Insight
5
December 20,1996
Charter school proposed for county
By Kelly Griffin
The latest trend in public education re
form has now come to Rocky Mount: the
charter school. According to the Septem
ber issue of North Carolina magazine, a
charter school is a public school receiving
the same amount of state and local fund
ing per pupil as traditional public schools.
The main difference is that it’s managed
by a private, non-profit group that's been
granted a five-year renewable contract or
charter.
The Community Development Founda
tion, an organization with members from
various local businesses, applied for the
charter to begin a new elementary school
last October. If the charter is approved on
March 15, 1997, the school would begin
operation next fall at one of the four
possible rental facilities: American Auc
tion and Fixture Company OfficeAVare-
house Building, Magnum Warehouse
Building, K-Mart Shopping Center, or
Tarrytown Mall, according to the applica
tion.
The school will be operated by Advan
tage Schools, Inc., a Massachusetts com
pany which specializes in manageing char
ter schools. When the Community Devel
opment Foundation applied for the char
ter, it had the option to apply to three
agencies: the local school board, N.C.
State Board of Education or one of the 16
universities in the UNC system. "We ap
plied to the state board because we were
pressed for time. The state is the final
authority for all applications," said char
ter applicant Doug Haynes.
Legislators just passed the bill to allow
charter schools this past year, so there are
no schools operating in this state yet. The
legislation specified that there can be up
to 100 charter schools in this sta.' next
fall. So far, about half of that number have
applied. However, there are 480 charter
schools throughout the country.
The concept of a charter school is a
relatively new idea. According to North
Carolina magazine, the suggestion arose
in California in the mid-1980's and then
spread to Minn, which became the first
state to adopt legislation allowing it in
1991. Seven states had joined Minnesota
by 1993. North Carolina became the 25th
state to permit charter schools in 1995.
The number of charter schools nation
wide has dramatically increased from the
134 that existed in January of 1995. Cali
fornia has the most, with 73 schools in
operation last year.
Goals of charter school
The main goal of the Rocky Mount
charter school, according to the applica
tion, is to improve student learning: "An
overarching goal of the School is to dem
onstrate the height of academic achieve
ment that inner-city students can rou
tinely attain when the advantages of char
ter school governance are coupled with
ambitious new academic standards."
The founders intend to do this, in part,
by recognizing which students, after their
sophomore year, plan to pursue a tradi
tional college education leading to a
bachelor's degree and those who plan to
enter the work force or pursue a technical
degree after graduation. Students will be
taught curriculum according to which
plans they hope to pursue. The latter will
be in partnership with several local busi
nesses to ensure that they will be trained
to the highest skill standards.
"The founders are committed to attract
ing a highly diverse school population
that is broadly representative of the Rocky
"Fairness is irrelevant.
Private schools produce
what we say we want."
-Robert Lutz, Pres.
Chrysler Corporation
Mount school-age population by race,
ethnicity, and income," according to the
application. Both students at risk of fail
ure and those academically gifted will be
emphasized at this school. They will be
grouped by subject competency,.not age.
This placing will be done by student
records and a test, but there is no test that
must be passed to attend the school. "There
can be no standards of acceptance. No test
must be taken to be admitted. We can't
have all one race," said charter board
member Jim Dickens.
"The charter school offers the opportu
nity to run schools differently-without the
bureaucratic, red-tape government agen
cies. It can be innovative in what it teaches
and still be under our school system. Stan
dards have to be met and approved by the
school board," said Dickens. According
to the application, every classroom in the
Rocky Mount Advantage Charter School
will have plenty of teaching supplies and
state-of-the-art computers networked to
each other, the Internet, and all Advan
tage classrooms throughout the country.
Every teacher will have a laptop com
puter, telephone, and fax machine. Teach
ers will be able to communicate with other
Advantage Charter School teachers
through their intranet technology, sharing
their experiences and teaching plans for
their lessons.
The idea attracts a wide variety of people.
Chrysler Corporation President Robert
Lutz believes that competition will be the
best thing that has ever happened to pub
lic schools, according to the Oct. 19 issue
of World magazine. He doesn't think it
makes any sense that everything else but
public schools are competitive. He noted
that even the phone company that existed
as a monopoly for so long is now competi
tive. In the 70’s, he said, "Chrysler was a
pubi ic school. The other guys were Coun
try Day and St. Margaret Mary."
When asked if this comparison was un
fair, he responded, "Fairness is irrelevant.
Private schools produce what we say we
want." Lutz does not think that this com
petition will kill public schools. He be
lieves it will force them to act differently
and develop new priorities.
Success of charter school
The charter schools nationwide seem to
be off to a grand start. In the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, Elaine Mosley, a Pennsyl
vania charter school official said, "It's
mind-boggling to reflect on the beginning
of the school year and then consider where
we are right now." The September issue of
Phi Delta Kappan magazine reported that
at Academy Charter School in Castle
Rock, a recent survey determined that 99
percent of the parents stated they believe
the school is meeting theirchildren's needs.
Test scores in all areas increased during
the 1994-95 school year. According to the
Boston Globe, 75 percent of Boston char
ter school parents said that their children
had become more interested in school and
55 percent said they were more involved
with theirchildren's education. The Globe
stated, "The unions and public schools
have plenty of cause to worry--and im
prove. That's one of the best reasons for
charter schools to exist."
The corporation that applied for the charter is the moving
force behind its promotion. Doug Haynes, Community Devel
opment Foundation board member, said, "What we are doing
is essentially an effort to free the schools of much of the
regulations they have to deal with, mostly created in Raleigh,
and to give parents greater roles in controiling the kind of
environment for theii* children. A lot of money is spent fn
bureaucracy, not in the classroom."
Haynes also said that standards will be higher and will have
to be met atthe new school. "If standards aren't reached in our
schools now, nothing happens. In the charter school/people!
are fired and standards are met, or we’re out of business."
Many educators are also willing to give the school a chance.
Principal Jerry Garter said, "If it provides for a better educated
populace in Rocky Mount, that's good. That's our goal. I hope
the end result is that it makes public education better,"
Cons:
Much of the opposition for the charter school is coming from
skeptical parents, teachers, and school administrators. The
biggest concern is that the new school will take the brightest
students away from other elementary schools.
"One of my two major concerns is that the charter school Is
designed to pull some of the best students out of the school
system and put them in a setting that's not reflective of our
community," said superintendent Dr. Travis Twiford,
"Second, our school system has been recognized for efforts
to work together to make it a better one. I was disappointed
thatwe were not asked to be involved in discussing the charter
program." he added.
Principal Jerry Carter's main concern involves whether
rules and regulations will be equally applied. "If state rules and
regulations are relaxed, it will be unfair competition. It makes
it hard for us to compete," he said.