Charter schools were created as an essential component of a healthy public school system. Yes, they are schools of choice for parents, students, teachers and administrators. But perhaps as important is the need for working education reform laboratories.

Charters are supposed to experiment with new forms of governance, new ways to operate the school, to teach and to do research. We learn by doing. We stumble, we get up and try something new. A parent can encourage a toddler to walk, but in the end, each toddler is self-taught. We sometimes forget this most basic human reality.

After one school year as administrator of a small office designed to both hold schools accountable and nurture their success, I've learned a few things from these charter schools. I try to keep these in mind in our office's daily work.

To accomplish anything new, educators need time and support to accept and learn. They need time to meet, time to share and time to think through their goals and tasks to create plans. They need to gather meaningful data to them and make objective decisions.

Each new request or requirement can be perceived as a genuine school-level initiative or thinly disguised control. Uncertain as to whether reforms or experiments will work, we may risk imposing a wet blanket of distrust on the very people we need to empower with the freedom to experiment and make mistakes as they learn a new way.

We cannot fall back on the familiar yet time-consuming bureaucratic ways as substitutes for real accountability and reform. Here are a few rules I've learned from our 27 charter schools:

1. A new policy or reform is worthless if it does not begin with the questions: How can I help you to succeed? How can I help you do your job?

2. Change takes time. Any reform scheme that expects immediate results or imposes a never-ending set of new rules is doomed to backfire. People and systems become numb.

3. Top-down directives, standards, rubrics, etc. may inadvertently reinforce passivity and fail to nurture effective initiatives, risk-taking or decision-making.

4. A meeting is not an outcome.

5. Accountability is more than filling out a form or making a report to someone else. Real accountability is a habit of mind, a form of self-discipline.

6. School-level planning by all stakeholders is helpful; making a plan for others to approve is often perceived as just another form of control.

7. For every meeting you require, cancel one you don't need. And always keep a master schedule to avoid asking already-busy people to drop everything to accommodate you.

8. Do not require another form or report without eliminating an old form or report.

9. Do not confuse training with empowerment.

10. Do not think of the system as an orchestra faithfully reproducing what another has composed; think of a jazz band, adding its own creativity to a bare-bones structure.

Jim Shon is executive director of the state Charter Schools Administrative Office.