Midlands Voices: Try charter schools in rural areas, inner city
The writer, of Bellevue, is state chairwoman of the Nebraska Libertarian Party.
Nebraskans understand that issues have more than two sides. This is certainly true of the current attempt of the Legislature, supported by the education establishment, to force Nebraska's hundreds of Class I (elementary-only) school districts to merge with larger school districts.
Right now, the choice is black and white. The Class I school districts will surely resist, and the outcome is unknown. But why not allow the parents of children attending Class I schools a third choice?
Nebraska's constitution requires that we educate our children, but it poses no barriers to organizing a "charter school" to fulfill that requirement.
A school could be a charter school by guaranteeing that students meet certain educational outcomes. The operators of the school, generally the teacher(s), would sign the contract. School charters could be co-signed by a mayor, a County Board or a school board.
Charter schools would receive tax money for the children in attendance. In such schools elsewhere, that amount is much less than the average spent per child in Nebraska's public schools.
If outcomes were not met, the contract would be pulled, and the school would close.
An administrator in Bellevue told me of a Sand Hills school near North Platte that had closed. The ranchers who had been its patrons purchased a trailer, and the teacher now teaches their children in the trailer. The other difference is that the ranchers pay her salary.
This is the perfect example of the benefit of a charter- school option. The need was there, the desire was there, and the teacher was there. The legislative solution was missing.
Were charter schools to be authorized, parents would have the option of sending their children to a traditional public school or setting up a charter school. In this respect, it would be a win-win situation.
Parents choosing the charter school would elect a parental advisory board. They would expect to volunteer, help with maintenance, provide transportation, etc.
The rural charter school would be much like those of our past. My mother taught in rural schools and answered directly to the parents. Parental control gets defused as control moves up the bureaucracy.
And charters need not be limited to rural schools. Here are other options to increase choices and extend outcomes for kids:
• To attract good-quality professional staff, a large medical facility provides day care. Offering this service in a K-6 charter school might serve the same purpose.
• An international engineering firm recruits engineers by giving them summer jobs during college. A highly challenging math and science curriculum taught to 17- and 18-year-olds on-site in a charter school could serve the same purpose.• A teacher promises to cut the dropout rate in half if given a charter school in an inner-city neighborhood. If she succeeds, she keeps her school and her charter. And she saves some kids from certain poverty and lives of lower fulfillment.
Running for the Legislature taught me the power of the education establishment. The teachers union (the Nebraska State Education Association) can and does deliver votes. Its questionnaire for candidates is much more about finance and control and much less about improved student outcomes and choices.
I'm pro-education for our kids, and I want more choices, not fewer. I hope that Legislative Bill 126, which would eliminate Class I districts, might be amended to permit charter schools.
Ronald Reagan said it best: "Our system freed the individual genius of man. . . . We allocate resources not by government decision but by the millions of decisions customers make when they go into the marketplace to buy.
"If something seems too high-priced, we buy something else. Thus resources are steered toward those things people want most at the price they are willing to pay."
Today, too many of our education decisions are made by government, not by the customers of education - the parents.
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