CHARTER AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS

Education… Hope is on the way!

If you are reading this I’m guessing one of two things about you. Either you don’t have school age kids or you are one of those hyper organized types that schedule their days to the minute. I am neither of those. My youngest daughter is going off to college for the first time and my oldest is preparing for her collegiate swan song. On top of all that I’m the poster child for adult ADD. Therefore August is like a blur for me as the added responsibilities of getting the kids off to college have me constantly playing catch up. When I do get a chance to reflect I’m often saddened by the state of public education in our city. While there are several good city schools and hundreds of heroic teachers the hard truth is that their simply aren’t enough and the most vulnerable members of our city are trapped in an education system that fails them at every turn.

I don’t want to bore you with a bunch of statistics but here are a few that we can’t ignore. Memphis City School graduations rates are consistently lower than the national average. This problem gets worse when you examine the graduation rates of our inner city schools. Many of those schools have a less than 50% graduation rate. You can’t find much hope looking to our city leaders as they seem more concerned with pawning city school funding and responsibility off to the next guy. The federal governments one size fits all “solutions” worsen the problems they are supposed to fix. When you examine the problems crippling the city like crime, poverty and unemployment you can find the roots of all this in our broken education system.

I can hear you now. “Man Josh this is depressing me. What you’re telling me is that inner city kids are trapped in a hopeless situation that can’t be fixed!” Well that statement might be true if we keep looking to the politicians to solve our problems. The great news is that there are many wonderful organizations and people working on this issue and they are making remarkable progress! I recently sat down with the director of a foundation behind many of these movements and came away greatly encouraged about the future of education in our city.

One emerging success story is the Memphis City Charter schools. Charter schools are city schools that receive traditional taxpayer funding but they are also backed by businesses and other organizations. Many are highly specialized and most serve parts of our community that are in desperate need of quality education. They have their own board of directors and make their own decisions. Charter schools represent what is possible when the government and the private sector work together. This May the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering graduated 100% of its senior class. A vast majority of those students will go on to college. That’s quite a contrast to what you normally hear about our traditional city schools. To find out more about charter schools visit www.tncharterschools.org.

Another exciting initiative is the independent schools that are springing up in our poorer neighborhoods with the express purpose of supplying the kids of that neighborhood with a private school education at a minimal cost. One of the best examples of this is the New Hope Christian Academy. New Hope started in 1997 with 27 students and has grown to  almost 400 students Kindergarten through 6th grade. New Hope is funded through private donations and every New Hope student receives tuition assistance based on the family’s income and size. While a majority of the money comes from donations every family pays something for its child’s education. The really cool part is that when one graduates from New Hope their scholarship follows them as most New Hope grads continue their education at other Memphis area private schools. The name New Hope could not be more appropriate. To find out more visit www.newhopememphis.org.

Quite frankly I could do a years worth of articles on the different and exciting things happening in our city when it comes to education. There are lots of charter and independent schools that deserve attention and each has its own compelling story. I do want to mention one more program that’s just getting started and then write a more extensive article about it next month. It’s called Memphis Teacher Residency. This program will attract top notch college graduates from around the country to Memphis, train them in urban education and then place them within the Memphis City Schools. Again more on this next month. This of course assumes I still have my sanity after getting my girls off to college!