Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

20 years later, what is the value of charter schools in Utah?

5/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Two decades ago, Pinnacle Canyon Academy, a charter school in Price, had the audacity to start a high school in a wing of a local motel.

If you know anything about charters, this really wasn’t such a crazy idea. Many make due with whatever facilities are available and leave the glass palaces to the public schools in traditional districts.
​

But motels don’t exactly conjure idyllic images of school days and the three Rs.
Principal Roberta Hardy today likes to joke about how nice it was to have a bathroom in every classroom, and maid service. Desks were set up along each room’s periphery.
And yet the school had so many applicants that first year it had to hold a lottery for admission, ending up with 200 names on a waiting list.
“You have to ask,” she told me earlier this week, “what was the appeal if you had close to 200 kids whose parents were willing to put them in motel rooms for school?”
Or, put differently, what did those parents believe was lacking in their traditional public school that would cause them to get in line for such a thing?
That’s a question that still resonates 20 years later. The answer still seems as elusive as clouds on the horizon, and that may be OK.
Sunday is the start of National Charter School Week, an annual time to pause and look at this movement aimed at injecting choice and innovation into public school systems. In Utah, this began in 1998 with seven pilot schools run by a diverse group of teachers, administrators and parents. Today, according to the latest annual report, the state has 134 charter schools, with an enrollment of 78,384.
Charters, it may be safe to say, are here to stay. But it also may be safe to say the controversy over them is, as well. Ask whether they have improved public education and answers don’t come easy. And unlike traditional district schools, they can shut down, as may happen soon to the American International School of Utah.
The annual report notes that students at charters performed a little lower than those at district schools on state proficiency tests in 2018. That may be interesting, but is it relevant? Who is to say how Utah students would perform today if charters never came along? What is the value of the highest-performing schools, which are among the best in the state?
Even these questions may be too narrow. A better one may be, are Utah schools where they should be when it comes to preparing students to compete globally?
Sonia Woodbury, a founding partner of City Academy, a charter high school in Salt Lake City, is quick to extoll the great things she has seen over the past 20 years, especially when it comes to helping failing students succeed. But she wonders whether enough thought is going into the future of public education overall.
“I think we should ask ourselves in what way are we better?” she said. “How do we want to do public education?”
International PISA tests consistently show American 15-year-olds ranking in the middle of the pack in science, math and reading compared to their peers internationally. Twenty years ago, arguments raged over whether to use public money to fund private school vouchers. Voters in Utah eventually overturned legislative efforts to do that. Charters were seen as a milder way to inject competition under the public school umbrella.
Amid these weighty debates, the value of choice cannot be measured, but it should not be dismissed, either.
I speak from personal experience. Years ago, one of my sons was performing miserably in high school. My wife and I transferred him to a charter school, where he thrived.
Another son, meanwhile, thrived at the traditional high school and probably would have been miserable in a charter. Our ability to choose may not have moved the needle a millimeter in the argument over whether charters or traditional district schools perform better, but it made all the difference to the success of those two boys.
That echoes a point made by Hardy, whose school in Price has lost enrollment in recent years because of a lagging local economy. Unlike in those early days, she no longer relies on bellhops or maid service. Her school meets in a former parochial school building.
And, unlike in the beginning, 70 percent of her students now qualify for free or reduced price lunches, and nearly a quarter require special education.
“I don’t want to say we do better than everybody else,” she said. “We give people another choice.”
It’s hard to argue with that.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.