One of the charter schools movement’s founding architects, Ted Kolderie, has spent a lifetime asking a question that many reformers never quite get around to asking: not only what should change, but how change can actually happen. Ted argues that durable progress comes from redesigning institutions so that better outcomes become possible. He celebrates his 96th birthday on October 26, 2026. The co-founders of the National Charter Schools Founders Library, Ember Reichgott Junge and Jim Goenner, Ph.D., reflect on Ted’s impact in the charter schools movement and for both of them as leaders in this special birthday tribute.
With Gratitude
Reflections on My Chartering Journey with Ted Kolderie | By Ember Reichgott Junge
Thirty-five years ago in 1991, the Minnesota legislature passed the first charter school law in the nation. I was the unlikely author of that law as a young legislator. My only experience with education was as a public school student. I did not have children of my own.
Now 73, I realize that the tumultuous legislative chartering journey changed me as a person. I became a better legislator and leader. And that wouldn’t have happened without the unassuming guidance of a man I greatly admire, Ted Kolderie.
This week is Ted’s 96th birthday. I write this with gratitude to share the incredible influence he had on my life.
Ted believed in me. And he helped me believe in myself.
I started my policy journey with Ted because I thought it would be a great opportunity for my educator friends to lead and be the professionals they were. It was an exciting innovation that seemed politically safe for this Democrat. Until it was not.
I was rattled by the pushback from my union friends, of course. But Ted was that calm, stable senior counselor who never got ruffled. He calmly educated me to the importance of “system change,” which could create new opportunities without disrupting the whole system. Only a small unit needed to change to see the benefits.
As legislators, we don’t think like that. We don’t ask those kinds of questions. We look to our party and our leaders and follow the way things have been done in the past. To step out beyond that is too great a risk, too controversial.
My teacher friends appeared offended by this new idea. But Ted helped me see that it was the traditional structure of public education that wasn’t working, not the dedicated individual teachers. It was the many rules and regulations that were holding back change and teacher innovation. We needed to change the rules! It wasn’t the fault of my friends in education. They were doing their best. But they were being held back by a rigid structure that defined public education.
We were not attacking the institution or my teacher friends; we just needed to change the rules. What a concept!
Only someone like Ted could break through with that idea. He was an outsider, and frankly, he didn’t have a political bone in his body. He was still the former newspaper reporter and policy wonk who just wanted to open the system to innovation.
I learned so much from him. I learned that you don’t have to disrupt a whole system to open the door to change. I learned that there is always common ground somewhere.
Ted’s mentoring stayed with me for life. I’ve remained a center left person, of which there are fewer these days, regrettably. I’ve remained focused on good policy. And I’ve tried to mirror his respect for all points of view in my years as a media political analyst.
In the end, having my thinking changed, changed me. And that came from outside the political spectrum.
Happy Birthday, Ted! Your legacy lives on in chartering, and your gentle guidance lives on in me and so many others. I couldn’t be more grateful.
Ember Reichgott Junge is the Co-Founder of the National Charter Schools Founders Library and author of Zero Chance of Passage: The Pioneering Charter School Story (dedicated to Ted Kolderie). The audio book is available at www.charterlibrary.org/audiobook
Tending the Soil
Letter from Jim Goenner, Ph.D. to Ted Kolderie
Dear Ted,
Happy 96th birthday! I want you to know how much your ideas and leadership have meant to me.
When I think about your life and work, I picture someone tending the soil: cultivating the conditions in which other people’s ideas can take root and grow. You care about what becomes possible, not whose name is attached to it. On your birthday, I want to share a little of what has grown in me because of you.
I admire the way you listen with curiosity and question deeply held assumptions without diminishing the people who hold them. You challenge conventional thinking without making yourself the center of the conversation. That combination of intellectual courage, humility, and kindness has made a lasting impression on me. Your example encourages me to listen more closely, question my own assumptions, and help others find the confidence to contribute what they know.
You have taught me to define a problem carefully before reaching for a solution and to do the hard work of thinking out the “how.” You also keep bringing me back to the students themselves—their motivation, their engagement, and their gifts that don’t fit our common measures of accountability. Because of you, I ask how schools can be better designed to help young people engage, belong, discover, develop a love of learning, and gain the confidence that comes from mastering difficult things.
I share your faith in the people closest to the action and your vision of chartering as a proving ground to fulfill the ideals of public education—testing new ways, spreading what works, and sharing what it learns through research and development so all of public education can benefit. That is the charter schools movement I want to help propel—a movement that pursues excellence, keeps expanding what is possible, and brings the transformative power of a great education to every student. Through the National Charter Schools Institute and the Founders Library, I want to honor your life’s efforts and help more people put these ideas into practice.
Thank you for being steadfast, generous, and kind. I am grateful not only for what you have taught me, but for the example you have given us all of a life well-lived. I hope this birthday brings you and Midge joy in knowing how much you are loved.
Happy birthday, Ted. Thank you for tending the soil and for helping so much good take root in the rest of us.
With love, gratitude, and affection,
– Jim Goenner, Ph.D.
President & CEO of that National Charter Schools Institute and Co-Founder of the National Charter Schools Founders Library
