Schools for Tomorrow Blog

Colorado’s education reformers should stand up and give a big “Amen” (or “Ditto,” if you prefer less religious overtones) to the Denver Post’s David Harsanyi for his column yesterday. As Pueblo’s Cesar Chavez Academy truly gets the attention it deserves, including one of two charter schools from across the nation to be featured in an upcoming U.S. Department of Education documentary, Harsanyi makes the critical point:

In Colorado, Cesar Chavez already has a sterling reputation. High marks come from nearly every corner of the educational establishment. Incredibly, this success comes, according to Hernandez, by operating with 40 percent less money per student (after paying for their own building and other expenses) than the typical public school does.

With all this success, one wonders why Cesar Chavez Academy, and similar schools, are constantly struggling to overcome barriers laid in their way by local and state governments.

We can begin with the Colorado legislature. Both the House and Senate education committees have been run by staunch union ideologues, Sen. Sue Windels and Rep. Mike Merrifield. The latter was caught this year asserting, "There must be a special place in hell" for certain "charterizers." They were scheming to make it harder for Coloradans to follow Hernandez’s lead.

Perhaps, instead of assaulting successful ideas, these naysayers should be asking Hernandez: How do you do it?

To imitate success like Cesar Chavez Academy in the world of public education requires the subordination of political power, financial interests, and philosophical attachments to parental empowerment and academic achievement. With the way incentives are structured in the current school system, we may never get there: at best, it will be a long time.

Those of us inside the world of education reform understand, and largely agree with, that assessment. So we keep pushing for more choices and opportunities. Approved by the Colorado General Assembly in 1993, charter schools make up a critical component of the reform toolbox. On one hand, they serve as an outlet for parents who seek an alternative form of education for their children. On the other hand, they serve as laboratories of innovation, liberated from certain regulations that bind traditional public schools.

Yet a certain political element in Colorado continues to assail the innovations, even when they are highly successful. What good is a laboratory if you ignore the results of the experiments? Seeking to demonize Cesar Chavez Academy (with 3,000 students on the waiting list!), rather than to replicate it, would be something akin to finding a cancer treatment that works extremely well for many thousands of patients and restricting its production as a “dangerous alternative.”

There are too many excuses, and not enough common sense, in our education policy. Let’s keep doing all we can to fix it.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 5:51 am and is filed under School choice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.