Oregon Charter Schools Take Off

Howard Street School looks a little different, and that’s the point.

It’s a taxpayer-funded school that acts like a private school, with parents and teachers deciding what is to be taught and how.

Course work focuses on foreign languages and the arts. Athletics goes completely unfunded. Pupils are chosen through an application process. And sometimes experts without teaching certificates head up the classes.

Yet Howard Street could be a glimpse into the future, part of a new wave of schools that are held accountable by their own charter, which outlines the curriculum and sets achievement guidelines.

Political wrangling dealt a blow to the charter school movement in Oregon’s last legislative session, but lawmakers say 1999 probably will be the year the state gets a charter school law that clears the way for more Howard Streets.

Since it opened in 1997 as one of a few experimental charter schools, the 128-student middle school has been a bit unorthodox.

Boys in ballet slippers bound down the halls to their mandatory dance lessons, eighth-graders speak in Japanese and teachers hand out “thumbs up” awards for honesty and kindness.

Students master their subjects through a linked interdisciplinary method. For example, for several weeks all classes may mold their lessons around the medieval age--its history, its literature, its art.

“The students are more motivated and focused,” said art teacher Cathy Jones.

To Principal Joni Gilles, it’s no surprise that parents turn out to volunteer as lunch monitors, office clerks and, in some cases, even teachers. They and their children went to the trouble of filling out lengthy applications just for the opportunity to be drawn from a lottery to attend. About 70 students remain on a waiting list.

“It’s no silver bullet,” said state Sen. Tom Hartung (R-Beaverton). “But it can create a better environment for students to learn and teachers to teach.”

Teachers’ unions and incoming State Supt. of Public Instruction Stan Bunn tentatively support the idea, depending on the fine print.

“The concept is different for everyone who talks about it,” said Bob Applegate, spokesman for Gov. John Kitzhaber. “A charter school is like art. No one can define one, but they know what one is when they see it.”

State House member Ron Sunseri (R-Gresham) has introduced a bill in the House, and Hartung has countered with a Senate version. Meanwhile, Associated Oregon Industries and the Oregon Education Assn. are each pushing their own versions of a charter schools plan.

The versions differ on such specifics as who can issue charters and what percentage of a district’s pupils can attend a charter school. Some allow only the local school boards to authorize charter schools, while others extend the right to community colleges, universities, the state Board of Education and even city councils.

The proposals bar private and parochial schools from charter status, but most allow nonlicensed teachers to lead the classroom.

That is a key sticking point for the Oregon Education Assn., the state’s largest teachers’ union.

“If we believe certification is a good way to ensure minimum professional standards,” said spokeswoman Laurie Wimmer, “I find it disingenuous that people who want to increase standards in traditional schools are willing to back away from standards in charter schools.”

Science teacher Pam Kingsbury had worked for 15 years at the Bonneville Power Administration before taking a huge pay cut to become Howard’s “scientist in residence.” She said an education degree doesn’t always guarantee good teaching either.

“I bring perspective of a scientist in the real world and a willingness to do science,” she said. “The only thing I know is doing. We focus on using the knowledge.”

Education officials say that emphasis dovetails with the state’s new focus on results, but others worry that bending the rules opens the doors for abuse.

“How fair is it to raise the bar all the time for public schools and then lower the bar on something that isn’t a public school,” said House Minority Leader Kitty Piercy (D-Eugene), herself a former teacher. “Everyone is fearful that it will be a guise to take public dollars and funnel them into private institutions.”

Charter school critics also rally behind a recent report that indicates charter schools in California have not been held accountable for academic performance.

The UCLA study examined 17 charter schools across the state and found that few of them accurately represented the racial makeup of the surrounding community.

“We’re going to want to look at everything that’s come out before making policy decisions, and that’s one more piece of evidence,” said Randy Harnisch, a charter schools specialist with the Oregon Department of Education.

Harnisch said of more concern to him was the issue of ensuring that charter schools be financially accountable to local school districts.

The Howard Street School gets only 75% of the state per-pupil funding received by the Salem-Keizer district. The school spends nearly all that money on salaries and has little left over, said Sally Miller, president of the school’s board of governors. Science class has only one set of books, the school library fits in one bookcase, no hot lunches are served and band members are bused to other schools for practice. Students say classrooms are falling apart.

But before the state considers more money for charter schools, Democrats and teachers’ unions say there are still some details to iron out.

“If they mean by charter schools a way to innovate and improve the public schools, then we can work towards something,” said Applegate, the governor’s spokesman. “But if they mean a way to undermine public education and take the best students, and separate them into private schools that get public funds, then we’ll have a problem.”