day, from raising money for programs to arranging partnerships with Muntu Dance Theatre or Little Black Pearl or other community organizations. We recognize that the success of a school is based not only on what happens within the school walls every day, but also on the extent to which it can engage the community. When Muntu was here, for example, there was not a noise as the students watched the drumming and dance performance. That's real engagement.
JG: Why did you come here from Boston?
TK: One reason I moved here was because you can't find another institution of higher learning of the caliber of the University of Chicago that is willing to start a charter school-not an elite school for faculty children, but a real school. We can really think about how our work can add value to the lives of people who live here. The University is at a really interesting moment because it recognizes that its success as an institution on the South Side is inextricably bound to the success and development of the community in which it sits.