#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Black Excellence: School Choice All-Stars | #RolandMartinUnfiltered

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

Students who attend top charter schools run by African Americans get more than a great education. They see charter leaders as inspiring role models and so much more. In this special edition of NewsOne Now that aired on 12.14.17, Roland Martin spoke with African American educators from around the country about the important work charter schools are performing while preparing our children for future success. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year you can make this possible RolandMartinUnfiltered.com Folks, I'm Roland Martin, and welcome to this special edition of News 1 Now. There is no more fundamental issue to African Americans than education. Over the next hour, we will highlight five public charter schools and the extraordinary African American educators who have founded them. This, folks, is about black excellence and black success. African-Americans controlling the education and the economics in our communities. I did this project as a part of me and my wife's School Choice is the Black Choice initiative with assistance from the Walton Family Foundation.

This matters to us deeply because if we don't stand up for the education of black children, we can't expect anyone else to. For a long time, black folks had no choice when it came to education because we were denied the right to read and write during slavery. After the Civil War, freed slaves had no choice but to start their own schools because we were still denied the right to an education. Until the end of the 20th century, we had no choice but to be stuck in segregated and substandard schools.

But today we do have a choice. The choice African American educators and entrepreneurs are making is once again starting and running our own schools to educate our children. And these are some of the best public charter schools in America. School choice all stars celebrates these men and women who are literally changing the course of our history and showing the rest of the world how it's done. We talked about starting our first note on... Today's school choice all-star is Yetta Lewis, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gestalt Community Schools, a charter management organization with six schools and serving more than 2,000 students in grades K-12 in Memphis, Tennessee. We serve 100% black and brown students. Over 75% of our students are economically disadvantaged and we believe the secret sauce is that

it is a community effort. You know it's a cliche that it takes a village but we really are making that happen that Gestalt is a village, that the parents' voice matters, the scholars' voice matters. My name is Kennedy Tuggle. I'm a graduate from Power Center Academy High School. I attend Rhodes College. Being in a low-income community, you don't expect your teachers to care for you mentally, financially, or just care for you as a human being. And that's what the Gestalt teachers did. They made sure I was mentally okay to learn. And that was the first step in me wanting to learn myself. If I couldn't attend a field trip, my teacher got it.

And so just knowing that they care and had patience to deal with the low-income students and our problems, it was amazing. I'm Nneka Mason. I have a younger child who cannot wait to be a part of the Gasol Community School family. He goes to a traditional school currently, and he doesn't seem to be as challenged as much at his school as he sees the children challenged at the salt community schools I'm very active there at the school and

so my son has a lot of opportunities to see how the children are performing the classroom so he's so thrilled about when he's able to get to the sixth grade and attend a Gasol community school. I have many students that have defied the odds. One gentleman who has graduated from our network, he came here as a sixth grader, graduated about a year ago, and he came with his grandmother in hand, forcing him to come to school. I don't want to wear these uniforms. I don't want to come to school. He would actually come to school and run out the back door to escape.

But his grandmother wanted something better for him. And so she chose our school to give him a fresh start. He was a bright child, but what happened to him that first year was educators, school leaders not giving up on him. You run out the door, we're running behind you. He did well and stayed in school. He went from not wanting to come to school to coming to school and meeting the principal in the parking lot as he unlocks the door. He graduated last year from our school. He is in college doing well away from home. First generation college student for the family. All successful charter schools have strong community roots,

but for Gestalt, the community is front and center. Gestalt Community Schools is, by its name, a school that is anchored in the community. When we opened our new school building, Power Center Academy Middle, it was designed by the community. So our families really own the building. It's not the charter dictating what should be in your community. It's the community members telling us what they need. And we believe we're servants giving those resources and services back to the people. We could have built the auditorium and gymnasium in the school, which means you have to go through layers to have access.

This is a separate building that during the day the school uses for its auditorium and performances and after school the community has access to it for also community programming and then in the event of a storm, an actual shelter for the community. Through partnerships, we have Habitat for Humanity. They built nine homes and every single home is a family within our network. Because remember, for Gestalt, school and community, it goes hand in hand. You can't do one without the other. And what we realized was housing was an issue for our families. 95% of our students are right from the immediate community. They can walk to

school, right? Our schools are in the top 5% in the state and while waiting list is long for our schools, we serve our immediate community. When you know a child and form an authentic relationship with their parent, it impacts how you educate a child. It impacts how they can access the educational environment. And when you have those pieces in place, what we found out, more and more when students feel comfortable with the adults in the class, they start to feel comfortable with showing you their areas of challenge. And you can better serve them. So they're no longer shy about that.

And then on the other side of that, they're able to show you what inspires them. And it takes that compassionate educator that can pull out the passion from an individual child just by knowing them. My name is Erica Eason, and this is my son, Edward Eason. Edward has autism. He has a severe sound sensitivity. He can hear it all from the click of cameras, the hum of the lights, so we utilized the headphones to make it easy for him to navigate in the

rest of the world. In Gestalt they had a self-contained classroom. It was a very small student to teacher ratio. It was perfect. It allowed him to work with other children, to help and be helped by his peers. They helped Edward to be able to communicate that this is what he wanted, to be able to interact with someone so he wouldn't be so alone. And they've just been been wonderful in providing the necessary therapies and the intense therapies that he probably wouldn't get in any other school system. All the teachers, the principals, everyone did their best, did their best to make sure that Edward was safe

in an environment where he could learn, where he could thrive and grow. So Gestalt played an excellent and huge role in the growth and progress of my son. Yeda Lewis and Gestalt Community Schools of Memphis Tennes all stars inspiring our c our communities, ensuring

quality education. Yeah. a public charter school f in Chicago where 100% graduate high school and 100% are accepted to college. We know that that's important because if they manage to get through high school and get into and get through college, they're going to end up making more money. They're going to end up living longer. They're going to end up with better job opportunities and better job prospects. And even more than that, they're going to end up changing the entire trajectory of future generations. All right, folks, back to that photo.

My unfiltered video is just one month. This is the most frightening statistic that I've ever seen in education. And 99% of the children are writing, writing, and doing math below grade level. 99%. You couldn't hit a spot on the wall 9 out of 10 times unless you did it on purpose. You couldn't miss that many times unless you got off. What we found is that those kids are about two grade levels below, typically. So the 6th graders are coming in at the 4th grade level.

What I presumed is that if we took kids in the 7th grade, they'd be at the 5th grade. And if 8th grade, they'd be at the fourth grade level. What I presumed is that if we took kids in the seventh grade, they'd be at the fifth grade. And if eighth grade, they'd be at the sixth grade. And what we're finding is that there's something that I'm calling stagnation, that there's actually a end point where the children stop learning. The longer that they're staying in failed school systems, which are typically the neighborhood schools within which they are zoned, they actually stop learning. Now back to your Roland Martin Unfiltered Fit. When you mention Chicago, all folks think about is guns and violence. There's one school that isn't focused on what is bad about young black men. They are working hard to build tomorrow's black leaders.

We traveled to Chicago to attend the graduation ceremonies for Urban Prep Academies at the Historic Lyric Opera House in downtown Chicago. Urban Prep's focus is on getting young black men into and through college. The Urban Prep Academy's Charter Management Organization runs three public charter high schools serving 2,000 African American boys. For the last eight years, 100% of their graduates were admitted to four-year colleges. That's 1,350 Urban Prep graduates admitted to college. Urban Prep Academies and its founding CEO, Tim King, are school choice all-stars.

He spoke to the graduates about the musical Hamilton, where black and brown actors playing the founding fathers rap and sing about their lives. A few weeks ago, we took the class of 2017 to see the musical Hamilton. The reason we were so bent on making sure that our seniors had the chance to see the show was because of how relevant its message is to these young men's lives. Two of my favorite songs are History Has Its Eyes On You and My Shot. In History Has Its Eyes On You, George Washington is telling Alexander Hamilton to act intentionally and with care

because everything he does matters. His actions will change the course of history. For our students, because of who they are and where they come from, what they do really does matter not just to themselves, but to our entire school, to our organization, to our city, to our world. So, you know, we founded Urban Prep because we were really concerned about how are we going to change the trajectory of these students? How are we going to get more young black males into college? When a student comes to us, that's what our goal is with them. We know that that's important because if they manage to get through high school and get into and get through college, they're going to end up making more money. They're going to end up living longer. They're going to end up with better

job opportunities and better job prospects. And even more than that, they're going to end up changing the entire trajectory of future generations. So they're going to literally change history, not just their history, but their family's history these lyrics from my other favorite song my shot best communicate relevance to our graduates today i am not throwing away my shot i gotta holla just to be heard with every word i drop knowledge i'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal, trying to reach my goal. I am not throwing away my shot. Only 6% of young black boys who start out in a public high school in Chicago are going to end up graduating and getting a college degree.

6%. You got a shot, right? When you are a black boy from the hood and you're in ninth grade and you're entering urban prep, you've got a shot. You've got a shot to make it through high school. You've got a shot at urban prep to make it into college. You've got a shot to get through college. Don't throw away that shot. Please welcome Urban Prep's Inglewood campus class of 2017 valedictorian Mr. Malik Johnson who will be attending George County University in the fall. As young black men, we have worked for improvement of our families, communities, and ourselves.

Since I was young, I always saw people, they always wait for someone else to come to the community and help, but as we can see, none of that help came. As the great Gandhi said, you have to be the change you want to see in life. We have to be the ones to change ourselves and our lives and our communities. As black youth, we know the struggle that our generation goes through.

With our knowledge and experience, we should use that and come back and help the generations after us. The problem I wanted to solve when I started Urban Prep was to make sure that there were going to be more black males who were going to and through college, more African-American men with college degrees. We can't have a successful society when you have a group of people that are achieved, such a small group of people who are achieving something that we know equates success. We know that if you have a

college degree, you're going to make more money. We know that if you have a college degree, you're going to have less contact with the criminal justice system. We know that if you have a college degree, literally you will live longer. Yet, we have a group, a segment of our society, where only 6% are achieving that milestone. So if I can have a way, if I have a chance, to solve that problem, then I'm going to do it. And I think that urban prep is just one. It's not going to change that problem, then I'm going to do it. And I think that Urban Prep is just one. It's not going to change at all, but it is an answer to this problem.

My name is Gaylord Minette, Jr. I'm a proud alum of Urban Prep's class of 2013 from the Englewood campus. At Urban Prep, my identity was supported by my brothers, my teachers, and all faculty and staff members. They saw the qualities in me that I had questioned in myself for so long. They fostered the king within me, and that was reinforced every morning that I walked through the school doors and recited that I was college-bound, that I was successful because I worked hard, that I would never falter in the face of any obstacle placed before me, that I had a responsibility to my

families, communities, and world. Most importantly, they pushed me to believe in myself. Do not throw away your shot at Georgetown, Mr. Johnson. Do not throw away your shot at Howard, Mr. Carpenter. Do not throw away your shot, class of 2017. This is not a moment. It's the movement where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went? Foes oppose us. We take an honest stand. We roll like Moses claiming our promised land. We're patiently waiting. We're passionately smashing every expectation.

Every action is an act of creation. We're laughing in the face of casualties and sorrow because Urban Prep's class of 2017 is thinking beyond tomorrow do not throw away your shot rise up class of 2017 history has its eyes on you if i had a mic i'd drop it it. Tim King and Urban Prep Academies are school choice all-stars showing America that with the right education, young black

men can succeed for themselves and for generations of their families to come. They are truly changing history and the world. Up next, we're off to the Bronx in New York City, where an unconditional dedication to each child is a key to success.

I treat the children here as if they're my own children. And when you do that, you're gonna fight for them tooth and nail. When you treat them as other people's children, you don't fight for them. You have conditions when it's other people's kids. You don't have any conditions when it's your own children. And so I think parents walk away knowing that there are no conditions for the way that I care and love your child.

I was recently in Atlanta for our School choice is the Black Choice Town Hall event. There was an elementary school in Atlanta, folks. This is a black elementary school. Five percent of the school students were reading on grade level. I'm going to repeat that. In Atlanta, five percent of the children were reading on grade level. So you then have to ask the question, what's going to happen when they're in middle school? What's going to happen when they are in high school?

Will they ever be able to catch up? Will they be consigned for the entire life of being behind. Welcome back. New York City has the highest concentration of black folks in America, and it's a place where black parents are sick and tired of schools not educating their children. One sister in the Bronx is doing amazing things by caring for every one of her charter school children as if they were her own. We travel to the Bronx in New York City and meet the extraordinary sister

dedicated to changing the lives of our kids and our community. Today's School Choice All-Star is the Bronx Charter School for Excellence and its CEO Dr. Charlene Reed. Dr. Reed runs the Excellence Community Schools Charter Management Organization. Now in its 13th year they serve nearly 1,500 students in five schools in New York and Connecticut. One of the most important advantages public charter schools have over traditional public schools is their ability to reflect the exceptional nature of their African-American leadership. Dr. Reed is a former UCLA track star, and her will to win

still informs her leadership style today. The goal was always very clear. You need to win. There's no tie. There's no, oh, we did a good job. It was the effort. No, it was you need to win. There's no tie. There's no, oh, we did a good job. It was the effort. No, it was you need to win. Winning for public school is that the kids are going to graduate and go to the best high schools in the college. That is the win. Anything else is a loss. Like we high five each other when a kid gets into the best high school. And if someone doesn't get into the high school that we want them to get into, we're like, oh, come on, we got to fix this. What else can we do?

How can we make it better? What did we mess up on that kid? Like, literally, we have so much data on children that we go back and say, where did we mess up with this kid to where they got into this school when they should have got into this school? And then we're able to target like, wow, sixth grade, look what they were doing in math. And we didn't catch this. This kid slipped through the cracks.

Something happened here. And then you see what happened in seventh grade and eighth grade. And look at his score. So that's why he couldn't get into that school. So we have to make sure that that doesn't happen again. But that all happens when you want to win, and you feel like you're part of a team,

and you don't like losing. I hate losing. And I take it so very personal. The levers that I push the most to get the school to this national Blue Ribbon model was this idea of care, but putting the care into action. So if you really care about someone and you care about their education,

you're gonna prove it through actually teaching them. So what does that look like for a kindergarten teacher? You're going to set your goal that the kindergartners by the end of the year are going to read. And by any means necessary, you're going to do everything you can to make sure that they learn how to read. And so this level of persistence, care, just don't give up. My name is Gregory Jones, Jr. I have three children in the school, one in the sixth grade, one in the third, and my daughter is in kindergarten.

The teachers are hands-on. I think all teachers care. These teachers here, they care a tad bit more, I would say, because they're more, they talk to your kids and they call you and they speak to you in front of your child solo. They send you text messages, emails. So it's more of a friendship relationship than it is a teacher and parent relationship. The families and the students know that they are held successful and that they cannot fail. Even though they're going to fail, they're going to make mistakes, but it's all about you learn how to make mistakes and you learn how to have successes,

and that's what life is all about. So what we're modeling here is life. My name is Brandon Johnson. I went to Bronx Charter School for Excellence from kindergarten to eighth grade, and once I graduated, I went to Mount St. Michael Academy, which is on my pen. But when I'm attending St. John's University to study business and administration. Every teacher at the end of the day, they want you to work hard because it's their job to make you want to do the best that you can.

So one thing I always knew was that they wanted me to get 100 on my test because they needed me to, you know. So it was never a question whether they wanted me to get 100 on my test because they needed me to, you know. So it was never a question whether they wanted me to be successful. I knew they wanted me to be successful. Some teachers showed in different ways. Some teachers are like playful, laid back, and some teachers are really on my back all the time. And I'm like, oh man, I don't really like that. But the teachers, it's interesting that the teachers that you don't like the most are the teachers that you appreciate the most in the end. Another crucial advantage for a public charter school is the ability of its leaders to use their knowledge and experience and creativity to fix what they see as broken.

That is not always true in traditional public school systems. When I worked in the traditional school district as a teacher and as a leader, I was part of a system that I felt like rewarded bad behavior. I felt like that's what I was a part of. A lot of apathy. A lot of, you know, the kids are poor, the neighborhood is violent. All the things that can plague an urban city district or a low-income neighborhood. But at no point did I feel like, and it's not everyone, you know, but ultimately it's enough to where you just can't take it anymore.

And so for me, coming to a space where I could control for responsibility and accountability was huge for me because I wanted to be able to kind of figure out a way to make an urban public school work. after trying really hard in a traditional school district and was met with so many different obstacles and things getting in the way of student learning that I said, if I can control some of these obstacles or these levers, then I think I actually can get an urban public school to work. So by the time I got to a charter school, I was like, every morning, we're gonna have a sacred reading block.

This is gonna be the core of what we do. Nothing's ever gonna get in to have a sacred reading block. This is going to be the core of what we do. Nothing's ever going to get in the way of this reading block. And it's worked. And I tried to do it in another environment, and I couldn't because I couldn't command that amount of time. Like what I needed was an uninterrupted block of about 90 minutes to two hours every day of literacy instruction for this to work. And so that's like the largest, I mean that's to me, you know, I'll always be in this setting at at least in the near future, because I have that freedom

to be able to control literacy instruction. This is a personal investment for all of us. I treat the children here as if they're my own children. And when you do that, you're going to fight for them tooth and nail. When you treat them as other people's children, you don't fight for them. You have conditions when it's other people's kids. You don't have any conditions when it's your own children. And so I think parents walk away knowing that there are no conditions for the way that I

care and love your child. This laser-light focus on the child is the hallmark of any successful school, and it is what drives the best public charter schools. Dr. Charlene Reed and the Excellence Community Schools Charter Management Organization are school choice all-stars, fostering innovation, taking responsibility, demanding accountability, and winning for our children and our community. When we come back, a story about school choice that spans generations of one black family and a public charter school that celebrates Black History Month every day of the year.

My father, he had a passion that how can we be successful as a people, as a race, and the key to that was education. When African-American educators run a school for mostly black kids, they can do something more than provide a quality education. They can provide an educational experience tailored for African American children. No Black History Month in such schools. Every month is Black History Month. Every day is Black Pride Day.

All right, folks, back to our Roland M. Martin unfiltered video in just one moment. Hey, fam, I want you to like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin, and don't forget to turn on your notifications. Now back to your Roland Martin unfiltered video. We often hear that education is a key to our success as a people. It is true and has been true for a very long time. The idea took root over 150 years ago when freed slaves had no choice but to start their own freedmen's schools after the Civil War. Today, we look at a school that can draw a direct line from rural Arkansas in the late 19th century to a high-performing public charter school in Englewood, California in the late 19th century to a high performing public charter school in

Englewood, California in the early 21st century. Our story begins with a church school like this one in the very small town of New London, Arkansas in the 1880s. Hosea Wilder, a freed slave, donated land for a church and started a school for other freed slaves and their children. According to his great-great-grandson, Raymond Wilder, Hosea believed education was the only way he thought they could pull themselves up and do better for themselves. Fast forward from New London, Arkansas in the 1880s to Englewood, California in the 1980s and the great-great grandson was a successful real estate developer wanting to give back to his community. Raymond Wilder and his educator wife Dr. Carolyn Wilder first start a private preschool then of course it becomes a kindergarten then elementary then the middle school for young black children in Englewood. Then one day this happened.

My husband had this building and they were doing some work here and a young man stopped by. I think he was about eight or nine years old and he said, are you feeling the school here? He said, yes, I want to go to that school. And my husband just literally said, can you read? He said, yes. So he had a cement bag and he said read what's on here and he did. My husband came home and he said everybody cannot afford to go to our private school. Let's do a charter school. Thus was born the Wilders Preparatory Academy Charter School, founded by Dr. Carolyn Wilder and her husband, the late Raymond D. Wilder,

and now run by their daughter, Ramona Wilder. Altogether, today's school choice all-stars is the Wilder family. Ramona is the fifth generation of Wilders dedicated to education. The transition behind going from a private school to a independent public free charter school, the thought behind that was, let's provide every student a private school education for free. And we wanted to be the

school, and this was my father and my mother's dream, to be the school in the community that was able to do that. So we took the same management style, the expectations of each student, and we put that into the charter school vision and that and that's what our school is all about. Having top quality education regardless of where any student lives or where they come from. They deserve that. I am a champion and I will win! Wilders serves 600 predominantly African American students from kindergarten to the eighth grade.

It is one of the highest performing schools throughout California, especially when it comes to closing the achievement gap for African-American students. You say B-B. Our motto is that we build the future. We are very passionate. We believe that children can learn and they want to learn and failure is not an option in our philosophy here. You'll hear a lot of parents say we are Wilders. What that means is we are a family. We have parent workshops on many things. It can be from financial workshops. It can be for purchasing a home. We have mental health workshops that will teach parents how they can better help

their children. We teach them how to help kids with homework. So pretty much any need that a family has, we offer the resources to guide them in the right direction to satisfy whatever their needs are in order to get help. And surprisingly, in doing that, it helps the child to be better prepared. At Wilders, it was kid first. If they had any shortcomings, it was the village that went together to build them back up, to keep them up to speed and go past the speed, to be not only good at it, but to excel at it.

One of the features that we do have here at Wilders that's different is we have a classroom teacher and we have what's called an intervention teacher and that intervention teacher for example at Wilders there are three classes in every grade so each grade has one intervention teacher the intervention teacher works with students that are below. They work with students that are above. They work to help the teacher bring those students that are below up to basic,

and they work with those that are advanced to make sure that they don't stay stagnant and they achieve and excel even further than that. My father, he had a passion that how can we be successful as a people, as a race, and the key to that was education. When African American educators run a school for mostly black kids, they can do something more than provide a quality education. They can provide an educational experience tailored for African American children. Raising the rising sun of our new day. No Black History Month in such schools. Every month is Black History Month. Every day is Black Pride Day.

The experience here at Wilders has changed my kids in different ways. One is being proud of who they are and where they come from. So that's huge, just having that sense of pride of being African-American and living in the city of Englewood. So that alone, and then just building their confidence. We believe in preparing students to be productive citizens in the 21st century. We believe in bringing out the whole child. We believe that yes, you're going to get a good education here, but you're going to find out who you are. My original school, I've learned a lot of stuff, but I just didn't know what I wanted to be,

what I wanted to like go. And so I just just so I got into Wilders and I've been there ever since fifth grade. They help you succeed and I've pinpointed what I really want to do and they prepared me for what I have to do to be able to pursue my dream. They focus a lot on structure. To me that was a that's huge for us because when we were looking for schools we were looking for schools that have the exact same values as we do and Wilder's their values are in line with our values. We are a old-school traditional value school in a modern day environment now and that's what we tell our parents. We have old school values and we stick to those and we don't sway from what our values

and what we believe and that's why it's a parent's choice whether they want to attend our school. It goes far beyond students getting A's and B's and all of the accolades of great test scores, but it's the heart of the family and the students on reproducing productive citizens that can lead the world. It is rewarding. To me, it brings tears to my eyes because that's what we're all about, having students be successful and not failure. The Wilder family, from Hosea in the 19th century to Raymond, Carolyn and Ramona in the 21st century, and the Wilder's Preparatory Academy Charter School in Englewood are school

choice all-stars, making choices in education available for African Americans through five generations. Is three years old the right age for kids to start school? One successful public charter school says yes. We find out why. You talk about pre-K. Let's talk about your program here. It's one thing to say, oh, kindergarten. But those early years are the most important years in the development of a child. We don't waste those early years.

What we know for students who go through our three and four year old class and then go into kindergarten, they are at an earlier development for reading, they're at an earlier development for math than students who are coming in just straight into kindergarten. And so that's been a critical part of our success is knowing that you don't waste any time in the life of a child. All right, folks, back to that Robomblock unfiltered video in just one moment. All right, fam, I invited you to come out swinging and join me for a day of golf

at the University for Parents Golf Tournament on Saturday, June 22nd in Southwest Atlanta's Wolf Creek Golf Course. It's a golf tournament with a purpose, a fundraiser for the University for Parents, a program designed to empower parent learners through education, inspiration, and support. It's all a part of Susan Taylor's National Cares Mentoring Movement. And when you empower the

parents, you empower the children as well. Location of the tournament is 3000 Union Road, and the shotgun start time is 9 a.m. To register, go to www.uforparents.org. For more information, be sure to call 770-316-3487, 770-316-3487. I certainly hope to see you there. Now back to your Roland Martin. I'm Phil Pippin. Now when I say school choice is the black choice, I mean African-American families must have the choice to send their children to a school that actually educates them. It is not acceptable for black families to wait while traditional public schools try and get their act together.

We've been waiting for a very long time. When black families have a choice, what they often choose are public charter schools. And some are just that, one single stand-alone charter school. Many charter schools are part of a larger charter management organization which run multiple public charter schools. Sometimes these CMOs, as they are called, are the size of a small town school system. One of the oldest and largest and most successful charter management organizations is right here in D.C. The Friendship Charter Management Organization runs 12 schools serving more than 4,200 students from preschool to 12th grade.

Founded 20 years ago when almost no one had even heard of charter schools, their story is quite unique. Unlike most charter schools, Friendship was started not by educators, but by a community development organization which realized that a vibrant and successful black community needed three pillars to stand on. Housing, jobs, and education. The head of that community development organization was Donald Hintz, who founded Friendship Charters to be that education pillar. One member of his founding team was Patricia Brantley, now the CEO. Hintz, Brantley, and the Friendship Charter Management Organization are our school choice all-stars. We talked at their Armstrong campus about preschool, which they both believe is essential to a successful education and a successful life. Can I get your hug? Can I get your hug? You talk about pre-K, so let's talk about your program here.

It's one thing to say, oh, kindergarten, but those early years are the most important years in the development of a child. They're absolutely the most important. We start our education here at three years old. So three and four-year-olds come into this building every day. They are part of our Armstrong Reggio program. They are learning at high levels through a love of the arts, through a love of exploration, through hands-on learning. It's phenomenal just to see the joy in their faces when they come into the

classroom, when they greet their teachers, when they greet each other, when they sit in a morning circle and they learn by sharing the stories of what they did the night before with their families. When they say we want to explore what makes flowers yellow and orange and red and green and the teacher helps to facilitate that learning. But we don't waste those early years. What we know for students who go through our three and four-year-old class and then go into kindergarten, they are at an earlier development for reading, they're an earlier development for math, and students who are coming in just straight into kindergarten. And so that's been a critical part of our success

is knowing that you don't waste any time in the life of a child. That is also why we think that charters are important. For people that wanna tell our community, tell our parents, wait till we fix something else. Well, your kid is five, six, seven, eight, 10, 11, 12, how long do we expect our families to wait? So for us it starts as early as possible. Three-year-olds coming into our building graduating as 17 and 18 year olds in the 12th grade and then

we follow them through to college to make sure they have gotten off to the right start. By having schools where you go from the beginning of the process to the end of their education process, how important is that in being able to shape that child to position them for the future? Oh, it's critical. I mean, first of all, our children need stability. All children need stability. So they come into a friendship school. They know what to expect.

Their parents know what to expect. They know that we have the highest aspirations for them. And it doesn't matter that they're three years old or four years old or nine or 10 or 16 or 17, the highest aspirations and the biggest dreams. We say to our parents, you believe your child can do anything. So do we. And we play that out year after year after year. As CEO, Patricia Brantley says, stability is a key to any school's success.

And even though the founder, Donald Hintz, has stepped down as CEO, he is still on site almost every day, and it matters. Parents still call me on the phone. Parents still send me emails. And they want a response from me. If they're doing something in the building, they will tell you Mr. Hintz shows up and Mr. Hintz does show up. And that's what

they want, the personal connection, that I will respond. And they are comfortable with that. Kids believe the same thing, that I'll come and I'll read in their classroom. When are you coming to read? What are we gonna talk about? And we do this all the time. We're going to read a book about the ABCs today, okay? And this book is called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Say Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. After my time with the preschoolers, I talked to two of their educators. When you're in this classroom and then you have, obviously, these young minds. I mean, are you thinking every day that I'm literally shaping and developing future leaders? Absolutely. And when you see the students go in the level of independence that the teachers build, we're really creating well-rounded students who can think for themselves, explore the world for themselves, and just make meaning for themselves. How conscious are you when you are talking to young students, when you are not criticizing, critiquing,

I mean, are you that acutely aware that that one comment could very well change everything for a kid? Always I put myself like, me and Bautista made mistakes. And it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to make me say it in the classroom because that you know one mistake or a few mistakes you know get us to get better every single day. How do you challenge your administration and teachers your students and your faculty your students and their parents to understand that we're not going to accept or establish a minimum standard. We're going to have a very high standard in order to be a high-performing school. I believe that there is this rhetoric in the country that our families don't want high standards. They do. I don't have to challenge

them. They challenge us. When they send their children here, it is because of the promise that we made that we are going to do everything possible to realize that child's full potential. And so we together work to make that a reality. Parents want it, administrators want it, teachers want it, children want it. And it's not that they want it because it's easy. They want it because it's right. They want it because they believe and they are willing to work hard to get it. Working hard is what great schools do.

And Friendship, one of the oldest and most innovative charter management organizations in the country, along with its founder, Donald Hint, and CEO, Patricia Brantley, One of the oldest and most innovative charter management organizations in the country, along with its founder Donald Hintz and CEO Patricia Brantley, are school choice all-stars. My final thoughts about school choice is the black choice when we come back. All right, folks, back to that Roland Martin Unfiltered video in just one moment. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show.

There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Now back to your Roland Martin Unfiltered video. Folks, we certainly hope you appreciated this special on Black Excellence, my school choice all-stars. Now, if you agree with charter schools or not, that's fine with me. I don't care. What this is about is success. Whether it's traditional public schools, charter schools, homeschool, online school, magnet, it doesn't matter. All I want to make sure that our black kids are getting the best education they can get. blackest show on all of digital cable and broadcast audio podcast

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