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John
Collins '77 and Paul O'Keefe '80 have some definite ideas about education and
the charter school movement.
By Allison Chisolm  Kids
don't have to hate high school. A radical premise for
the foundation of a new high school, but one that John Collins '77
firmly believes.
Collins wants to start a small charter high school with a math and science
orientation. And he wants to start it in his hometown of Worcester, where his
parents and many of his 10 brothers and sisters still live. Convincing the
Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) that his idea is worthy of a state
charter-and state funding-remains an uphill battle, however. His first application
was turned down in late February.
"I just want to give kids a place to learn to love to learn. Let's have fun," says
Collins.
Joining him in this endeavor is his lifelong friend, Paul O'Keefe '80, who
grew up a mile away from the Collins' home and still lives in Worcester; Collins
and O'Keefe both attended Thorndyke Road Elementary, Burncoat Jr. High, St.
John's High School and Holy Cross. Around Labor Day last year, Collins called
his friend to ask if he would serve on the board. As a travel industry executive,
O'Keefe offers a business perspective and connections to the Worcester business
community.
"We want to create a school where everyone knows you, everyone's behind you,
and you have the freedom to express yourself," says Collins. "Academics can't
happen in a good way without this atmosphere of support." No cliques, in other
words-just kids who "click" with school.
As a physics professor at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., Collins has seen
a decade of incoming students who are not prepared for the rigors of college
study. "High school is pivotal," he says. "Kids are old enough and smart enough
to get interested in more intellectual activities, and they're ready for it."
But "a lot of kids are like water," adds O'Keefe. "They follow the path of
least resistance. There clearly is a market for a high school in the city that
can offer many of the same experiences as a private school."
The Classical Charter High School Proposal
What Collins envisions for his Classical Charter High School is, first of all,
a small, supportive school, open to all Worcester residents, and, ideally,
located downtown. Each class would have 100 students. The first year would
have only ninth graders, and each year another class would be added until
it became a full ninth-to-12th grade high school.
The school would have a math and science orientation
to promote logical, analytical thinking and to develop problem-solving skills.
Teachers would encourage project-based
learning, where students work in groups to research problems and present their
solutions, honing their public speaking skills along the way. At graduation,
every student would have had at least one year of calculus instruction, be
conversant in one foreign language and have read at least 25 books each year.
The final year would include a "capstone" experience of independent study with
a mentor, where students pose a question, research the subject, devise an experiment,
record and interpret the data and present and defend their findings to fellow
students, teachers and mentors.
In addition, students would undertake two off-campus community service and
learning activities in local businesses, laboratories and cultural institutions.
They would present what they learned to the community and have their work judged
at an annual "work fair."
Setting high academic expectations requires a high level
of support, Collins acknowledges. Beyond hiring enthusiastic, dedicated teachers,
the school would
offer mandatory tutoring and after-school and summer homework sessions for
students whose grades fall below a B.
And every student would apply to college.
As Collins wrote in his initial application, "We aim to make a difference in
the lives of all our students and to the city as a whole . Students will acquire
a sense of accomplishment that comes from performing difficult tasks, organizing
their energies to become positive forces at the school and in the community,
and be eager to accept challenges. When they go to college or enter the workforce,
they will be independent learners: skilled, knowledgeable and fearless. There
won't be a door closed to their ambitions."
"I
think it's a great opportunity," says O'Keefe. "It would be great for the city
of Worcester to give kids an option in education to integrate them into the business
community while in high school and keep them as citizens
of Worcester after college."
"For
a lot of these kids," Collins says, "college isn't on their radar screen.
It's a word out there, not a given. Would every kid go to college after graduation?
Not all, but I expect more than 90 percent would."
A combination of high expectations and ample support,
provided by good teachers and after-school homework sessions, is conceived to
help students believe in
themselves. Getting the parents involved is key to success as well.
The
state's mandatory comprehensive test, the MCAS, requires that all 10th graders
pass it before they can graduate from high school. That would only give Collins
two years for some students to make remarkable leaps in accomplishment.
"My
goal is to educate them," says Collins. "If that happens, the MCAS would be the
least of my worries."
Is
his vision a utopian one? "Certainly," he says. "But if you're in a place where
the expectation from the top is that you'll be accepted for who you are, it lifts
a burden for those kids. They can see beyond themselves and their problems to
their goals in life." "Our
focus is to broaden the circle," says O'Keefe. "Everyone's included." Collins
sees it in his own children, currently in eighth, ninth and 11th grade in Newton,
Mass., public schools. They may want to get involved in an activity, but in a
school of 2,000 students, it may take years.
"I've
been thinking about this for several years," says Collins, "but I began working
on this in a serious way last summer." He started attending weekly Saturday morning
sessions of the Pioneer Institute in Boston last fall with others interested
in creating new charter schools. Individuals already involved in the process
as well as educational consultants spoke to the group, including representatives
from Beacon Education Management, the company Collins signed on to manage his
proposed high school.
With the rise in alternative schools, a number of for-profit school management
companies have sprung up in the last 10 years. What appealed to him about Beacon,
Collins said, is that they were the only company not creating "cookie
cutter" schools. "Beacon was more flexible, offering a skeleton curriculum where
you add the meat. And frankly, they brought a lot of knowledge and expertise
on how to run a school."
Dollars for Desks
"I'm not interested in starting another private school for upper middle-class
Worcester parents. But there was no financial way to have lower-income kids
come and still pay the teachers and staff. The charter school presented an
opportunity for me that otherwise wouldn't have been there."
Finances, as in most discussions about education, are
the sticking point. While the charter comes from the state, the money budgeted
per student ultimately
comes from the Worcester Public Schools budget. Any needs beyond that dollar
figure have to be met by donations and federal and private foundation grants.
Major capital outlays, like a school building and equipment, are the first
expenses the new school has to fund. And 12 percent of their revenue goes to
the management company.
Because charter schools siphon off school budget dollars,
the Worcester School Committee has not welcomed them with open arms, although
the city currently
has two: Seven Hills Charter School and the Abby Foster Kelley Regional Charter
School. Loosened from the typical regulations of public schools, charter schools
operate differently. Teachers in charter schools are not union members and
may be fired if they do not meet performance standards. School days may be
longer or run into the summer. Both schools in Worcester have waiting lists
with more than 150 students.
Collins suspects that the School Committee's opposition swayed the DOE decision
against his application, but he is willing to try again. As a scientist familiar
with the grant application process, he explains that it's usually a better
application the second time around. "It's a learning process," he says. He'll
get more definitive feedback from the DOE later this spring.
One concern he will try to address is skepticism that
students who have never been inspired by academics can suddenly turn around and,
within two years,
pass the 10th- grade MCAS test. Because the school will be open to anyone (and
the first class of 100 is likely to be selected by lottery), there is no guarantee
that students who come will excel in science and math.
"Maybe we'll start in seventh grade and grow from there," Collins muses.
Charter Movement Gains Momentum
Charter schools grew out of a nationwide effort to improve education, fueled
by the landmark study, A Nation at Risk, published in 1983 with the
stark warning that the quality of our schools presented "a rising tide of
mediocrity [that] threatens our very future as a nation." America's children
were falling behind their counterparts in other industrialized nations, and
new ways of educating children became a growth industry.
The first charter school started in Minnesota in 1992. While it is still a
small movement, it is gaining momentum. Out of the nation's 90,000 schools,
there are now some 2,000 charter schools in 36 states educating about half
a million children nationwide. But the effects on overall student performance
have not kicked in yet. While schools in suburban areas have improved dramatically,
problems continue to plague inner-city and rural schools. In 1999, 12th graders
in the United States ranked 15th out of 20 developed countries on international
math tests. They came in 12th in science.
In Massachusetts, charter schools took root after passage
of the Education Reform Act of 1993. There are now 44 charter schools in the
state. The Classical
Charter High School application was one of 33 vying for 15 slots allocated
by the DOE this year.
There are clearly multiple answers to the question, "What makes a good school?" Thanks
to the charter school movement, Collins has a chance to answer that question,
at least on paper-and perhaps in a few years, with 100 ninth graders attending
a new school building in downtown Worcester.
Allison Chisolm is a free-lance writer from Worcester.
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