Fighting for Kids: Battles to Create a Public Charter School

There is nothing more critical to a child’s success in life than a quality education. Jane Watt’s triumph in establishing the Marco Island Academy is evidence that one passionate leader can ignite true systemic change. Fighting for Kids is a moving story that I hope encourages more people around the nation to follow Jane’s example by challenging the status quo and fighting to improve and expand educational options for American families.
—Governor Jeb Bush
Jane Watt’s book, Fighting for Kids, will touch an emotional chord with everyone who reads it. Her work to establish the Marco Island Academy and provide a better option for the children in her community takes readers on an incredible journey. It offers a rare view into the struggle against entrenched political forces, and the personal attacks and political roadblocks thrown at those who dare to challenge the status quo in education.
Ultimately this is a story of sacrifice and triumph, a story of uncommon love, perseverance and hope. It is a testament that a small-town girl who becomes a “mom on a mission” can move heaven and earth for her cause.
As a mother, and as someone who faces similar resistance and adversity in the fight to transform our public education system, I found this book to be a refreshingly honest assessment of much of what’s wrong and what’s right about our current system.
Jane’s experience not only informs the reader, but it has the power to inspire others who find themselves similarly dissatisfied with the schools available to their children. It sends a clear message, that despite the challenges, one person can quite literally change the world for individual students and families. One person with vision and determination can rally others to a just cause and open doors of opportunity through better education that would otherwise be barred.
Jane’s story is extraordinary and uncommon, but it doesn’t have to be. Each of us is capable of more good than we realize. Each of us has the power to overcome obstacles in our paths, to draw on unseen strength from within, and to touch the lives of those around us.
When Jane Watt began her journey, she saw herself as an ordinary mother, but it wasn’t long before she was rallying political heavyweights and the neighbors next door to support her worthy endeavor of improving our country’s education system, even if it is just one mom, and one school at a time.
Fighting for Kids, is more than the title of this book. It’s a choice we can all make to defend those whose interests and voices are often disregarded in the halls of power. It is a commitment to give all we can for the hope of our future and for the hope of our children.
—Michelle Rhee Founder / CEO StudentsFirst
The right person at the right time for the right cause is Jane Watt’s Fighting for Kids, an incredible story of how one person with vision, passion, and perseverance could ignite a community to support the best possible education for their kids. Jane skillfully escorts you through this journey of obstacles, setbacks, and triumphs of launching the Marco Island Academy. As you read this book you are captivated by how a small minority of “nimby’s” and individuals who fear change could try to derail the creation of the MIA but were defeated by a person who truly cares for kids. As the headline of the community newspaper once published, “It only takes one Watt to light up a school and a community.”
—Rick Medwedeff General Manager, Marco Island Marriott National Advisory Board Member, Marco Island Academy
Jane Watt’s Fighting for Kids is a magnificent assessment of how one person’s vision and perseverance can succeed over ambivalence and the comfort of the status quo. The book is wisely written to take us on a behind-the-scenes journey through the forming and founding of the Marco Island Academy, but it goes much further. It essentially becomes a window into the hearts and minds of a community and how a dream for a high-quality charter school education was turned into a hard-fought reality. Fighting for Kids is a must read for anyone who applauds and appreciates tenacity, triumph and spirit.
—Timothy Truesdell President of Timothy Truesdell Investments National Advisory Board Member, Marco Island Academy
Fighting for Kids is a chronicle of Jane Watt’s personal courage, perseverance, and strength of character throughout the charter school process in the state of Florida. She birthed an idea that was complete, compliant, and compelling and made an academic difference in the lives of public school children now and in years to come. I am humbled and honored to have been a part of Jane Watt’s charter school legacy that is now Marco Island Academy, a public charter high school.
—Vickie Marble, Principal The Student Leadership Academy of Venice National Advisory Board Member, Marco Island Academy
What motivates a person to do something for the greater good? Why would someo