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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > October > 06 > Entry
Milwaukee is to vouchers as Dayton is to charters
If you’re interested in school choice, don’t ever pass up a chance to visit Milwaukee.
The city has 17,000 kids using vouchers to attend private schools — the largest and oldest city-based voucher program in the country — and it also has a thriving charter school sector. But it is best known as the voucher capital of the nation, much the way Dayton has come to be known for charter schools.
Milwaukee also just a darn nice city to visit. Nice people. Lots of fun places to go and things to do.
So when the Education Writers Association asked me to come here and speak to reporters about strategies for covering charter schools, I jumped at the chance. They also invited Dayton school board President Yvonne Isaacs, who presents later this afternoon.
The program Friday included a tour of some choice schools in Milwaukee. I’ve done tours like this in other places, including Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Michigan. They are always enlightening. We had one especially inspiring visit to a school called the Milwaukee College Preparatory School.
The school began as a Marva Collins concept school (using the teaching strategies of the famous Chicago educator) and has evolved into a K-8 program that seeks to place its graduates in top high schools in Milwaukee and prep schools around the country.
Principal Robert Rauh is a former teacher in a prep school who wanted to take the high expectations and rich curriculum he was used to into poor neighborhoods and challenge low income kids to achieve.
He had lots of great examples of individual success stories. He told of a girl who was overweight with terrible buck teeth with a no positive parental role models. After school leaders paid for braces she lost 60 pounds and became a top student. And there was the story of the girl who lives in foster care at an intersection ranked among the most dangerous in the city. Her oratory before a group of visitors from a national non-profit group was so moving one of the visitors paid for her to attend a fancy prep school in California.
How fancy? Get this. Each kid gets their own HORSE to care for and ride for four years of high school!
As we passed a courtyard, some of us were looking out at the beautiful playground with grass that was too green to be true but looked very real. Is that FieldTurf, the stuff pro sports teams are installing in their stadiums today, I wondered?
Funny story, Rauh said. He got a call one day from a supporter of the school who knew the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig. He had been telling Selig, who was a wealthy car dealer and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers about the school and Selig was intrigued. College Prep is in the very neighborhood that Selig had grown up in years ago when it was primarily Jewish. He wanted to come visit.
Rauh agreed, but privately worried that the kids wouldn’t have much in common with the wealthy baseball man. He was wrong. Selig stayed an hour passed the planned time, talking with students and answering their questions. At the end, he told Rauh he wanted to do something for the kids.
And that’s how a small charter school in one of the worst neighborhoods in Milwaukee got a FieldTurf playground.
(Image credit: www.wisconsinharbortowns.org)
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, My Favorite Posts
Comments
By Mary
October 10, 2007 8:42 PM | Link to this
Actually, Joe Mamma, my point was, a lot of “rich charity” is really our money and we did not get to pick the charity. Tonight, NBC Nightly News in its series called the “fleecing of America” talked about the “educational” tax deductions given to corporate and alumni college sports fans for their athletic contributions and how many millions of dollars in taxes are lost. Farm subsidies also have their abuses, but our food supply is more societally critical than football and basketball. (For disclosure I recently inherited part of a family farm we intend to farm, not develop. Mantaining, not developing, farm land is also important and deserves some breaks.)By joe mamma
October 10, 2007 1:56 PM | Link to this
Two can play that game Mary. Taxpayers subsidize farmers. So we should be able to control where they give their charity dollars too. We also subsidize state universities, so we should be able to say where they donate their charity dollars to as well. You know I agree with you and I don’t like it when stadiums and such are funded with public dollars. I would prefer it to be funded private dollars. But you are being obtuse to criticize someone who has given money to some poor children and to speak so ill of them. First off Bud Selig was wealthy before he got into baseball so your insinuation that he wouldn’t have donated the money unless he fleeced it from the taxpayers is baseless (pun intended…get it Mary it�s a baseball (sport)reference…I couldn’t resist). Secondly, you must think a lot of yourself to appoint yourself arbitrator of other people’s legimitmately earned assets. Also your little speech about “kings and queens” was ironic since you are the person who wants to approve peoples’ charitable donations to make sure they fit your desires.By Mary
October 9, 2007 5:54 PM | Link to this
“joe mamma”, no, I am not putting you on. If the public taxpayer was not subsidizing Bud Selig and his industry millions and billions of dollars with stadiums and free farm teams, thanks to our education system, he would not have as much money to throw around. We finance or subsidize his charity, but do not get to chose the charitable priorities. Giving poor kids athletic fields sounds a little like “Well let them eat cake”. I think some famous queen in history said this when told the peasants had no bread. Queens and kings got their money sort of the same way - by taxing the public through churches, etc.By joe mamma
October 9, 2007 1:17 PM | Link to this
Mary…so you’re saying Bud Selig is laundering money by building an athletic fields for poor children? You’re putting me on right? The shark has been jumped.By Teacher and taxpayer
October 8, 2007 11:27 PM | Link to this
How lovely that a few poor children have such wonderful benefits. Why should only a few children have these bonuses? I am constantly reminded of the huge disparity between the haves and have nots—in this case children whose only fault was being born to parents who are poor-for whatever reason. Kozol’s Savage Inequalities is still a valid book today, and now we not only have public school systems with huge inequalities; we have private and charter schools exhibiting the same wrongs. Until ALL children have the same opportunities, and the chance to succeed, including necessary interventions to make up for what parents can’t provide, we will have the achievement gap that is so evident,and seemingly insurmountable. Charity is not going to fix that.By Mary
October 8, 2007 11:35 AM | Link to this
“Joe Mamma”, when you talk about charity, you need to get real, especially when some of the charity sources come from the poor and the public trough, and are laundered by the rich and powerful as their “charity”. Then we are supposed to get down on our knees in gratitude when some of it is thrown back to those from whom it came in the first place. The bureacuracy and red tape is apparently not protecting the public interest when it comes to the sports industry whose multimillionaires are being subsidized by public funds. The Minneapolis bridge that collapsed over the Mississippi River could not get the public funds the new Twins baseball stadium got. Explain that to the surviving family members of those who died, as well as those who cross the I-75 bridge over the Ohio River near two brand new publicly subsidized stadiums. I agree with David, that news reporters just seem to think they are being factual and objective. A lot of times they are very selective with the facts and miss the “rest of he story” by their selective sources and spin, naivete, and personal bias whether they recognize their bias or not. For example, reporting sports “revenue” without reporting sports “expenses” and where the money sticks. Same thing about school levies and budgets.By joe mamma
October 7, 2007 8:53 PM | Link to this
When a debate degrades to the point that someone criticizes others for their charity then something is wrong. One of the great things about private charity is that they don’t have to deal with as much red tape, bureaucracy or unions. The dollars go straight to the recipients.By joe mamma
October 7, 2007 8:44 PM | Link to this
Old Prof, if the solution to the problem is throwing money at it, then how much money will it take?By David
October 7, 2007 7:40 PM | Link to this
I assumed you were giving an opinion speech since you seemed to be delighted there were so many charters there. But you were giving advice on how to glean info from the charters and all schools. I disagree about reporters not letting their personal opinions interfer. Dan Rather? Tim Russert? Katy? A professional reporter will try to give all information. Becoming friendly with school leaders allows one to be lead down the primrose path of misinformation. A reporter I knew talked about how he buddied up to and lunched with the small town administrators to be able to get info—but he got their version on everything. They could do no wrong, of course, in their versions. If you want school info give cards to the teachers and staff (don’t forget lunchroom and janitorial staff-they run the school) with your personal cell phone they can contact you with later when others won’t see them talking to you. All this is assuming the administation will give you freedom to roam the buildings without an escort to help control your visit.By Scott Elliott
October 7, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
David, it’s a misconception that where a reporter “stands” on the issues they are writing about affects their work. It just can’t. Professional reporters will never allow themselves to get emotionally involved in the issues they are writing about. Our job is just to give readers information they need — good, bad or ugly. I was asked by EWA to talk about how reporters can get information about charter schools. This is often a challenge, because unlike school districts, charter schools often don’t know public records law, don’t have good legal advice or try to close the media out. I did not write out a speech. I worked from talking points. Much of what I did was describe specific reporting strategies that are good for getting records and information about any organization, including charter schools. Here are my seven points. 1. I suggested reporters ask for help from other reporters who have experience with charter schools if they have trouble getting information from a school. 2. I advised them to get their news organization’s support, especially if they think they will have to take legal action to get public records. 3. I listed about 20 federal, state and local agencies that can be useful for getting public records about a school.The list ranged from the IRS to the state education department to the city building inspection department. 4. I described some reporting techinques for gathering data online. 5. I urged the reporters to visit schools they are writing about so they can get a first-hand sense of what is going on there. 6. I reminded them that old fashioned reporting strategies, like just talking to a lot of people, are very helpful for covering schools. 7. I told them to remember they can get good information by just continuing to talk to school leaders. Even in a contentious story, reporters can establish good relations with school leaders by treating them fairly, which can help them get information even under difficult circumstances where the school folks may not want to talk.By David
October 7, 2007 11:35 AM | Link to this
Scott, how about posting your speech in Milwaukee so we can see what you say about charter schools and all. That will help us know where you really stand.By Mary
October 7, 2007 9:01 AM | Link to this
And, I would also add, the Bud Selig’s of the world and Major League Baseball take more than they give back. Why are tax dollars being used to build multimillion dollar playpens for multimillionaires, including the one in Washington D.C. for the Nationals. Then we are supposed to turn all teary eyed and heart-warmed when they throw a few crumbs out to the masses. I would like to prioritize tax dollars better in the first place. Let the sports industry build its own facilities if they can afford it.By Oldprof
October 6, 2007 10:48 PM | Link to this
Nice stories, Scott. Now, when will Bud Selig guarantee that every child can attend a school with a nice ball field? When will that wealthy benefactor ensure that every 14-year-old who wants it will have a horse to enjoy for four years? Howsabout braces for every student that needs them? Therein lies the problem with charity-based programs; the benefactor can pick and choose which children to bless and which to ignore—and the blessing is done randomly, with no clear assessment of merit. All in all, what this proves is that—contrary to the right-wingers’ mantra—the solution to the education crisis DOES involve throwing money at it! And unless we find a way to increase the odds that the thrown money goes for high priority items (a lab, not a ball field?) and provides equal opportunity for all, it’s not fundamentally wise or soundly American.