Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501200067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY G. PRICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bob Johnson, Roanoke County, Hollins District, states: "The city School Board has come out against them and the county School Board is about to - just who the heck is he working for? If nobody wants them, is everybody wrong and he's right?" John Edwards, Roanoke vice mayor, warns that charter schools are a "Trojan horse for the voucher program."
The opponents say they are mystified why Bell has chosen to champion charter schools and are convinced that it is a political mistake to tamper with public schools. Del. Richard Cranwell seems to think that to create a change and give parents and teachers a choice is to malign the American flag, motherhood and apple pie, to be a traitor to all that is sacrosanct.
Please give the average citizen some credit for being able to see through this milky scum of political razzmatazz.
For how many years have politicians, business executives, parents and academia sounded the alarm that public schools were failing this nation - that children were not learning to read in the early grades; that they were unable to analyze and demonstrate logical agility; that they were mathematically inefficient with or without a calculator; that they cared more about the clothes they wore than the information they acquired; that they did not know how to work hard in order to achieve; and that they lacked goals, incentive and competitiveness to aspire toward success? For how long?
Yet, here comes Brandon Bell to suggest an alternative whereby the parents and school personnel who believe that they can do a better job by following a different agenda should be granted a charter. I believe he should be praised rather than condemned. Just what has the system got to lose by giving a school an opportunity to demonstrate whether it can turn out a better product than that already under aegis of the state Department of Education?
Know what I think? There will be hell to pay if charter schools work much better than the current public schools - hell to pay in the bureaucratic hallowed halls. And there will be great embarrassment. I think there are those who are afraid for their jobs if evidence is there for all to see that there are much better ways to educate our children than simply to concentrate on high technology, cultural awareness and self-fulfillment.
Like it or not, America, the land of plenty and opportunity cannot guarantee that its seniors know their own mother tongue well enough to fill out applications, write letters and attend schools of higher education. This is a disgrace, but until and unless children are given the opportunity to learn to read, write and problem-solve in the early grades, our educational system will further deteriorate, crime will continue to escalate, the prisons will fill to overflowing, and this nation, as we have known it, will eventually cease to be.
My heart breaks with this thought. Since charter schools are still going to be under the thumb of the state, and no monies will be taken away from the system, why not give them a chance, at least? Don't our children deserve at least this much? To fry Brandon Bell for his effort to improve things is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Betty G. Price of Roanoke is a private remediation therapist in language.
by CNB