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Charter schools pull from private
By SARAH SCHWEITZER © St. Petersburg Times, published September 4, 2000 TAMPA -- When charter schools arrived on the education scene in the early 1990s, among the most oft-repeated rationales for their creation was the competitive jump-start they would deliver to the public school system. Publicly funded charter schools, the thinking went, would entice parents with smaller classes, finely tuned curricula and freedom from school district rules. As more parents opted for charter schools, the theory held, traditional public schools would be forced to examine their practices, spurring innovation and change districtwide. But as the charter movement has rocketed forward, the theory has been borne out in somewhat unexpected ways. Public schools are not alone in feeling the jolt of departing students; private schools increasingly are feeling it as well. Although the majority of the 1,400 students enrolled in Hillsborough's 14 charter schools are former public school students, a growing number are private school converts. Hard numbers have not been compiled by the district, but charter schools report an increase in private school student enrollment. One of the most striking examples in Hillsborough is Trinity School for Children. Headed by the former principal of a Catholic school, the charter school drew dozens of students from private schools last year, its first year in existence. This year, 60 percent of its 340 pupils are former private school students. Other Hillsborough charter schools such as Learning Gate, a one-time private school converted to a charter school, and Terrace Community, a storefront school in Temple Terrace, report seeing less dramatic but steady increases in private school student enrollment. Education experts say Hillsborough's experience is mirrored elsewhere in the country. The most dramatic example is St. Louis, where 45 percent of charter school enrollment this year was expected to be drawn from the private school population. On average, experts say, about 10 percent of charter school populations are now drawn from private schools. The reasons for the growing ranks of former private school students in the charter school realm, experts say, lie in pragmatism and parents' growing selectivity in school choice. "If you're not sending your children to private school for religious reasons, but for the safety, the funding, the caring adults; and if somebody else comes along with a zero-priced alternative, why wouldn't you look into it?" said Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has studied charter schools. For Ruth Morris of Temple Terrace, the decision to pull her children from private school came after years of watching tuition costs escalate at Florida College Academy. When she heard the founder of the Terrace Community School speak last year, she was intrigued. When she visited the school, she was stunned. "It was a public school that had the qualities you find in a private school," Morris said. "It had small classes, high academic accountability -- the things I had been paying for with private school." She went forward with the switch, she said, thinking she could always return her children to private school. So far, there has been no need to consider a return. "I have been very, very pleased," she said, adding in a whisper: "Terrace Community School has even been a bit more of a challenge." Nationwide, there are an estimated 2,000 charter schools in 33 states, and in Florida, where charter schools were approved in 1996, 151 charter schools enroll 27,713 students, according to the National Center for Education Reform. At the same time, enrollment is rising at private schools. But if their experience follows the public school system's, experts say, changes to prevent enrollment dips could be in the offing. "Private schools will have to take a look at what they are doing," said Joe Nathan, the director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota and a drafter of the nation's first charter school law. "Like the public schools, they will have to respond." To continue thriving, said Bruno Manno, a senior program associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, private schools will have to redefine their purpose. "They will have to focus their mission, and offer parents a real alternative to more of the same," Manno said. One school in Hillsborough has already begun that process. Villa Madonna School has lost a dozen students to charter schools this year, causing ripples of worry. "It's a concern," said Sister Liz Ryan, the head of the school. "We don't want to lose everyone to charter schools." To stanch any future losses, Ryan said, the school has planned some changes. It hopes to improve Internet access in classrooms and strengthen its Catholic curriculum, a move, she said, charter schools cannot compete with. Charter schools, because they are funded with public money, must observe the constitutional stricture of division between church and state. Some private school heads do not see charter schools as competition. "I think there is definitely a place for charter schools, but the purpose of Catholic education is the Catholic formation of our students," said Maureen Hansma, the principal of St. Lawrence, which is filled to capacity this year with 644 kindergarten through eighth-grade students and has a waiting list. "I see no threat." Cathy Wooley-Brown, the state coordinator of charter schools and director of the Florida Charter School Resource Center, said the chance of private schools having a profound effect in places like Hillsborough is slim, owing to the small number of charter schools with general student populations. Many of the charter schools in Hillsborough, as in other Florida cities, are geared toward special-needs or at-risk children, and draw largely from the public school population. But, she said, the future will likely bring more mainstream schools to the area, drawing mothers like Victoria Wilson of Forest Hills. The 48-year-old enrolled her children at Learning Gate Charter School this year after years of paying private school tuition. She said she never had been opposed to the public school system, but feared it couldn't provide a quality education. Learning Gate, she said, has allayed those fears. "In my mind-set, this is not your typical public school that you're used to dealing with," she said. "But I'm real proud to say that my children attend a public school."
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