Focusing on the Outcomes: Charter schools deliver

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a story today about Charter schools coming to St. Louis. The KIPP Charter school network, boasting an 80 percent college admission in contrast to less than 20% nationally for low-income students, will team up with Washington University in St. Louis as sponsor of 5 new schools to serve urban St. Louis. Additionally, business leaders have pledged $500,000 to support the start-up. The first school to open in 2009 will be a Middle school. In St. Louis Public schools high school graduation rates hovered around 55 percent, with less than half of those students attending a two- or four-year college. But this year after the State takeover and loss of accreditation, no student from St. Louis Public schools will get a diploma. They will receive only a certificate, and I imagine with that comes even lower graduation rates.

So not only do KIPP Charter schools offer a real alternative to the public schools in St. Louis, Charter schools are essentially the ONLY alternative that offers a diploma at the end. The need for alternatives has become very tangible—and while it hurts our students that the system has fallen so far down, the silver lining is that those students who were impaired by failing schools are finally being recognized on a larger scale, and people are working from all aspects of the community to stem the tide of lost potential.

On another note, I came across a St. Louis group on Myspace.com called the Drop-out Project, working to raise awareness about dropouts as individuals with potential and fighting to keep kids staying in or going back to school. Read their mission here and give them some love!

Dr. King and Florida's school choice rally

In Florida today, nearly 4,000 school choice supporters turned out in Tallahassee on Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day to voice not only their support for giving parents choice, but also in the spirit of civil right that school choice be a bipartisan priority.

My first thought was about Dr. King. Few men in our country have so affected the heart of the country, and with actions that always reinforced the words that he said. He didn’t let the eloquence of his words, which would have stood on their own, go unaccompanied and unsupported, which inspired a nation to stand behind their beliefs as well.

My second thought was of education as the next front in the ongoing battle for civil rights, or the rights to full legal, social and economic equality. Leaving aside the legal part, education is a social right, which affects every student’s economic future. I have seen a lot of rhetoric from voices who I’m sure would also say they care deeply about public education that say school choice will destroy public education, but take this quote from the historic Brown v. Board decision:

To separate black children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way never to be undone . . . We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Now take race and substitute economic status. Or neighborhoods. I am certain that if Justice Earl Warren could see the current state of the nation’s public schools, this would not be what he envisioned desegregation would create. It is a mere permutation of that philosophy to know that keeping children locked into failing schools is a form of economic segregation.

Now if this isn’t a bipartisan issue by now, the something is seriously wrong and Dr. King’s words have gone unheeded by those who see the civil rights movement as an historical period instead of an ongoing goal.

Tax Credit Bill filed

A tuition tax credit bill was filed which would help children in low performing school districts, such as Kansas City and St. Louis. This bill would provide tax credits for donations to organizations that give out scholarships to children in these schools. The bill can be seen here. It is introduced by Senators Ridgeway and Loudon. This type of bill can really serve to help these children. As I do love this bill, I wish that it would be a statewide initiative, not only focused on St. Louis and Kansas City. Other areas across Missouri could truly benefit from this.

The Show Me Institute released a study about the benefits of such a bill. The Fiscal Effects of a Tuition tax Credit Program in Missouri, written by Mike Podgursky, Sarah Brodsky, and Justin Hauke, does a great analysis of the ways Missouri can benefit from such a bill.

A tuition tax credit program has been proposed for Missouri to address educatio inequality among low-income families. The terms of this program would grant Missouri taxpayers a credit on their state income tax bills for contributions to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) — not-for-profit education groups that are recognized by the state. In turn, SGOs would use these contributions to provide private-school scholarships to grade-school students who meet eligibility criteria set by the Legislature.

Under the conditions we consider, a tuition tax credit program has the potential to save the state $7 million per year. Savings from a partial tax credit, in which taxpayers receive less than a dollar- for-dollar match on their contributions, may be as high as $17 million.

Missourians need to pay close attention to this bill and its progress. Although it may not be a new idea to Missouri, we need to make sure it passes this time. We can really use the benefits it serves to offer.

Rural education in Missouri: in need of reform

Looking at rural education

Rachel B. Tompkins at Education Week has a wonderful article breaking down some misconceptions and misperceptions about rural schools.

Anyone who, like me, has lived in a small or rural town understands that the school is often the town hub. Entertainment, nostalgia and hope center on the school. And with the smaller scale comes a more intimate knowledge of teachers, administration and classes. Tompkins notes that contrary to popular belief, rural areas are becoming more diverse, more impoverished and more prolific. Anyone who believes rural communities are a thing of the past would be shocked to learn that 22 percent (10 million) of public school students live in rural communities.

This means that some of the poorest communities in our country are serving almost a quarter of its students. And because of their small populations and spread-out nature, those rural areas don’t always have access to some of the benefits we see in urban and suburban districts.

Among the concerns of rural districts is an inability to compete with urban teacher salaries or offer additional training, poor facilities in need of repair, transportation concerns and an inordinate tax burden to tiny and already ill-equipped communities.

“Nationwide, the 800 school districts in the poorest rural communities serve a school-age population of over 950,000 students, and more than 32 percent of them are Title I students. That rate is as high as that in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia. Further, students in these poorest “Rural 800” districts are 26 percent African-American, 20 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent Native American,” says Tompkins.

Responding to rural education needs is an effort that, sadly, has been on the backburner of education reform both state and nation-wide. While federal funding is needed to supplement the tax burden, I’d love to see a discussion focused on rural education in Missouri. How can we offer incentives for great teachers? What can we learn from communities that know their school system inside and out? We hear a lot about the problems of urban districts in Missouri, but a great deal of our state is rural. There are a lot of similarities, as we’ve seen with both rural Wyaconda and St. Louis city schools losing accreditation. There are also some very serious limitations in rural communities that demand solutions we take for granted in urban areas.

Education is such an important component of economic development, individual success and is a necessity and a right for every child. We cannot move forward as a state if the education of our rural communities is left behind.

Tuition tax credits save state AND students

And why we need that now:

For those of you who in smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas of Missouri whose eyes have been trained on the urban education issues of Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis, swing those peepers back to your communities.

Wyaconda is a small district in Clark County, Missouri serving only 32 K-8 students. The district pays for 13 high school students who go to neighboring high schools. It is one of three unaccredited school districts in Missouri, along with Riverview Gardens and St. Louis Public Schools.

One can only imagine the difficulties faced by such a small school district. Funding for administration, structure and teachers has to be stretched to the limit, and they are now facing the closure of their school and the students could be transferred to other districts by the authority of DESE.

This is enough to upset some, like Brock Kirchner, a seventh grader whose entire family attended the school. “This school is a really great school,” said Kirchner.

Distributing 32 students to neighboring districts would not be an overarching burden to the state, though it would be disappointing to those students. But when looking statewide, at Riverview Gardens 7800 with an assessed value of $275 million, it makes me wonder if more money makes a better district. In St. Louis, spending per pupil was over $12,000 in 2003 with a recent enrollment of $32,000 students.

Let’s consider what the closing of St. Louis public schools and Riverview Gardens could mean. The re-distribution of 40 thousand students to other districts would cause a considerable burden on other districts and their taxpayers. This is the option that DESE reserves for schools like Wyaconda which have lost accreditation and are ceasing to show adequate improvement, yet the strain of that option for larger districts may be why DESE hasn’t proffered that as an option for St. Louis and Riverview Gardens.

That is why a recent paper by economics professor Mike Podgursky may be a head-turner in the next legislative session; while the fate of students in unaccredited schools hangs in the balance. Podgursky outlines a tuition tax credit that would specifically benefit low-income students. A scholarship fund would provide students seeking other educational options with a certain amount to put towards private school tuition.

In the past tuition tax credits have been lambasted by critics who would have us believe that loss of tax revenue through the credit would drain funds from public schools. Podgursky’s study of the fiscal benefits that other states receive from tuition tax credit programs proves that line of thinking patently wrong: in fact, it could save the state at least $7 million. The gist of the paper is that the amount paid by the state per pupil is substantially higher than the amount given out per student through scholarship. Podgusrky estimates that savings could be as high as $17 million, and for outlying districts like Wyaconda, that could mean plenty of extra money in the budget to keep them on their feet.

This is a win-win idea for students in failing schools and for districts that are truly in need of more funding. Read the entire paper here.

Is education available to all on equal terms?

http://freedomisthesolution.blogspot.com/2007/11/let-my-people-go.html

“What is the status quo? I am embarrassed to say that our country is ranked 22nd in the industrialized world in education and we are falling further behind every year. We see drop out rates in many poor school districts surging past 50% and 60%. Can you look into the desperate eyes of our nation’s poor children and tell them that they don’t deserve the right to choose a better school? Can you continue to herd them into the same failing school year after year without remorse? I can not, and I will not stand idly by while injustice goes unanswered. To claim that shuffling them along the same failed pathway is fair and equal is absurd and offensive. Schools separated by geography are inherently unequal.

So I repeat the words of the Supreme Court that education “is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.” Equal does not mean taking from some it means giving to all. Equal means that every parent and child has a choice and equal funding to attend the school that most meets their needs. Equal means that hopes and dreams are not a faded sheet of paper on a bulletin board soon to be thrown away. We must have equality, we must have school choice.”

My Thoughts: Classism has become in many ways a more potent division in this country than racism ever was. Part of that is because race is visible. He was treated that way because of the color of his skin. Classism is not visible to the naked eye, but disadvantages compound over time. Few say He was treated that way because he is poor and he is poor because his parents were poor and the education available to their class and neighborhood was also poor and didn’t give him the tools he needed to move out of poverty. Those things aren’t visible, but are just as real, even though laying blame on the individual becomes an easy way to dismiss the consequences of the public education system that we are responsible for funding, supporting, and changing if it is not working.