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Michigan Choice Story Needs Better Context
By Jeanne Allen
Letter to the Editor, Education Week
October 20,1999
To the Editor:
Your front-page story on the Inkster, Michigan, experience with charter schools ("Facing an Uncertain Future Under Choice," Sept. 29, 1999) could have been far more informative, had you included information from a publication by the Center for Education Reform.
Part three of the center's ongoing series, Charter Schools: A Progress Report, is entitled THE RIPPLE EFFECT: A Cresting Wave. This research demonstrates the impact charters are having on traditional schools and districts. Using it for your story would have put into better context the situation Inkster finds itself facing, due to the loss of students.
The paper illustrates in districts nationwide the positive impact charter schools have had on their host districts and neighboring traditional public schools. Curriculum has been modified, public-private partnerships have been formed, and new business practices have been put in place. Public schools around the country have been taking notice and changing the way they conduct business. This is being done with the clear understanding that if they don't act, more and more parents will make the same decision that hundreds of Inkster parents have and leave for schools that have a plan geared for success.
While you quote a study by Eric Rofes on the impact of charters on traditional schools, the CER's paper is more comprehensive and builds on Mr. Rofes' earlier work.
Inkster, Mich., has been losing students steadily for more than 30 years. In the 1980s, enrollment was down more than 50 percent from 1970 levels. The emergence of charter schools has done nothing more than illustrate that education can be and is being done better. Inkster was caught flat-footed. Only now have school officials there realized the need to prove themselves and compete to show they can do the job for the city's children. Can you think of anything better to fight over?
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