Reading, Writing, Roulette (cont.)
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teachers' union. The PFAW has challenged vouchers at every turn, including leading
an investigation last year with the local NAACP branch that found that several
choice schools violated students' rights by administering entrance exams, encouraging
religious teaching and charging students additional fees. These practices violate
laws that compel voucher schools to select students at random, to accept vouchers
as full payment and to respect students' rights not to participate in religious
activities. A major issue, says Elliott Mincberg, vice-president and legal director
for PFAW, is that "nobody's
monitoring these schools."
In fact, it's difficult to assess whether choice schools are actually better academically: A state-funded audit of the program released in February acknowledged that there was no way to measure how students were performing without uniform testing. The audit also suggested a need for the state education department to monitor the program more closely. And so after ten years of vouchers, with no clear results, more and more parents are still taking the chance on choice.
As the opponents square off, what's most important is that decision makers respond to parents' concerns, says Joanne Williams, a sister who's an anchor and education reporter at Milwaukee's WITI-Fox 6TV with sons in the first and second grades. "I wanted my sons to go to public schools," she says, but because of the schools' race-based selection process, "we didn't get our first picks and we didn't like our neighborhood schools, so we moved to the suburbs. Maybe if they improve the neighborhood schools, I might be enticed to switch back."
Korte is hoping others feel that way. "The current system is a nightmare from the parents' point of view," the superintendent concedes. "We're no longer under an integration order, but our assignment policies reflect a different time." In shaping the $170 million--improvement plan, the Neighborhood Schools Initiative, school officials have conducted town-hall meetings and even interviewed people door-to-door. Parents' top three concerns, he said: Good teachers and strong curricula, school days that coincide with their nine-to-five workdays and the safety of their children as they go and come from school.
" In some ways the initiative has brought the schools full circle," says Korte noting that emphasis is once again on lifting all public schools, not just those specialty schools intended to attract Whites. Choice has "gotten our attention. It's put us on our toes to develop a consciousness about how to treat our customers."
An Urban Oasis
So far Brenda Gordon is a satisfied customer, though she is concerned about her kids' safety. Although Joe and Anastasia have only four blocks to navigate to Dr. Martin Luther