Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9412120014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When the St. Louis County School Board voted two years ago to close the Toivola-Meadowlands School in rural northern Minnesota, the community became upset and set out to save its school.
The school was a common bond for the residents in the countryside and small villages. Students, teachers and parents had formed an attachment to the Toivola-Meadowlands School and they didn't want to lose it.
They vowed to save the school, which has 212 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade.
How did they do it?
Teachers, parents, students and others banded together and agreed to run the school themselves. They created a nonprofit organization to manage and oversee the school.
"The parents and teachers decided they would take over the school and operate it - if they could get money from the state and local school district to keep it open," said Charlotte Raich, chairman of the school's curriculum and policy committee.
They received the money as part of an innovative educational program that allows parents and teachers to manage a new kind of school that was pioneered in Minnesota three years ago..
It's called a "charter school," the latest and hottest idea in educational reform.
Charter schools are run by teachers, parents or other organizers - not by school boards. They operate as nonprofit corporations with a board of directors. They are independent schools within school districts.
In exchange for abiding by a charter that promises improvements in educational achievements by their students, charter schools have more freedom and flexibility than regular schools. They can make changes in curriculum, class size, length of the school day and other regulations without having to get approval from the local school board and state.
The theory is, by eliminating bureaucratic rules and burdensome regulations, charter schools can focus on academic results and meeting the educational objectives in their charters.
Charter-school advocates say that mixture of freedom and accountability - as spelled out in the charter negotiated by the school organizers and the local school board - produces the best results.
The charter-school movement has spread rapidly since Minnesota approved the first charter school in 1991. It might come to Virginia soon.
Gov. George Allen's Commission on Champion Schools has recommended that Virginia approve legislation authorizing charter schools. State Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, will introduce a charter-school bill during the upcoming session of the General Assembly.
Bell, a member of the commission that studied the issue, believes charter schools will help stem the decline in academics and provide for greater parental and local involvement and choice in public schools.
Bell has worked closely with the Allen administration on the issue and expects support from GOP lawmakers.
Charter schools have been described as public schools that have some features of private schools. Bell calls them "bottom-up magnet schools." Teachers, parents and other organizers design a school and try to sell the school board on it and obtain funding.
Teacher unions have opposed charter schools in most states where they have been approved.
The proposal for charter schools in Virginia already has come under attack. Officials of several state agencies and local boards believe that charter schools will weaken public schools overall.
At a Senate Education and Health Committee meeting last week, several speakers said charter schools would benefit only schools in affluent areas.
But charter schools have been organized in several states for at-risk and inner-city children.
Minnesota has 14 charter schools. Half of them are designed for at-risk students who were doing poorly in regular schools.
One school serves deaf children, another focuses on vocational education and still another serves children with reading and learning problems. One is located in a public housing project in Minneapolis.
William Allen, coordinator of charter schools for the Minnesota Department of Education, said the schools are free to design their own program provided they fulfill their promises and achieve the performance standards in their charters
Those standards might include an improvement in standardized test scores or a certain attendance level. If the schools fail to achieve their their performance standards, their charters can be revoked.
Parents - and even students, in some cases - serve on the governing boards for the schools.
Some charter schools have no principals or assistant principals. Teachers and administrative assistants oversee the daily administrative duties. Some schools use flexible schedules, such as allowing students one day a week for projects and makeup work.
At the Cedar-Riverside Community School in Minneapolis, Ethel Norwood serves as an administrative coordinator, but there is no principal. The school is run by a nine-member board composed of five teachers, three parents and one student. It has 106 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Cedar-Riverside is not a traditional school. The classrooms are located in a shopping plaza and four commercial buildings. Being located near businesses, housing projects and two universities is an integral part of the education program, Norwood said.
The school gave preference to hiring teachers with different racial and ethnic backgrounds and to those willing to live in the neighborhood.
"We have small classes with more individual instruction," Norwood said. "We have an open school where parents are encouraged to become involved with their children's education.."
Like others charter schools in Minnesota, Norwood said, Cedar-Riverside is organized to meet student needs.
At the Toivola-Meadowlands Charter School, Josie Gagne said students are allowed to proceed at their own pace.
"If we get ahead of others, we don't have to hold back until the others catch up," said Gagne, a ninth-grader at the school. "We get to do a lot of projects on our own."
Toivola-Meadowlands was the first charter school in the nation that included high school grades.
William Allen said dedicated teachers are the driving force behind most charter schools. Without them, he said, there would no charter schools.
But not all teachers are happy. Teacher unions in Minnesota fear that state funds will be drained away from regular schools to finance charter schools. They opposed charter provisions that allow the schools to adopt their own work rules and teacher salaries.
Charter schools receive the same amount of public funds on a per pupil basis as any public school. No tuition can be charged, because they are public schools. They can't discriminate in admission on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion.
Nationwide, there are 88 charter schools operating in 10 states this year - Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
In Massachusetts, a residential charter school has been established for homeless youths and wards of the state. In California, there is a charter high school that targets juvenile offenders, pregnant teens and students that have been expelled.
States differ on who grants the charters. In Minnesota and several other states, local school boards grant the charters. In Massachusetts, the state Department of Education grants them, not the local board.
Charter schools have created some controversy wherever they have been approved, but the most conflict has occurred in Michigan
A circuit court judge in Michigan has ruled that the state's charter-school law is unconstitutional.
Judge William Collette said charter schools do not qualify as public schools that are eligible for state funding. He ruled that the charter schools are not under the exclusive control of the state and therefore can't receive public funds.
Because charter schools are organized as nonprofit corporations run by a privately selected board of directors, Collette said, their control is beyond the public.
Analysts believe that the judge's ruling was a serious blow to charter schools in Michigan, but it may not have been fatal. Republican Gov. John Engler will appeal the ruling, and state legislators are expected to draft a new charter law.
In Minnesota, William Allen said he is following the Michigan case closely. The ruling could have implications for other states, but no immediate impact on them.
The American Civil Liberties Union has praised the ruling. The ACLU said the charter-school law was an effort to divert public education funds to private and parochial schools.
The Virginia General Assembly needs to act on the charter-school concept during the upcoming session, Bell said, because some people already have expressed an interest in establishing charter schools.
The decision to attend or work at a charter school is voluntary. If communities don't want charter schools, there will be none, Bell said. But he wants the state to offer that alternative.
by CNB