Room to grow

LITTLE ROCK — THERE was a passing story in the paper the other day. Not earthquake news. Not scandal news. Not sports news. Just an article about a new building going up. Nowhere in the story could we find a thing about Lindsay Lohan, Ann Coulter or any kind of hurricane.

But this story about a building going up gave pause . . . .

Little Rock’s oldest charter school,the one called the LISA Academy, has a new $6 million building off West Markham. The original school had become too small for the academy’s growing enrollment, therefore the need for the new building. Instead of having to teach in modular buildings, teachers at the school can now instruct their charges in science labs-two of them actually-along with more than a dozen classrooms and even a gym. You know, like a real school. The school financed the construction with a sale of 17-year bonds.

The charter school will pay off those bonds with the money it gets from the state. Which is $6,144 per year per student.

The school will now be able to grow, from its current 600 to maybe 1,000 in years to come. This is what is called giving the people what they want. Parents want their children to have the best education, so many of them wait in line to get their kids into charter schools. For some reason, Arkansas limits the number of organizations that can get charters. Who says the power of labor unions is waning in 2011 America?

Meanwhile, the traditional public schools in Little Rock, the ones running with union people in the right places and all the bureaucratic rules suffocating innovation in the classrooms, are spending nearly $12,000 per student each year. To create a product that many parents don’t want to buy.

So charter schools can be more efficient than traditional schools and create a product that parents will wait in line to get?

Outstanding.

So why not have more charters? Couldn’t they prove not only better for students, but for taxpayers, too? OH SURE, those who oppose charters will say, the LISA Academy off West Markham. La dee-da. That outfit is just taking a bunch of well-to-do white kids out of the traditional schools. Of course it’ll do well.

Except . . . .

The last numbers we got show that the LISA Academy had a white enrollment of 37 percent.

Thirty-seven percent.

Black, Asian and Hispanic kids make up most of the rest.

So charter schools can perform better and be more efficient with the money they’re given and serve the whole community?

Isn’t this the type of school the rest of us have been looking for? Isn’t this the whole point of charter schools, to find out what works and-later-how to copy those ideas?

Somebody once asked: So why not have more charters? Couldn’t they prove not only better for students, but for taxpayers, too?

Yes, those questions sound familiar. Wish we had good answers.