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Link to: December 2000 Issue pdf. file format (best for printing)

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   Nancy and Trey
Hamilton W hen Nancy and Trey
Hamilton became
concerned that their kids were bored in school and                needed harder math,
               weren’t learning to read and
couldn’t really sound out words, never did they realize in a million years
they’d become part of a storm much
larger than they, and that they’d share
the frustrations of millions of parents
like them who decided to become war-
riors for reform.       They call themselves “Wyoming
Warriors,” and in their little town of
Laramie, that’s precisely what they are,
with battle wounds to prove it. After
they questioned the school officials and
suggested the bar might be set too low,
they began “to feel the anger of the teachers. One of us was for-
bidden to serve on or even
attend her school’s school
improvement committee by
the principal because of her
belief in classical, tradition-
al education,” say Nancy
and Trey. So after a long
road of attending meetings,
trying to educate the dis-
trict about options that
exist and better curricula,
they organized the dozens
of parents who shared their
frustrations, and in March
this year, decided to propose what
they’d been preaching as a charter
school. After hundreds of hours, meet-
ings and more, they’re at a standstill.
Wyoming’s law is the only one in the
nation that requires 12 district teacher
signatures before they can present their
proposal. But the teachers have been led
to believe that the Snowy Range
Charter School proposal would crush their district, and as in stories we’ve told
here countless other times, they’re seek-
ing to break the misconceptions that
abound in little Albany County. But
Nancy and Trey will
persevere, and know that “if parents do
not work to change the system it will
remain at status quo. We believe we
can make a difference,” they say. So
do we.  Pete Peters I t was a simple idea. Give schools in
desperate need of help a chance to
convert with some independence to a whole new school. After all, it has
been tried successfully hundreds of
times in other places, and even in near-
by Springfield, Massachusetts, where a
reform-minded superintendent there
turned over a school to the SABIS
Schools Network. It serves as a success-
ful laboratory of innovation today. So
never did Lovett “Pete” Peters dream in
his wildest imagination, that even the
intransigent education establishment
would turn failing schools against a
Million Dollar Deal. But that’s what
happened when Mr. Peters made his
much-noticed offer to schools.       Founded this year, Peters’ Save A
Schools Foundation is devoted to help-
ing lift public schools with an incentive:
He said to six school districts with the
worst 22 schools in the state, that if they converted any of those failing
schools into independent charter
schools, if after five years they did not
exceed the district average on statewide
scores, they’d get a million bucks for the
effort.       Sounds simple, and it is. It’s appeal-
ing, too. So appealing that Georgia
Governor Roy Barnes called to ask Mr.
Peters if he’d make the same offer in the
Peachtree State. But whether he does it
there or elsewhere the question remains:
isn’t there one school in Boston who
would venture out to create a new and
different school with the goal of being
to raise achievement for all students,
and if not successful, would take the
million dollars?  Pete Peters, a successful
business leader, might again be ahead of
the curve. Only time will tell.  4 Logan, Trey, Nancy and Travis Hamilton. Pete Peters R A Toast to Some Dynamic