![]() One of my favorites was about you having to move 40 traffic cones every morning and then move them again in the afternoon, to accommodate the parishioners. While I was researching the book you told me so many great stories about the early startup years, when you operated out of a tiny, unairconditioned space at St. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Back then, Smith and I spent many hours together on school tours and sitting across from one another with a digital recorder, so for me, this was a reunion of sorts. ![]() This seemed like a good time to catch up with Smith, who today shares the title of co-founder and CEO. Over its 15-year history, Rocketship has served 27,508 students. Today, Rocketship Public Schools has turned 15 – celebrating its quinceañera, as long-time Rocketship leader Maricela Guerrero aptly put it, considering the network’s roots in educating low-income Latino students – with about 10,000 “Rocketeers” across the country, with 13 schools in California, two in Milwaukee, three in Nashville, three in Washington, D.C. The result, On the Rocketship, was published in 2014. Over the course of that year, I earned a lot of airline miles flying back and forth to California, and even more miles as they expanded to Milwaukee and Nashville. I flew out to San Jose, met with co-founders John Danner and Preston Smith, and they agreed to provide me complete access to their schools and expansion plans over the next year. I had never heard of tiny San Jose-based Rocketship charters, but several savvy charter school followers pointed in their direction. But which charter network to pick to profile? If a fierce reformer such as Rhee couldn’t survive in a troubled urban district, then maybe charter schools were the answer. Public Schools (hurriedly because Rhee got the ax when her protector-mayor got voted out of office) I was looking for a really, really fresh approach to public education, especially schools that serve poor kids. In the fall of 2011, having hurriedly finished The Bee Eater, a book about Michelle Rhee’s tumultuous turn at the helm of D.C. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox.
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