A Racial Thing?

Some people never get over high school. They get all teary eyed at the strains of their school song, they count the days till their reunion. They say high school was the best time of their life. When I was 16, I would have scoffed at this kind of mentality. I couldn't wait till high school was over and I would never have to see any of those people again. High school, for me and for most people, was hell.

That is, until I switched schools in my junior year. That was the year that Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences opened its doors. TSAS is a charter school. Meaning, it is a public school that was privately designed and run. Private citizens, veteran teachers in this case, took years out of (and off of) their lives to compose a "charter" document that would outline the exact specifications of the school's operation, and then went through the laborious process of actually getting the school board to approve the damn thing. The amazing women who wrote TSAS's charter, Suzanne Lee, Darla Coghill, and Linda Stromblad, had watched students like myself struggle through the standard Tulsa Public Schools high school, not getting the attention and stimulation they needed, being shunned to the fringes of their own education, disenfranchised and under developed. They wanted to create a place where these students would not fall through the cracks, where everyone could live up to their full educational potential.

For us students, TSAS became a home, a place of belonging. For many of us, we'd never been accepted at our previous schools. At TSAS, the debate team got a pep rally. We bragged to anyone who'd listen about our robotics team. The day "The Fellowship of the Ring" came out, classes let out early so we could all go see it together.

TSAS gave us power over our own education. We chose to go there, and once there, we helped educate ourselves and each other. We helped write the code of conduct. We created student organizations. If we asked for a class to be taught, the teachers would do their best to create it. You just don't get that kind of involvement anywhere else. And with that involvement came a near rabid pride and ownership in our school.

And if you wanna talk test scores, TSAS consistently brings in scores in the top five slots for the ACT, SAT and End of Instruction tests. And this year, they've got four National Merits Semifinalists, and that's in a school of less than 400 students.

Now, will someone please explain to me why a school board would not support and encourage this kind of education to the absolute best of their ability? Why a school board would first pass a moratorium against any new charter schools, and then, last week, move to disallow any expansions of existing charter schools, all while threatening to shut them down completely?

Those who pushed this through use this weak reed of an excuse. So the state passes a Charter School Act in 1999 and there's some weird exceptions for specific counties, exempting them from the law. The Oklahoma Constitution says that we will pass no "special or local" laws. As well as the law exempts school districts of under 1,000 students. These restrictions limit the counties that can have charter schools to something like 20. Ok, I can see how this is technically "unconstitutional". And hell, I want charter schools every where! Put 'em on the damn moon! But this is not the way to go about "fixing" this "problem".

Those on the school board who voted for this proposal and against the charter schools (Matthew Livingood of District 7, Ruth Ann Fate of District 6, Bobbie Gray of District 4, and Cathy Newsome of District 5) spoke repeatedly of their efforts to get the state legislature to put Charter School Act in line with the state constitution. They claim they have done all they can, and this new limitation on charter schools will push the legislature to do something. I doubt that. All it has done is put a tighter stranglehold on charter schools, taking one step closer to their annihilation.

The proposal's supporters claim that the alternative to this course of action would be set a legal battle in motion. Mr. Livingood seemed entirely confident that any kind of court involvement would result in the closing of charter schools completely, and it's simply out of the goodness of his heart that they haven't taken that action. It's a threat, employed to scare the charter schools into submission, to prevent us from making too big a fuss because we could lose it all. Very nice, Mr. School Board President. Frightening already beleaguered and underpaid teachers, their devoted, oddball students and ever volunteering parents out of standing up for their rights. If there's any kind of oath sworn when you joined the school board, I think you just violated it.

Again, I can't understand why people would try to shut down or limit charter schools in any way. This "constitutionality" issue has nothing to do with it and no place in our school board's agenda, especially since they're the TULSA Public School's board, not the Pryor Public School's or whatever little city that currently has no charter schools that they claim to be fighting for.

A lot of people have problems with charter schools because they resent the use of public funds for what they see as private uses. There would be weight to this argument if the charter school act was being abused. Say a charter was approved for a school that specifically trained students to work in a company owned by a member of the school board. That would be wrong, and also weird. But the education provided by these schools, though slightly specialized, is universally excellent. And the schools must and do admit any student with no filter or bias. (That's an incredible thing about TSAS's scores. They don't get to handpick the smartest, most willing to learn students. They have those, sure. But they also have the most at risk, delinquent kids who've been kicked out of every other school. And yet, the scores are that high.)

And I'll tell you one thing about funding for charter schools. I'm not sure if this has gotten better since I graduated, but when I was there, we could barely afford rent and utilities, let alone books, supplies and god forbid, decent teacher salaries. We had fundraisers upon fundraisers and still had to cut corners whenever possible. So don't you worry that a disproportionate amount is being funneled away from the "real" schools.

I'm just gonna say it. It's hard to not see this as a racial thing, since Deborah Brown is providing quality education primarily to the North Side and African American children. And it's hard not to see this as another example of mainstream society trying to stomp on non-conformity. I may sound paranoid, but this debate's existence is otherwise inexplicable to me. Perhaps the same impulses that drove white folks to burn and pillage the successful businesses of Greenwood, that drove football players and popular kids to steal a nerd's homework might be the ones fueling the school board's dislike of these high performing, out of the box schools.