Charter schools spark controversy in Arizona, D.C.

Problems are beginning to surface with the charter school concept, as evidenced by recent controversies in Arizona and Washington, D.C.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run institutions that supporters say will free education from bureaucracy and red tape and foster local control and involvement in schools. The concept is growing in popularity across the country.

But the idea is not without its flaws. Last November The Arizona Republic reported that Heritage Academy, a Mesa charter school, was apparently including the religious doctrine of creationism as part of its science curriculum.

The church-state violation came to light after Norm McCue, a humanist activist, learned of the school's practice while monitoring a meeting of the creationism Arizona Origin Science Association. He overheard a woman talking about the school.

"She was saying that people knew it was illegal and that as long as nobody found out about it, it would he OK," McCue told the Republic.

When the newspaper called the headmaster of Heritage Academy, he admitted that the charter school taught creationism on an equal footing with evolution. In subsequent discussions, however, he reportedly backed off and said the subject is discussed only if students raise it. Later, he said the school doesn't teach either creationism or evolution.

The Mesa incident isn't the only charter school problem in the state. The Arizona School Board revoked the charter of a Phoenix school called Citizen 2000 after concluding that the institution had claimed a higher enrollment than it actually had to get an additional $250,000 in state aid.

About 70 Citizen 2000 students were forced back into the public schools. Many of them were dismayed to learn that their academic credits would not transfer, and some students had to repeat entire semesters.

Questions have also been raised about the ability of charter school students to get into colleges. Because the program is new, only a few charter-school students have graduated in Arizona to date. One administrator called the higher education issue "another sticky wicket to deal with."

Arizona education officials have had to reject some charter school applications. Last year three "schools" that are in reality home-schooling support networks applied for charters. The state Department of Education turned all three down after seeking an opinion from the attorney general's office. The attorney general noted that the "schools" had no curriculum of their own or campuses.

In Washington, controversy surrounds Marcus Garvey School, an Afrocentric institution chartered last August with $372,000 in taxpayer money. Questions have been raised about the quality of education being offered at the school and whether it is "non-ideological," as the law requires.

Susan Ferrechio, a reporter with the conservative Washington Times newspaper, claims she was attacked by Principal Mary A. T. Anigbo Dec. 3 while visiting the school to gather information for a story. In the ensuing controversy, it came to light that Anigbo had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon in 1986 and that her nephew, Marcus Garvey's security guard, has twice been convicted of armed robbery and once for possession of cocaine. Subpoenaed by a grand jury to testify on the matter, Anigbo invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions.

Commenting on the affair, New Republic editor Michael Kelly asserted that it casts doubts on the viability of charter schools. Noting that some conservatives and liberals promote charter schools as well as vouchers, Kelly observed, "[T]his bi-ideological popularity is, as the Garvey case shows, exactly why such things as charter schools and school voucher programs cannot in the end succeed. A pluralistic society cannot sustain a scheme in which the citizenry pays for a school but has no influence over how the school is run .... Public money is shared money, and it is to be used for the furtherance of shared values, in the interest of e pluribus unum. Charter schools and their like are definitionally antithetical to this American promise. They take from the pluribus to destroy the unum."

Continued Kelly, "If you say that the taxpayers should support the Little Sisters of the Poor to run their private school as they see fit, without any real oversight by the elected representatives of the taxpayers, you must also say that we should pay for Mary A.T. Anigbo to run a place where black children learn that white people are their enemies, and act accordingly."