Charter schools in Michigan have not lived up to the extreme predictions that surrounded their creation in 1993.
The public/private hybrids, which get per-pupil state funding but can offer private school advantages, have not yet revolutionized education as we know it. They haven't created a class of super students or cured behavior issues.
They also haven't been the death of public school education, despite dire predictions of empty school buildings and bankrupt districts.
Instead, charters have provided tens of thousands of parents and their children an option of both public and private education that doesn't break the bank yet offers alternatives. They usually feature smaller classes but may also have a higher percentage of teachers teaching out of their area of certification compared to public schools. Sometimes, though, those teachers also have life experience in lieu of advanced degrees.
Now, 15 years after state law changed, some Grand Traverse-area charters are beginning to truly come into their own in terms of enrollment and offerings.
While that's good for those students and the charter movement as a whole, it is a growing challenge to Traverse City Area Public Schools, a district already struggling to reshape itself to meet new realities.
Early enrollment projections at two area charters -- Grand Traverse Academy in East Bay Township and Woodland School in Whitewater Township -- show a jump in applications for next year; both held enrollment lotteries last month, and both have waiting lists.
Woodland, a K-8 school that opened in 1996, has capped enrollment at about 200 students. Grand Traverse Academy expects enrollment to grow by at least 100 students next year. The K-12 school, which has expanded twice since 1999, has an enrollment of nearly 1,000.
That's all the more reason for Traverse City schools to immediately launch a long-overdue effort to create a strategic plan that emphasizes retaining and recruiting students and ending a years-long erosion in enrollment. Suggestions have included creating unique academic or extra-curricular offerings to lure students and using the district's enrollment muscle to create so-called "magnet" schools that offer a curriculum tailored to various interests -- math, music or science, for example.
The greatest need, perhaps, is to change the district's laissez-faire attitude about student retention. As pointed out by a number of candidates in last fall's heated school board elections, the district seems to have a "who cares" culture concerning students heading to charter or private schools or even other districts.
When a parent decides to send his or her child elsewhere, the district doesn't ask why and doesn't track the broader migration. If they don't know why parents are going elsewhere they'll never know how to stem the tide. That's a business basic and a practice that must immediately be adopted.
At $7,200 per student in state funding, doing anything less is unacceptable, as is the perception among some that it may actually be cheaper to just let them go. Taxpayers, after investing untold millions in school buildings, science labs, athletic fields, auditoriums and more, should fully expect their schools to offer the best possible education to as many children who want to attend.
The aim must be, with no exceptions, to provide an educational experience that will fulfill parental expectations and fill the seats. If you're exceptional, they will come.
Charters have a role and, judging by their enrollment numbers, are doing their job. TCAPS can do no less.
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