An Apple for the Parents - charter schools

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, June, 1999 by Justin Wiser

Rather than going the private mute, these trailblazers found ways to improve the schools their tax dollars already pay for.

Every month, students, teachers and parents gather in the small auditorium at Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter School to take part I in an unusual ceremony of public recognition--not for academics or athletics, but for kindness, courage, fortitude and other praiseworthy behavior. "I nominated a friend who read every problem in the book to me over the phone when I forgot to bring home my math book," says sixth-grader Lydia D'Agostino, who in turn has been commended for sitting with a sick friend. The trophy for students (and sometimes teachers, parents and community members) is a construction-paper leaf to be placed in the school's Forest of Virtues, which is actually a tree painted on a wall next to the auditorium. "It's our way of saying these things matter," says Ben Franklin's headmaster, James Bower.

The school, in Franklin, Mass., has no religious affiliation, despite being housed in a former Catholic school. It is a four-year-old charter school, the brainchild of eight parents who hatched it during a living-room conversation and nurtured it to fruition in the classroom. All the parents had children who attended Franklin's public schools, and they often talked about what they thought were the school system's shortcomings. "What was missing was a focus on developing well-rounded individuals," says Tim Casey, one of the founding parents.

So in 1993, when Massachusetts allowed the establishment of charter schools, the Caseys and three other couples--who have a total of 22 children among them--leapt at the chance to design a school with a strong emphasis on character education (inspired by Ben Franklin's list of 13 virtues), along with a rigorous academic curriculum and a focus on community service and parent involvement. Getting the charter took just a month; opening the school's doors to the first 150 students took 18 more.

Today 35 states have passed charter-school laws, and more than 1,100 charter schools are up and running in 26 states and the District of Columbia. Funded with tax dollars, the schools operate autonomously rather than under the authority of the local school district. Each contracts with a state or local agency (usually a department of education or school board) via a charter that spells out the school's mission and goals and how it plans to measure progress. Founded by parents, teachers or community groups, the schools often focus on alternative curricula or teaching methods; some cater to particular populations, such as at-risk or gifted students.

Charter schools have proved to be one of the most popular approaches to public-school reform. Last year the U.S. Department of Education awarded $68 million in grants to fledgling charter schools, and several states have increased the number of charters they allow. School districts with expanded school choice, voucher programs and commercially run schools have multiplied, too, albeit more slowly.

Reforms still reach only a small percentage of public-school students. But when local schools aren't challenging enough, or are underfunded, too crowded or otherwise unsatisfactory, a growing number of parents are choosing not to bolt to a big-bucks private school or relocate to another school district. In Franklin, Mass., and Washington, D.C., the parents profiled in this story elected to roll up their sleeves and improve the schools their tax dollars already pay for.

In case you've forgotten Ben Franklin's 13 virtues (or never knew them), here's a refresher: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility. In his autobiography, Franklin described a methodical plan for "arriving at moral perfection." He concentrated on a single virtue each week and recorded in a small book "by a little black dot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day." Moral perfection proved to be elusive: "I was surpris'd to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish."

Like Ben Franklin, Franklin students take the virtues one at a time, concentrating on one a month. In the classroom, history and literature provide role models. "Students will discuss the biography of Helen Keller when studying bravery and perseverance and the Greek myths when studying humility and obedience," says Bower.

Academically, lesson plans follow E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s Core Knowledge sequence--a content-rich curriculum based on Hirsch's book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. About 800 schools in the U.S. use the Core Knowledge model curriculum, which sets out specific content to be covered in each grade, such as an introduction to civil-rights leaders in second grade and modern world history in eighth grade. Teachers build on lessons students have learned in previous years.