Warming up to charter schools

By Bill Brooks

Last April, Urban Times published a comprehensive report on educational options in and around our nine neighborhoods, including those offered by certain charter schools.

Important reminder: Charter schools are public schools; they are free. In Indiana, all charter schools must be open to all students. And did I mention they are free. No tuition. Not a cent.

As part of that 2008 Urban Times report, in this column, I wrote that what I had learned about charter schools had allayed some, but not all, of my worries about the very concept of charters. One worry which remained: that charter schools were depriving traditional public schools of some of the most caring parents, parents who because they had sought out charter schools had proven their concern for their children’s education, parents whose commitment is sorely needed by Indianapolis Public Schools.

I stand by that statement, but here’s what I have come to learn since: That those parents, as a general rule, were not so much looking for better education for their children, but desperately seeking an educational environment in which their children could succeed. Desperation is the word. All other choices had proven failures; therefore, they sought out charter schools.

I have also learned that parents are not always the driving force here. Charter school administrators tell about a few students themselves who bring themselves to the school doors, who somehow find a way to attend class every day even as their parents (or parent) moves from one part of the city to another.

Two charter schools with which I have some familiarity – Herron High School and the Fountain Square Academy – have posted test scores which support the idea that charter schools are performing as hoped. But I don’t dwell on such scores, because I happen to think those test scores have become the tail wagging the dog. Too often apples and oranges. A vain attempt to quantify what is more qualitative in nature.

There are academic studies, too, which charter school proponents say reinforce their cause, and which public school advocates say do not. Eye of the beholder stuff. But, as evidence of hope for charters, let’s look at a few observations found in a very recent report by the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis.

That students coming to charter schools typically have low test scores upon entering charter schools. (As one charter school administrator told me, honor roll kids don’t switch to charters, that students who are achieving well in public schools are quite happy there.)
That students who had been enrolled at least two years in their charter school showed significantly greater academic growth when compared to a controlled sample of students from traditional Indiana schools that were similar in demographic characteristics and baseline academic achievement.

But even the UIndy study points to the need for more comprehensive analysis. “The specific factors that contributed to the academic growth are not known,” the researchers said.

What is clear, at least to me, is that charter schools deserve the chance to provide more research for the researchers. This, too, must also be said: Creating a school from scratch is a daunting task; mistakes will be made, have been made – but the charter school system created by Mayor Bart Peterson and advanced by Mayor Greg Ballard has been dealing with the failures, while encouraging the successes.

Meanwhile, my sense is that most citizens don’t fully grasp the concept of charter schools. Did I mention that they are tuition-free? See, you forgot that already, didn’t you? They do not, contrary to my earliest concerns, cherry-pick the best and the brightest. Quite the contrary, in fact. They serve all demographics, with their racial makeup being almost identical, in fact, with that of Indianapolis Public Schools. A 2006 report showed that 26 percent of the students in this city’s charter schools were white – the identical percentage to IPS. African- American students made up 66 percent of the charter school population, compared to 59 percent in IPS. The biggest variances came among Hispanic students – 11 percent in IPS to only 4 percent in charter schools.

The fact that two-thirds of charter school students in Indianapolis are black is encouraging because of another statistic once developed by The Indianapolis Star when it studied the class of 2004: Only 20 percent of African-American males graduated in four years from the city’s traditional public high schools. One out of five. That is unacceptable, and so is claiming that the status quo will change without such options as charter schools.

I still believe IPS will need every single committed parent it can get, if there is any hope for the beleaguered system to truly serve our city’s youth. But I also believe that the parents who have chosen charter schools have done the right thing, for themselves and their children.

(For more information about the local charter school system, see www.indy.gov/eGov/Mayor/ Education/Charter.)

The good idea of the month comes from Woodruff Place resident John Austin Butsch, who recommends changing the name of the street which runs from the East End of Mass Ave to 10th Street. It ought to be called “Massachusetts Avenue,” Butsch argued, and not “BELLEFONTAINE STREET,” as it is currently legally known.

The confusion dates to the 1960s, when construction of Interstates 65/70 cut off Mass Ave and eliminated almost all of Bellefontaine Street south of 15th Street. What was left was a block-long stretch running along the east side of the former Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and a very few houses that remain along the interstate.

What also remains is constant confusion. Today, R Bistro stands at the corner of Mass Ave, Bellefontaine Street and Davidson Street. If you tell someone to get to 10th Street by following Mass Ave, you’re going to get them there – but there’s a reason you don’t say “turn on Bellefontaine and head up to 10th.” That would be unnecessary; so, too, is calling that stretch of pavement “Bellefontaine.”

I recognize there’s a historic preservation element to this discussion, and duly note that changing a Downtown street name should not be done in haste. But the die was cast when the interstates ripped through the area, and it’s far past time to recognize that confusion should not reign. “Bellefontaine” can be rememered on a historic marker. But Mass Ave should intersect with 10th Street.

Thanks, Mr. Butsch. Wish I had thought of it.

Here’s the answer to one of the questions most often asked of this particular editor: Fethi Develioglu.

So what’s the question? Who drew the CARICATURE I use with my column, and on my business card?

Fethi, as he is known professionally, is a Turkish cartoonist. Jeannie and I stumbled upon his booth at an outdoor art fair in Ortakoy, an affluent suburb of Istanbul along the Bosphorus, one Sunday afternoon almost 10 years ago. Before we even reached his booth, he had completed the sketch, handing it to me on a small piece of drawing board.

We purchased a couple of his drawings of local houses, to compliment Jeannie’s rather elaborate travel scrapbook. Reading an English-language clipping he had taped to his booth, we discovered that he was “the Charles Schultz of Turkey.” Later Googling him, we discovered that in 1979 he had been named Best Political Cartoonist of the Decade by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

All that’s nice, but the image became my personal logo because, well, he nailed it. It’s me. And Fethi’s generosity is typical of the Turkish spirit – and one of several reasons why Turkey is my favorite travel destination on the planet.