by Jessie L Bonner
Associated Press
June 1, 2012
At North Valley Academy in the heart of Idaho’s dairy country, a typical school day might seem like an over-the-top Fourth of July celebration elsewhere.
The public charter school in Gooding touts itself as a “patriotic” choice for parents, with a focus on individual freedoms and free market capitalism. “We teach something about patriotism every single day,” said principal Cheri Vitek. “Every day in their classroom (students are) singing `proud to be an American’ and if they’re not singing `proud to be an American,’ they’re singing another song about America.”
True enough. On this day, neat rows of students wearing their red, white and blue uniforms belted out “God bless the USA” in the school cafeteria.
North Valley Academy’s patriotism emphasis is a first for Idaho, but a number of charter schools nationally focus on similar concepts, said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based school choice advocate. The schools may not all present or teach in the same way, Allen said, but many “believe traditional schools have neglected teaching the importance of our nation’s history, its free-market system.”
North Valley Academy includes K-12th grades and was approved by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission in 2008. It opened amid some outcry from Gooding’s traditional public school system, but not because of the new school’s curriculum.
The local district lost roughly 10 percent of its total enrollment to the new charter school that first year – along with the funding that went with it – and the town of about 3,500 suddenly had two groups of students: Those who wear uniforms and those who don’t.
Far from being deterred by any sense of divide, school founder Deby Infanger is planning a second patriotic-themed charter school in Idaho Falls, which has support from Mormon
