Meet the Avengers
The People Freedom Makes Possible
This week, thousands of educators, school leaders, parents, advocates, and entrepreneurs are gathering in New Orleans for the National Charter Schools Conference. They aren’t riding the Celebratory Freedom Truck, but they might as well be!
More than three decades ago, the charter school movement introduced the concept of freedom to public school teachers and parents who wanted independence for and excellence in American education. Many of us helped lay the groundwork for what would become one of the most important reforms of all time, which benefit almost 4 million students annually and which, for most charter families, has been life changing.
My team at CER was proud to work with the early pioneers to help develop the National conference, which today is one of the largest annual gatherings of people committed to expanding opportunity for children. Today, under the leadership of Starlee Coleman and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, that tradition continues.
The conference exists for a simple reason: freedom works.
When people are trusted to create, innovate, solve problems, and build institutions around the needs of children rather than the demands of bureaucracy, extraordinary things happen.
As America approaches its 250th birthday, I’ve been thinking about that truth a lot.
For much of my career, because I was among the youngest people in the room, I was able to learn from pioneers who challenged conventional wisdom, built new opportunities where none existed, and refused to accept that a child’s future should be determined by geography or circumstance.
Now, a bit older, I find myself watching a new generation step forward.
They’re builders.
Problem-solvers.
Risk-takers.
People who see obstacles and ask not “Why?” but “Why not?”
That spirit is reflected in the preview of this year’s National Charter School Law Rankings and Scorecard, which we shared this week in anticipation of the final rankings of states, out August 4.
Who’s Up… or Down?
The forthcoming rankings reveal several important long-term trends. Among them is the remarkable rise of Iowa, which has gone from one of the nation’s weakest charter school laws to a place among the Top Ten in just a few years.
The rankings also reinforce another lesson borne out over decades of analysis: states that adopted strong charter laws early have largely remained leaders, while states that enacted weak or heavily restricted laws continue to struggle to create meaningful opportunities for families.
The rankings tell an important story about policy and opportunity, but behind every law and every school are people willing to step forward and do the hard work of changing lives.
How Permissionless Education Fuels Innovation
That same spirit will be on display throughout this week’s conference. One session you need to catch is:
The discussion will bring together leaders who, in different ways, embody what happens when people stop waiting for permission and start solving problems. Their work is a reminder that innovation doesn’t begin with a mandate. It begins when someone sees possibility where others see limitations and decides to act.
In many ways, that’s the common thread running through the most important stories in education today. Not programs. Not policies. People.
Meet the Avengers
Which brings me to a new feature I’d like to begin sharing with Forza readers….
Over the next several weeks, I’ll introduce you to some of the remarkable individuals featured in my forthcoming book, The Education Avengers: How and Why a New Crop of Heroes Is Fighting America’s Biggest Battle.
Not by name.
Not yet.
But through clues.
Let’s begin.
WHO IS THIS AVENGER?
Identity revealed August 25 in The Education Avengers.
Read what the Marvel Movie Architects have to say 😎:
“We’ve spent years inside the architecture of the superhero myth, pulling it apart to find where the power actually lives. What we kept discovering is that it never originates with the suit or the shield; it originates with the person underneath, shaped by loss and community and the stubborn refusal to accept that things can’t be different.
The Education Avengers made us feel that same recognition.
For more than three decades, Jeanne Allen and the Center for Education Reform have been doing the hard work of making sure heroes like those in this book can actually exist—fighting for the policy conditions that allow new models of learning to take root before the system closes back around them.
We grew up in Cleveland, in a working-class family, in a city that knew something about being counted out. The stories that stayed with us were never really about power. They were about what ordinary people do when the stakes are real, and no one is coming to save them. They find each other. They build something.
That’s the story this book tells. The myth, it turns out, was never the fiction.”
— Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Award-winning filmmakers, directors and architects of the Marvel Avengers.
Coming August 25, 2026
Preorders available now on Amazon, at Post Hill Press or B&N.
What Freedom Makes Possible
This week, Ben Sasse offered graduates of St. John's University five habits for life. Publicly confronting a terminal diagnosis, the former senator, university president, and author continues to challenge young people to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful. His first habit seems particularly fitting for this Forza:
“Habit 1: Continue to read well. More than half of Americans didn’t read a book last year, and that’s a crisis. Self-government depends on citizens who are engaged and make decisions deliberately and seriously and defer gratification.”
The people you’ll meet in The Education Avengers did exactly that. They refused to accept easy answers. They saw possibilities where others saw obstacles. And they stepped forward when it mattered.
And that, my friends, is what freedom makes possible!
To Independence! - Jeanne
