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Education
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Students
have more education options with the newly opened charter schools—
results-oriented, independent public schools.
By Peter Downs
A new era opened for public education in St. Louis this year,
maybe. The return of the school year saw the opening of the
City’s first four charter schools. Whether they will make any
difference to the state of public schools remains to be seen.
Proponents of charter schools say it will take at least five
years to tell.
What is a charter school? In simplified terms, it is an independent
public school where results are more important than the process.
The key concepts are independent, public and results.
Each charter school operates independently of the St. Louis
Public School System. Laura Friedman, director of the Charter
School Information Center in Clayton, says that means no principal
has to seek the permission of a higher administrator to get
books, and no money is diverted from the classroom to support
offices and free-standing administrative offices and several
layers of bureaucrats.
By law, however, charter schools in St. Louis and Kansas City—the
only two districts where Missouri allows such schools—have to
be free and open to all. A common misconception is that a charter
school can have admission requirements or serve one particular
neighborhood, says Dave Camden, assistant director of the Charter
Schools Information Center, but “that is absolutely, categorically
not allowed...The statute states that every child must be guaranteed
an equal chance of admission,” he says, “and geographic boundaries
are allowed only if they do not result in racial, social or
economic isolation.”
In practice, that means schools hold a lottery if they have
more applicants than seats. If they have a waiting list for
openings, they hold a lottery to select the student who will
fill the opening, Friedman says, and that makes entry into a
charter school “even less restrictive than getting into a magnet
school,” she adds.
Before the charter school concept, the state measured the effectiveness
of a school system by the processes it had in place, such as
the number of books in school libraries and number of certified
librarians on staff, Friedman says. The number of process regulations
issued by the state board of education added up over time, until
now they fill 10 volumes, she adds.
The charter school movement takes the opposite approach, saying
if children are learning what they need, why should anyone care
how it is done? Not surprisingly, then, the focus of charter
schools nationwide has been on the red tape entwining schools
rather than on what goes on inside the classroom. And the biggest
difference between charter schools and mainstream public schools
“is the amount of paperwork,” Camden says.
In place of reports documenting the number of textbooks, computers,
and test tubes a school system has, charter schools raise standardized
student testing to a new level.
The St. Louis Charter School administered a standard achievement
test to all 524 students at the beginning of the school year,
“and we will do it again at the end of the year to measure the
growth that kids have made,” says Douglas Thaman, the school
principal. “That’s a difference between us and mainstream public
schools, and it’s purely a dollars and cents issue. It costs
$8,000 to $10,000 each time you administer the test.”
Such testing is central to the vision of the St. Louis Charter
School, an elementary school at 5247 Fyler, which formed “to
help kids meet or exceed state standards,” Thaman says.
“One shouldn’t be surprised that [charter schools] share a common
interest in educational achievement,” says Stuart Greenbaum,
dean of Washington University’s Olin School of Business, “after
all, they are a reaction to the failure of schools in meeting
educational goals. They want to show that in their ability to
pass standardized tests they do better than public schools.”
Nationally, charter schools have not been very innovative in
the classroom, Friedman says, but principals from all of the
charter schools in St. Louis say their schools differ from regular
public schools in their “integrated curriculum” and “project-based
learning.”
Jo Ann Perkins, the principal at Lift for Life Academy at 1415
Cass Ave. explains: “Sixth graders study ancient cultures. Normally
you start with Egypt, but we started with Greece because of
the Olympics. By studying the Olympics, they also study math,
learning decimals; they learn research skills researching past
scores; and study science by looking at physiology and sport.
We have the freedom to massage the curriculum, to get out of
the textbooks and into the real world.”
The Lift for Life Academy, currently with 65 sixth graders,
is conceived as a middle school for children at risk of dropping
out of school.
Thaman acknowledges that mainstream public schools also encourage
project-based learning and integrating subject matter, “but
their class sizes are far too large for it too work.” Class
sizes in the charter schools range from 16 students per teacher
to 24 in the second grade at Lyle Academy at 4300 Goodfellow.
And in charter schools, he adds, teachers aren’t just encouraged
to integrate subject matter and implement projects, they are
expected to.
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City
living—and schooling—at its best
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Two
of St. Louis’ more innovative schools are New
City School and Crossroads School, both in the Central
West End.
New City School, with 390 students ranging from
three-year-olds in preschool to sixth graders, is
a leader in applying the theory of multiple intelligences
to education. The theory recognizes eight types
of intelligence seated in different parts of the
brain. In very basic terms, that means there are
lots of ways to be smart,” says Thomas Hoerr,
director of New City School, “but schools usually
only value a couple of those.”
“It is clear that the key to children learning
is to interest them in learning,” he says,
but since children learn in different ways, the
same techniques don’t work on every child.
Methods based on the theory of multiple intelligences
“give kids lots of different roads to learn,”
which makes them excited about learning and creates
a desire for life-long learning, he says.
The results are impressive. Hoerr says New City
School students average four years above grade level
on standardized tests. More importantly than that,
he adds, is the school’s emphasis on character
education, including teaching students how to build
consensus, lead and work effectively as team members.
New City School began developing multiple intelligences
teaching methods 13 years ago. It has become so
well known that over 700 educators a year visit
the school to observe its methods, more than half
of them from outside of Missouri, Hoerr says.
Listening to school reform dialogue, he adds, “everyone
is talking about the things that make us successful:
accountability, site-based management, and multiple
intelligences.”
Crossroads School, with 190 students in grades 7
through 12, is one of only a handful of urban, independent
secondary schools in the country, and the only independent,
coed, secondary school within the city limits.
Crossroads may not do any one thing that no other
schools do, but it is the combination of three things
that makes the school unique, says headmaster William
Handmaker: a rigorous, college-prep academic curriculum;
an emphasis on involvement in the urban community,
because “learning does not occur just in the
classroom;” and “an emphasis on celebrating
diversity” as opposed to tolerance.
Upper level Crossroads students are required to
take college level classes, Handmaker says; students
are required to volunteer at a collaborating community
organization; and, by any measure, the school is
one of the most diverse independent schools in the
country.
And the results? “Our students go on to the
best colleges,” Handmaker says, and the approximately
30 graduating seniors every year receive between
$400,000 and $500,000 in merit scholarships.
And, the school hopes to build on its success: it
has plans to double the size of its facility, which
is near Delmar and DeBaliviere.
Both schools are built on small classes. The student
to teacher ratio at New City School is 11:1; at
Crossroads it is only 9:1. |
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Delores Guyton, principal at Lyle Academy, an elementary school
focusing on math, science, and technology, says the other innovative
approach her school is taking is to “try to individualize instruction
as much as possible.” To that end, she is seeking volunteers
from businesses and the community to act as tutors and mentors
so that every student can have some one-on-one instruction.
Lyle Academy currently has 195 students in pre-kindergarten
through second grade. Both Lyle Academy and Lift for Life Academy
plan to add a grade a year as students age, up to fifth grade
at Lyle and eighth grade at Lift for Life Academy.
Smaller classes, pushing pedagogic decisions down to the level
of classrooms, teachers, and measuring individual results are
all important, Greenbaum says, “but what is definitive about
charter schools is they offer parents a real choice, thereby
creating competition that serves the customer well.”
“The problem with public schools is they’ve had a kind of monopolistic
provider position,” he says. By broadening school choice to
people who cannot afford private schools, charter schools break
that monopoly, and the resulting competition, he says, will
yield better service.
Friedman expects four more charter schools will open next year,
including the Garden School, which is being organized as a science
elementary school in collaboration with the Missouri Botanical
Garden. Like existing charter schools, however, the emphasis
will be on the elementary years. High Schools are more complicated
and much more expensive to start.
“We hope someone will step forward to start a high school,”
Friedman says. Someone is planning to do just that. The Associated
General Contractors of St. Louis has set in motion a plan to
start a construction charter school to prepare high school students
for college or careers in construction.
Peter Downs is a free-lance writer and editor of Construction
News & Review.
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