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Other States' Successes
Assemblyman Wendell Williams claimed that SB 220 was a "feel-good, political bill," but success stories of charter schools across the nation demonstrated that children and teachers both are benefitting from this educational innovation.
• With its fiscal freedom, Fenton Avenue School in California has been able to reduce class size, create extended day programs and restore teacher salaries to what they were before a recent pay cut, all while bringing in a $200,000 surplus at the end of their first year (Los Angeles Times).
• Freedom from certification and teacher contract requirements has allowed charter schools to bring in the best teachers for their students. Instead of hiring teachers by district mandates or by seniority, Options for Youth in California, a charter school for dropouts focuses on hiring teachers "according to their ability to work with individual students" (Charter School Proposal by Option for Youth).
• In Georgia the entire Cartersville District consisting of primary, elementary, middle and high school chose to convert to charter status in 1996. In return for flexibility on personnel, testing and class size, the district has promised to register improvement in every area measured by the Council for School Performance, increase the number of students passing the high school graduation tests, and raise its standardized test scores "to record rates in Georgia" (The Atlanta Journal and Constitution).
• After its much-publicized successes, City Academy in Minnesota now exchanges information with its own district on enhancing programming for all its high-risk students. Teachers and parents launched the Minnesota New Country School to take advantage of and expand the role of technology in learning. Now district teachers go to the school to learn how to implement technology in their classrooms (Testimony, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and the Workforce).
• Under the direction of its principal, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in California had an actualized surplus of $1.2 million (from a $4.6 million budget) after its first year of operation—an unheard of feat in the cash strapped L.A. Unified School District where the district has cut more than a billion dollars over the last several years and slashed employee salaries up to 10 percent. The school’s operating surplus has been used in the four years since it converted to charter status to build a new 14-classroom complex, cultural center and library, further correcting overcrowding and reducing class sizes (America’s Agenda).
Bowling Green Elementary School in California used an outside supplier to get lower prices on paper goods and the district responded by lowering its own prices. Bowling Green returned to the district supplier and the entire district received a price break on its paper. Savings then allowed the charter school to reduce its student/teacher ration from 33-to-1 to 25-to-1. Not surprisingly, a number of these positive changes had an impact on attendance. Once a tremendous problem, unexcused absences were almost eliminated --- 600 of the school’s 725 students missed no more than one day in the charter’s first year (Sacramento Bee).
Parent involvement is a hallmark of California charter schools. Parents in one bilingual community built Oakland Charter Middle School from foundation to fixtures, on park land donated by a local Roman Catholic Diocese. The parents remain involved, donating one hour each week to clean bathrooms, to serve food, and to complete myriad other duties which are traditionally contracted out. Oakland Charter Middle was established to rectify a system that did not allow for the creation of a bilingual middle school. All teachers are bilingual and hired by parents. At the Accelerated School in South Central Los Angeles, parent involvement at school meetings is 80 percent, and parents spend more than 150 hours a month volunteering at the school. Washington Park School logged more than 14,000 volunteer hours in its first year as a charter; parents at Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School donate four hours a month; parents at Santiago Middle School donated 19,000 volunteer hours in the first year of the school’s charter (The Orange County Register).
Sara Kass, principal and teacher-founder of City on a Hill Charter School in Massachusetts, describes the accountability to which her students are held by the school and the community: "Our community holds us accountable for results. Progress is measured by juries composed of a teacher, a student and two community jurors. We expect students to be able to write a well-organized and interesting paragraph, read literature from the ninth-grade curriculum and the newspaper with understanding, give a prepared speech, apply basic scientific concepts, basic mathematical tools and algebraic thinking, conduct a basic conversation in Spanish. At the end of one year, 44 percent of students were reading at grade level, 55 percent could write a good paragraph. These numbers indicated that we have a ways to go, but considering that only 28 percent of our entering students could read at grade level, they are all making progress" (The Public Interest)
Information compiled by the Center for Education Reform.
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