School Choice

There's a myth circulating in Philadelphia these days that families and neighborhoods don't want more public-school choices. A handful of activists with specific agendas use demonstrations, community forums, and City Council and School Reform Commission meetings to spread this myth. But there are a whole lot of people in Philadelphia who are too busy trying to take advantage of their educational options to stage rallies, attend meetings, or get on the phone with a reporter. Last week, I attended freshman orientation night at Central High School, a selective public school that U.S. News & World Report recently named the 10th best high school in the state.

THE FLIERS have been landing in mailboxes since last week in West Philly's 188th state House District, attacking Rep. James Roebuck for the many problems in the city's public schools. One flier gives Roebuck failing grades on school dropouts, violence, overcrowded classrooms and alleged cheating on standardized tests. Another notes that he has been in office for 25 years but "failed to fight to educate" the city's children. Roebuck calls it dirty politics and accuses a fellow West Philly politician, state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, of engineering the attacks.

  A group of well-mannered kindergarten students navigate a brightly decorated hallway of the Chester Community Charter School as principal Christine Matijasich looks on. "Don't forget: Fingers on lips, hands on hips," Matijasich says as the children file by quietly. The charter school, it seems, is an island of order in a sea of troubles, surrounded by the struggling Chester Upland School District, which remains on life support through June. Backers hold it up as the epitome of charter success, a school that outperforms the district where most of its student live.

CATHOLIC Schools Week began yesterday with a plea from Philly Archbishop Charles Chaput for Catholics to push for passage of a school-voucher bill that would let parents choose where to spend education dollars. "We need to press our lawmakers . . . to pass school choice," Chaput writes in his weekly column on the website Catholic Philly. "Vouchers . . . return the power of educational choice to parents, where it belongs. " Then why is the Archdiocese of Philadelphia taking choice from parents whose kids attend archdiocesan elementary schools slated to close in June?

David Williams said he soon hopes to narrow his growing list of prospective colleges to five or so. Higher on the star running back's current to-do list, after the recent announcement that West Catholic will shut its doors come June, is deciding where he wants to spend his final year of high school. For now, his top three schools, in no particular order, are La Salle, Imhotep Charter, and Cardinal O'Hara. The speedy junior added that Archbishop Wood and Roman Catholic are also possibilities.

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. - Students who transfer under the school-choice program will not have to sit out 30 days to participate in varsity sports, the NJSIAA says. The decision, announced Wednesday, was a reversal of a rule the state association instituted in November, when it said that school-choice transfers would be held to the same standards as other transfers - requiring varsity athletes who do not change residence to sit out 30 days before playing for their new school. But NJSIAA officials said the state Department of Education doesn't want any impediments on students who transfer under the school-choice program.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is calling on Catholics angered by plans to close schools throughout the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to direct their energies to getting their elected officials to support school vouchers instead. "Some Catholics - too many - seem to find it easier to criticize their own leaders than to face the fact that they're discriminated against every day of the year," he says in his weekly column for www.CatholicPhilly.com . "They pay once for public schools; then they pay again for the Catholic schools they rightly hold in such esteem.

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. - Students who transfer under the school-choice program will not have to sit out 30 days to participate in varsity sports, the NJSIAA says. The decision, announced Wednesday, was a reversal of a rule the state association instituted in November, when it said that school-choice transfers would be held to the same standards as other transfers - requiring varsity athletes who do not change residence to sit out 30 days before playing for their new school. But NJSIAA officials said the state Department of Education doesn't want any impediments on students who transfer under the school-choice program.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Education activists and parents rallied Wednesday against a bill that would allow the use of taxpayer-funded vouchers for religious and private schools, calling it "a backdoor way to privatization" of public schools. Several said the program would drain resources from poorer districts and undercut initiatives aimed at improving public schools. Parent Luz Mayi, who said her seven children, ages 14 to 35, attended parochial and public schools in Jersey City, said supporters of the voucher program were disingenuous in trying to sell it as an attempt to give parents school choice.

THE CONTROVERSIAL reforms that Michelle Rhee pushed during her tumultuous tenure as public-schools leader in Washington, D.C., were hardly the last marks she'd make on U.S. public education. Since resigning last year, Rhee has pushed hard for school vouchers and merit pay for teachers, and has founded StudentsFirst, which pours money into lawmakers' coffers. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise then, that, after receiving a $905,000 buyout, Philadelphia's former schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman became a voucher proponent herself.