CharterNation Podcast

Season 3 Episode 4 - Graduation Season It’s Graduation time in California! The CharterNation Podcast celebrates with a new segment called Best in Class which highlights exceptional charter schools in the Golden State. Our first series of interviews focuses on 10 exceptional charter high schools that are sending a significant number of historically disadvantaged students to college or the workforce...

Season 3 Episode 3: Film Club Edition We shine a spotlight on two documentaries about two charter public schools that are working to educate some of the most vulnerable student populations in California. First, Watts Learning Center (WLC) is the focus of A School Grows In Watts which offers an intimate and powerful portrayal of how WLC is changing the lives of Black and Latino children in Watts. T...

Season 3 Episode 2 - Women’s History Month Special: March is Women’s History Month and in this episode, you hear from some amazing women in California’s charter school movement who are standing tall.  Changemakers Interview Series: The tables are turned on CCSA’s fearless leader Myrna Castrejón. Instead of hosting our Changemakers segment, she’s our special guest! Learn more about one of the most...

CCSA's CharterNation Podcast is back with Season 3 in 2024! In February, we bring you a special Black History Month episode featuring perspectives of dynamic Black charter school leaders in California. Changemakers: CCSA President and CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Maya Woods-Cadiz, Superintendent of AIMS K-12 College Prep Charter District in Oakland. She became leader of AIMS-K12 about a dec...

Episode 10: Changemakers: To cap CCSA's observance of Native American Heritage Month, we’re bringing back a special Changemakers interview from Season 1 in which CCSA’s President and CEO Myrna Castrejon sits down with Marcos Aguilar, Head of School at Anawakalmekak International University Preparatory of North America. Anawakalmekak is a charter public school with three campuses in East Los A...

Episode 9: Changemakers: CCSA's President & CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Brian Bauer, CEO and Superintendent of Granada Hills Charter, a TK-12th grade charter public school that gained its independence 20 years ago and grew to be an academic and athletic powerhouse. Gain insight as he reflects on how his school broke away from district control to become a charter.  Charter School Facili...

The 2022-23 academic year has officially come to a close in California. We reflect on the past year by bringing back three of the most popular Changemaker interviews on the CharterNation Podcast featuring:   Dr. Cristina de Jesus, president and CEO of Green Dot Public Schools CA. Antonio Villaraigosa, former Mayor of Los Angeles and charter school ally Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National...

Episode 7:  Changemakers: CCSA's President & CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Ana Ponce, Executive Director of GPSN, a nonprofit intermediary organization working to improve the public school system in Los Angeles. She discusses the importance of measuring the effectiveness of programs in LAUSD, engaging students outside the school day, and how families and community members need to continu...

What is Personalized Learning?  It can mean different things to different people within the charter public school movement. In this episode, we get a better understanding of personalized learning through the perspectives of three people at three different kind of personalized learning schools:  Cameron Curry, CEO, The Classical Academies (San Diego)  Anthony Durham, parent leader, Summit Public Sc...

Episode 4: Special Episode featuring exclusive Changemakers Interview with former California Governor Jerry Brown.   Changemakers: Former CA Governor Jerry Brown brings his no-nonsense philosophy on education policy and politics as a guest on the CharterNation Podcast this month. Brown, who also served as the Mayor of the City of Oakland, sits down with CCSA’s President and CEO Myrna Castrejón for...

Episode 4: Special Episode featuring exclusive Changemakers Interview Changemakers: We’re capping Women’s History Month by bringing you an exclusive  interview with one of California’s most fearless female political leaders and education equity champions: Secretary of State Dr. Shirley N. Weber.   Dr. Weber is California’s first Black Secretary of State appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom three yea...

Episode 3: Women's History Month Special   Changemakers: CCSA's President & CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Cristina de Jesus, President & CEO of Green Dot Public Schools California. De Jesus is one of the most influential female leaders of charter schools in the Golden State. She talks about the evolution of Green Dot in CA, lessons learned, and how her charter schools are accele...

Episode 2: Black History Month Special   Changemakers: CCSA's President & CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Dr. Helen V. Griffith, Executive Director of The Preuss School UC San Diego, about this school's unique partnership with UCSD and the need to grow more UC-charter public schools in California. C harter Spotlight: We venture to AIMS High School in Oakland to understand how educator...

Episode 1 Rundown:  Charter School News: CCSA's Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Miller provides analysis regarding CA Governor Gavin Newsom's budget proposal and what it means for charters. Changemakers: CCSA's President & CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Mike Madrid, a CA political analyst who explains the power of the Latino voting block when it comes to charte...

In #ChartersAt30 Part 3, we bring you a special Change Makers interview featuring Nina Rees, the President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. For the past nine years, Nina has deepened bipartisan relationships in Washington D.C. to secure political support for charters across the country.  CCSA's Myrna Castrejón sits down with Nina to talk about lessons learned from...

In #ChartersAt30 Part 2, we bring you a special Change Makers interview featuring Jed Wallace, the longest serving president and CEO of the CCSA. Jed was instrumental in building the charter school movement in California.  Also, you’ll hear key takeaways from this year’s Portrait of the Movement Report, the annual study produced by CCSA. This year the study provides us a current picture of the cha...

Thirty years ago, the 1992 California Charter Schools Act made its way through the legislature and was signed into law, launching a public education movement that has benefitted millions of students statewide. To celebrate this milestone CCSA’s CharterNation Podcast is releasing three special podcast episodes beginning this week featuring interviews with influential leaders who played an instrumen...

Ensuring more Black educators are leading and teaching in public schools. That’s the topic of this week’s episode as we honor of Black History Month in February.  Our special guest is Laura McGowan-Robinson , the founder and CEO of the Diversity in Leadership Institute based in Los Angeles. Her organization is working to build an effective pipeline of Black teachers and administrators in Californi...

Happy New Year 2022 from the California Charter Schools Association! It’s the start of a new legislative season in Sacramento. Governor Gavin Newsom kicked things off by releasing his proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. We hear from CCSA’s Vice President Colin Miller who gives us more details about the proposed spending plan – and what it all means for charter public schools.   In our Ch...

In this special episode of the CharterNation Podcast, we bring you a rebroadcast of a CCSA Facebook Live Event that took place on Dec. 9th and focused on how charter public schools are supporting the mental health and wellness of student amid the pandemic. The event was timed to the release of CCSA's 2021 Portrait of the Movement report called Are the Kids OK? How California Charter Public Sc...

In this episode, host Ana Tintocalis takes listeners to Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles to learn about a simple yet powerful social and emotional strategy: talking circles. We also preview an upcoming report produced by the California Charter Schools Association called " Are the Kids OK? How California Charter Public Schools Support Social-Emotional Wellbeing Schoolwide ."  In th...

Is homeschooling the next wave in education? That's the topic of this week's Change Makers interview on the CharterNation Podcast Episode 5. CCSA's President/CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Lance Izumi , Senior Director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute about his new book, " The Homeschool Boom: Pandemic, Policies and Possibilities ." Then, we sp...

PEOPLE POWER! That's the theme of Episode 4 of CharterNation. You'll hear from three individuals who are working in the trenches of Los Angeles to make sure students can access high-quality school options or get the social and emotional support they need.  First, as part of our Change Makers interview series, CCSA's President/CEO Myrna Castrejón interviews Jay Artis-Wright, the new...

In honor of Latino Heritage Month, we dedicate an entire episode to understanding how charter public schools are working to transform the lives of Latino students in California. In a special Change Makers segment, CCSA's Myrna Castrejón interviews Marcos Aguilar, one of the visionaries behind Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory of North America in East Los Angeles. AIUPNA is p...

How can we transform the state’s public education system so kids get the wraparound services they desperately need? That’s one of the topics in Episode 2 of the CharterNation Podcast which features a Change Makers interview with Maria Echaveste, the President and CEO of the Opportunity Institute based in Berkeley. Ms. Echaveste was a former aide to President Bill Clinton during the inception and p...