Good schools should be a civil right

By Graysen Walles

Recently our school – Tech High Charter in Atlanta – hosted a volunteer event to bring out men, women and children to help us tidy up our 88-year-old building.

Parents and students worked with us, but members from the surrounding community came out to support our efforts too.

All of these people came out to our event to help us meet the needs of our diverse population of 170 students consisting of African-Americans, whites, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gifted, average and exceptional needs.

After sweating for eight hours in the hot Atlanta sun, a grandmother approached me saying, “Son, you are the new principal, right?” I replied, “Yes ma’am.”

One of her grandchildren has a slight disability, while the other needs to be challenged more academically. She enrolled both of them in Tech High this year.

She said: “You are doing a good thing here. I am raising my grandchildren, and I prayed for a school just like this. I can tell you are going to look out for these children. I am going through some things right now that might stop me from being here like I want to, but know if you need anything I’m here.

“Keep them in the right uniforms, because they need to know how to dress right, and stay on them to do the right thing, OK?”

I kneeled down closer to her in much awe and respect, as she was sweating, too, and said, “Yes, ma’am, I promise to do right by you and the students. That’s what I came here to do.”

If I had any questions about what I was doing in this charter movement, I knew for sure at that moment what it was all about.

Her nod of affirmation was all I needed that day to know I was on the right track, along with the thousands of other charter leaders, teachers, parents, boards and students around the country.

We all know that the public school system as it is now designed cannot be the answer for the growing needs of our diverse community.

We have seen time and time again by means of reliable statistics and research that most of our public school systems are failing to prepare students for the 21st-century global community. These are facts, whether we want to face them or not.

The consistent message from families of all ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds in communities like Atlanta is that they want quality educational choice for their children.

In most cases, a traditional school system is not able to accommodate these choices as they are challenged with a myriad of complex issues, even much deeper that what can be seen with the naked eye.

For many families, such as the one led by the grandmother who stopped me that hot day, charter schools provide the choice and the answer that many parents are searching for.

Specifically, these families deeply desire a nurturing environment, a high-quality education that will prepare their students to succeed in college, access to a concerned and proficient administration and teaching faculty and a safe and vibrant school community where bullying and violence are not tolerated.

The charter school movement is an answer for many families around the country, as they provide what most traditional public schools cannot.

Quite honestly, at the current time, many of the students benefitting most from the charter movement are minority students and exceptional needs students.

That is why it is so difficult to digest the negative commentary that some civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, have purported about charter schools.

On the contrary, charter schools are an answer to the challenges of our special education communities and minority communities, as charters provide specificity, flexibility and a level of nurturing for our students that traditional public school have a difficult time mastering.

I was encouraged to read recently that the leader of the National Urban League has clarified its position on charter schools, noting that it “wholeheartedly supports high-quality charter schools and the outcomes they produce for our nation’s children.”

Indeed, if there were any organizations that would support the charter school movement, it is my belief that civil rights organizations would. I would encourage more leaders of these organizations to visit charter schools that have been successful in densely poor communities such as New Orleans, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago.

Undoubtedly, these school communities would definitely provide these leaders with a new perspective about charters and the need for charters as a viable educational reform tool.

Some of the best charters have clearly been documenting best practices and invaluable research that speaks to closing the achievement gap for at least a solid decade.

Charter schools have moved beyond test tube theories. They are now established, valued and successful. Why?

In my lowly opinion, it is because charters have proven that the student achievement gap can be closed among minority students.

Further, these amazing achievements have been accomplished with fewer resources, and many times in substandard conditions.

As an aside, I am convinced that far more could be accomplished if there was consistent and intentional collaboration between charters and traditional school systems.

Yet, rather than embrace and appreciate the innovation and creativity of successful charters, they are often ostracized by many public school systems and outright attacked by some supporters of the status quo, including, unfortunately, some civil rights groups. It doesn’t have to be this way.

After my brief conversation with that concerned, loving grandmother, I’m just glad to know that I am making a difference, even if many of our civil rights organizations don’t understand or support the charter movement as a viable educational reform option.

However, I do hope all of them will, sooner than later.

Graysen Walles is the principal of Tech Charter High in Atlanta.