Almanac: At the Capitol

This is National Charter Schools Week. We can be proud. Minnesota was the first state in the nation to pass charter legislation 16 years ago. Does the Minnesota Senate really want to reverse course now and cap opportunities for children? That's exactly what they've proposed in their education funding bill.

I hope it was proposed only as a bargaining chip. Governor Tim Pawlenty, Education Commissioner Alice Seagren, and House DFL education leaders Mindy Greiling and Carlos Mariani all oppose capping public charter schools. There's no reason to cap innovation and potential for high-quality charter schools like KIPP coming to Minnesota that have strong success records with urban students of color.

Last week 2500 attendees of the National Charter Schools Conference in New Mexico cheered as Minnesota's Ted Kolderie was inducted into the National Charter School Hall of Fame as a founder of the movement. He and the 1988 Citizen's League report that proposed chartering stimulated legislation creating 4,000 charter schools serving over one million children in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Once started, it was parents and children voting for public charter schools with their feet that stimulated the growth.

I was inspired to hear conference keynoter former NBA basketball player Kevin Johnson, who started a group of charter schools serving low-income African American children to give back to his home town of Sacramento. The students are succeeding. Many will be first in their families to graduate from high school and attend college. And now Johnson wants to expand to … Harlem.

Johnson said he thought guarding Michael Jordan was hard. But it didn't compare to starting a charter school. His old high school was to be closed by the school board because it wasn't performing. So he went home and gave an inspiring speech to the hundred plus teachers of his school and vowed he would close the school and reopen it as a charter. There was thunderous applause and high fives all around. Then the teachers' union moved in … creating fear and myths about charters. Several weeks later Johnson returned to give a second rousing update to the teachers. The response? Dead silence. In the end only two teachers joined him in the new charter.

Several years later one of the union members was overheard asking…. "What if it works?" Say what? What if it works … for the kids? Isn't that what education is all about?

Chartering hasn't been perfect over the years. Neither have been district schools. But chartering creates much needed opportunities for children. As Ted Kolderie always reminds legislators: education is about the children … not the adults, not the institution.

Nor is chartering about political party. That's why U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings gave her strong support for chartering at the conference. That's why Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Gov. Bill Richardson recently expressed their support for charters on the campaign trail. That's why Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer recently led efforts in New York to lift their cap on charter schools.

To my former Minnesota Senate colleagues: This is no time to cap public school choice. Parents and students in Minnesota — and around the nation — are demanding it.