Saturday, 12 February 2000
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0212N4.html
Staff and wire reports
WASHINGTON - The number of charter schools nationwide
grew by 40 percent last school year, the Education Department
said yesterday.
The increase represents growing interest in public schools created
by parents and teachers and run with exemptions from most state
laws, it said.
With the increase in the 1998-99 school year, there are nearly
1,500 such schools serving 250,000 children, the department's
fourth annual charter school report said.
``We can see that there is a continued need for our support of
these schools,'' Education Secretary Richard Riley said in releasing
the report yesterday. ``Public charter schools are providing parents
and students with choice they want and deserve.''
More charter schools operate in Arizona than in any other state,
said Lyle Skillen, charter school administration director for
the state Department of Education.
Last school year - the year of the national report - about 300
campuses ran under about 221 contracts in Arizona. Those include
about 24 in Pima County in 1998-99.
In the first year of charter schools, 1995, 50 charters operated
in Arizona.
About 5 percent, or 40,000 students, of the public school population
in Arizona attend charters.
Supporters of charter schools, which include President Clinton
and Republicans alike, say they give parents in poor communities
a much-needed choice over the traditional schools that are failing
to help their children.
The administration, though, favors public school choice over conservatives'
proposals to use public funds to send children to private or parochial
schools. Clinton is seeking a $30 million increase to a total
of $175 million for the federal program that helps states open
more public charter schools.
Just eight years ago, when Clinton was first elected, there was
one such school - in Minnesota. Today, 1,484 schools, many with
multiple sites, operate in 27 states and the District of Columbia,
with 37 states and the District having laws supporting their establishment.
New York, Oklahoma and Oregon passed the latest measures last
year.
Nearly 90,000 children were served by 421 newly opened charter
schools in the last school year, the department reported.
A charter school, created by a group of teachers, community members
or parents, is free of most state laws and regulations but must
be approved by a local chartering authority. A charter outlines
its goals, procedures and standards to that authority.
Charters that fail to meet them are shut down; 27 schools closed
under those circumstances last year, the report said.
Though charters serve less than 1 percent of all public-school
children, the charter school movement remains popular. Seven in
10 schools told department researchers they have waiting lists.
Yet charters have opponents who note that they could drain the
most motivated students and families from traditional public schools
- not to mention the public money needed to fix the failing schools
in the first place.
Also, charters schools have run into trouble for serving specific
populations, and about a quarter of them do just that, the report
said. By virtue of being based in minority communities where they
have been especially popular or opened with specific purposes
such as helping troubled children, some schools have ended up
being predominantly black.
A growing number of parents are challenging decades-old desegregation
orders to protect their charter schools.
But the Justice Department has blocked just three charters; roughly
50 more could be affected by court-ordered actions to end patterns
of racial separation in school districts.
Unlike the schools in Lufkin, Texas; Oktibbeha County, Miss.;
and Georgetown County, S.C., most charters - which are small -
usually don't affect racial patterns, Justice Department officials
have said.
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