Firefighters dress up for softball game
House fire in Dayton
You've Been Spotted: SummerFest
Parents, students rallying for charters
Husted says Strickland budget proposal could shutter Dayton's Pathway School of Discovery.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
DAYTON — Tura Chalfan grew up in Northridge, the daughter of a school maintenance worker, and graduated from Northridge High.
When the time came to send her two oldest children to school, she picked her alma mater. But one of them, bored with school, dropped out in 10th grade. The other fell behind and struggled.
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For her youngest, now in third grade, she picked Pathway School of Discovery, a charter school, where she said her daughter gets more personal attention.
"I was not going to have another child lost," she said.
Chalfan was among about 600 charter school students, parents and supporters who came from as far away as Columbus and Cincinnati to a rally Wednesday at Dayton View Academy to tell House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, why they favor school choice.
Many who attended wore T-shirts with messages such as "I love my charter school," and held handmade signs that read "save our schools."
Husted, who has not stated a position on the Dayton school district's 15.17-mill tax levy on the May 8 ballot, told the crowd to support all schools — public, private and charter — and said he could back the levy if the city school board would agree to work more cooperatively with charter schools.
The rally, in response to a legislative debate over the free privately run but publicly funded schools, was organized by Parents Advancing Choice in Education and the local chapter of the Black Alliance for Education Options.
Husted said Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland's budget proposal would forbid management companies from operating charters in Ohio, cap the growth of new charters and eliminate a statewide voucher program that allows students in low scoring schools to attend private schools with state money. Dayton View Academy, a seven-year-old charter school, is run by Edison Schools, a national management company.
"It would close the school we're standing in right now," Husted said of Strickland's budget plan. "It would essentially close down choice and competition in Ohio."
Husted called for support for all schools and said Dayton's school board should sell closed school buildings to charters in the spirit of cooperation. If they did, Husted said, he'd back the levy.
"They have vacant schools and the charters have a need," he said. "It's a win-win. If they did that, I could be supportive" of the levy.
School board President Yvonne Isaacs said that would not be the right to do.
"I think the progress that has been made in the Dayton Public Schools, greater than and at a faster pace than anyone anticipated, really deserves to stand on its own merits," she said.
