Posted Online 5/5/04

by Joe Nathan

Encouraging and frustrating. Those are two words about the charter school movement that I hope to hear from US Senators, when I testify (at their request) next week in Washington D.C.

The hearing has been called by the Senate Subcommittee that supervises Washington D.C. The committee is discussing charters in DC, and around the United States.

I’ll share progress and concerns. The frequently smaller size and greater individualization offered in charters is attracting growing numbers of families, in communities like Anoka, Bemidji, Blaine, Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, Chaska, Coon Rapids, Forest Lake, Rochester, and Winona, as well as the Twin Cities.

I’ll also describe extraordinary inner city charter schools like St. Paul’s Twin Cities Academy and Harvest Prep in Minneapolis. These schools serve a variety of students, and yet are among their states’ best in academic achievement.

• Harvest Prep: 100% African American, 70% low income students, yet more than 90% of their third graders passed the state’s reading and math exam last year, a higher percentage than many of the suburbs.

• Twin Cities Academy: Twenty-seven percent students from low-income families, which is three times the percentage of low-income in Stillwater, just for example. Yet in the recently announced 8th grade tests, 91% of Twin City Academy students passed reading and math tests, compared to 79% math and 89% reading in Stillwater. A higher percentage of TCA students passed the 8th grade tests than almost any other suburb.

Test scores don’t tell a school’s whole story. But these schools strongly promote character and the arts, as well as test scores.

Other signs of progress:

• Across the country, low income and minority parents are actively selecting charters - against the prediction of some early critics. A higher percentage of low income and minority students are enrolling in charters across the country than in district schools.

• The charter movement is helping improve public school districts. For example, St. Paul Public Schools has reached out more effectively to the Hmong community since some of them began setting up charters. Forest Lake decided to create a Montessori elementary school within a school when some parents considered - after an initial rejection from the board - setting up a charter Montessori school.

What’s frustrating?

Several things:

• Charters in virtually every state receive less money, overall, than district schools. If states are going to test the charter idea, comparable funding is vital.

• After promising to fund up to 40% of special education costs, Congress has come no where near that funding level. This frustrates charter and district schools.

• Charter opponents in many states, often teacher unions and school boards, continue to try to weaken or eliminate charter laws.

But expanding opportunity is not easy. The good news for families, and for U.S. Senators, there are more strong charters than ever before. Equally important, many school districts are responding to charters by improving their own programs. The charter movement is bringing broader choices and opportunity families and educators throughout the country.

Joe Nathan is director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He can be reached at jnathan@hhh.umn.edu.