Class acts: how charter schools are revamping public education in Arizona - and beyond

Reason, April, 1998 by James K. Glassman

Far from skimming the best students, then, charter schools often wind up with those who are having problems. The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. As researchers Chester Finn, Gregg Vanourek, Bruno Manno, and Louann Bierlein suggest in their extensive 1997 study of charter schools for the free-market-oriented Hudson Institute, the most comprehensive review yet of the existing charter school literature: "Well-to-do parents of successful youngsters are not likely to enroll their progeny in new, unproven schools that have not yet established firm reputations.... The families streaming into charter schools are plenty needy, and many of their children have been poorly served elsewhere."

That's certainly the case at Advantage, where 90 percent of the children are on free or reduced lunch (the generally used poverty standard for schools). While most of the parents are Hispanic, the teaching language is English. Both the school day and the school year are longer than in normal Phoenix public schools. But that doesn't seem to bother the kids. The principal, Pepe Quintero, a 27-year veteran of teaching, is a bundle of energy, and the students, all in neat uniforms, are almost frighteningly attentive to teachers using a highly scripted curriculum called Direct Instruction that stresses reading skills.

Each classroom has rules posted on the wall: "Be responsible. Be kind. Tell the truth. Persevere." Encouragement is everywhere. In a fifth-grade room, a sign says, "We are the world's best class." And there's a remarkable amount of respect shown to the kids by the teachers and administrators. For example, when Quintero brings me into a classroom, he says to the second-graders, "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, for interrupting."

Anyone who has visited an inner-city public school would find the sense of order at Advantage astonishing. But not surprising: The parents of these kids want discipline and structure in their children's schools; that's one of the main draws of Advantage. Clearly, the power of self-selection is intense and effective. It helps everything run more smoothly.

"Everybody is here by choice, not by assignment," says Stephen Wilson, the president of Advantage and formerly director of strategic planning for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. And he's referring not just to the students and their parents but to the teachers and the principal as well.

Wilson's partner is Theodor Rebarber, who was an aide to former Minnesota Rep. Steve Gunderson and who authored a 1997 Reason Public Policy Institute study on charters. Like any other businessmen, they're out to make a profit by giving customers what they want. But staying in the black is no easy task given Arizona's level of per-student funding. "Phoenix, for us, is a great business challenge," says Wilson. "If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere." Next on his list are Washington, D.C.; Worcester, Massachusetts; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Chicago. If Advantage goes public, Wilson says, teachers will get stock options.