Parents demand choice in schools

On Tuesday, the Modesto City Schools board, in a divided vote, said "no" to another charter school that wanted to open within the district's attendance boundaries.

The rejection may be only a minor setback for the Great Valley Academy, whose leaders are now applying to the Stanislaus County Board of Education to open the charter school at the Red Shield Center in southwest Modesto.

On the surface, Tuesday's discussion was about the quality of Great Valley's application and about the programs available at the Bret Harte Elementary and Hanshaw Middle School campuses.

But when viewed in a much larger context, the issue is really about the ever-growing parent demand for choices in schools and about a slow but steady increase in competition to traditional public schools.

A generation ago, most parents just assumed their children would go the nearest public school, with the main exceptions being families that opted for religious schools.

These days, many parents don't assume their kindergarteners will go to the school down the street. Unless they live in truly remote areas, they have options — and they pursue them. If their children are in one school and there are problems, then parents are willing to look elsewhere, either quickly or for the next school year.

In Stanislaus County, slightly more than 7 percent of the total school age population attends a charter school — a tuition-free, taxpayer-supported public school with the freedom to operate differently. There are nearly two dozen charter schools operating in the county, a number we think is only likely to grow.

Charter schools have champions — in the business community, among parents and even within public education. Stanislaus County Superintendent of Schools Tom Changnon is one of those champions, especially of Great Valley Academy. "I'm in favor of competition," he says. "We need to allow parents to choose schools."

For years, the "school choice" movement lobbied for vouchers — for the government to provide funds that parents could use to pay all or part of private school tuition. Today while there's still some talk some about vouchers, a more prevalent theme is charter schools, which exist in 41 states. And Sunday marks the start of National School Choice Week, which features a number of celebrity supporters, including comedian Bill Cosby.

Their premise is simple: Traditional schools aren't right for everybody.

"For too long, too many kids have been forced to attend very bad schools, or schools that aren't a good fit for them, just because those happened to be the only schools in their neighborhoods," says Kyle Olson, chief executive officer of the Education Action Group, the national organizer of National School Choice Week. "What could possibly be wrong with allowing parents to determine the best school for their children, regardless of where it's located? The scope of a child's educational opportunities should not be dictated by their ZIP code."

In many respects, public schools are simply experiencing what other institutions have already endured — consumers want choices, whether it's in their phone company, TV channels, medical providers or colleges.

For financial reasons, public schools are more sensitive than they were a few years ago to losing students, whether to a charter school, a private school or another traditional public school.

State funds are based on average daily attendance; fewer students translates to less money. Lose enough students and you have to lay off a teacher; lose a whole lot of students and you might have to close a campus.

These days, public schools also seem to be obsessed with test scores, far more so, we think, than most parents, who are willing to shop for a place where their children will be safe from bullying, given individual attention and be allowed to try new things. In other words, parent satisfaction often rests on many issues besides test scores.

Furthermore, private and charter schools promote themselves in a way that public schools haven't had to. When asked, public school officials are happy to talk about their special programs, but they're often weak in marketing them to their niche audience — parents. Marketing is essential, says Changnon, and "education is the last industry or entity to wake up to this."

At Tuesday's school board meeting, administrators provided board members with a description of the various programs and services offered at Bret Harte and Hanshaw. But it looked like a classic case of preaching to the choir; there were few if any parents in the room by the time the discussion took place.

There's no doubt that the public school teachers and staff are doing their best to serve the largely Spanish-speaking and low-income population in the Bret Harte neighborhood, where 57 percent of the adults 25 and older did not graduate from high school.

And there's no guarantee that Great Valley Academy — with some weak test scores at its main campus on Tully Road — will do any better.

But in this era, parents are growing to expect choices. Charter schools have gained a foothold in Stanislaus County and we anticipate it will only get stronger. As Modesto school board member Cindy Marks said, the best response from a traditional school district may not be a "No," but "How can we work together?"