Stories From The Front

Chester Finn, Jr., CER Director, Moderator
Norman Atkins, North Star Academy Charter School
Jackie Rosswurm, Lighthouse Charter School
Ray Jackson, ATOP Academy

        The trials and tribulations of opening and operating a charter school were gleamed from three vastly different stories. Yet each of our "Stories from the Front' demonstrates that with perseverance, dedication and hard work, charter schools succeed in providing even the most needy students with the kind of education they deserve.

        To establish Lighthouse Charter School in Beaufort County, South Carolina, Jackie Rosswurm said the most vital step was in building support in the community. "It needs to be a movement about a large group of people," Rosswurm said. Six meetings and hundreds of supporters later, the charter application was written for a school serving 414 students in grades K-8. It eventually solicited 520 applications for those 414 slots.

        But the overwhelming support of parents and the community was not enough to allow Lighthouse to prevail. What began with a dream is now locked up in the court. First, the school board denied their application, forcing them to appeal to the state board, where it won unanimous approval. The local school board then appealed to the circuit court, where the state board's decision to permit the charter was overturned. Attempts to work with the school board were in vane. Finally, recognizing the power struggle was about more than just opening one school, Rosswurm and her fellow-Lighthouse organizers have appealed to the state supreme court, where it has yet to be heard.

        Reflecting back on the two-year process, Rosswurm concluded, "Yes, we've made mistakes, but I don't think any blatant errors. If we had it to do all over again would we? In a heartbeat. Have we made a difference? Conversations about education that have never taken place before in Beaufort County, South Carolina have taken place now [and] we look forward to becoming a charter school in the state of South Carolina."

        After trying to get practices he developed in successfully turning around a South Phoenix (AZ) school implemented in other schools in Phoenix and being told he was crazy, Ray Jackson quit the traditional public school system and ultimately opened the ATOP Academy, one of Arizona's original charter schools. " I paid a dear price because people went after me and tried to destroy my reputation and my commitment for practicing education."

        Today, the ATOP Academy has two campuses, over 360 students in grades K-8 (80% of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch), a 95% attendance rate, and a student body that truly understands why they go to school.

        "At ATOP Academy, our children come first, even if you look at our organizational chart," said Jackson. "All children can learn. All children - irregardless of their ethnicity, irregardless of their socioeconomic status, all children can achieve academic success once you teach them how to learn and how to use a standard set of tools.... We teach children a very systematic way for actually approaching learning."

        ATOP's approach merges the cognitive and effective domains of learning whereby children come to school "to learn how to learn," a concept which is reinforced through a daily script by each teacher each morning. "We teach them how to develop questions using who, what, where, why and how," he adds.

        Jackson, who has spent much of the 28 years he has been in the education business being frustrated by traditional education, offers the following advice: "If you're not committed to this don't be in it. It's a lot of hard work. I have a lot of sleepless nights.... You [have to] believe in change. We have a lot of people who like to talk about change, talk about kids reading, talk about kids writing, talk about kids doing math, and they're still coming out after twelve years in our system functional illiterates."

        At the North Star Academy Charter School, some of Newark, New Jersey's poorest children and their families are breaking the traditional dismal records of inner city schools in attendance, parental involvement and learning. The one-year old charter school runs for 11 months per year and the students are taught in innovative ways through state of the art technology in a culture of community.

        Norman Atkins, a journalist and educator, co-founded the school in 1997 in a renovated office building with assistance from the private sector. "The hardest part of making the charter school a reality was finding the place to put the school in." Atkins found getting the charter, unlike Jackie Rosswurm's experiences in S.C., was actually one of the easiest parts of the process in N.J.

        Atkins cautioned however that "the great myth of charter schools is that they are regulation free .... The charter schools are more buried in paperwork than the existing schools."

        "I made a pact ... to dance with the Blob, ... to make nice with the bureaucrats because ... we have the autonomy to use fairly decent resources.... And with that money, we can make the kinds of decisions that create the kind of school environment that I just described."

        Despite the onerous regulations and difficulties in getting the doors open, Atkins is confident in the power of the charter movement. "The charter school laws are the best way in which we can make small, mission driven schools, serving low income kids, [that are] put into place in the public sector.... The great challenge that we have before us is ... how to convert all of these inputs into the kind of student achievement that is meaningful."

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