ARTICLES

What Strings?

Are Public Charter Schools an Answer to Home School "Isolation"?

BY ERIC RESLOCK

How do faithful Catholic couples, with large families, educate children so that they successfully integrate into secular adult society while keeping a strong faith? Some Catholic parents settle for having their kids take the same path as their non-religious peers. Other traditional families take a different approach. Distrustful of both their diocesan schools and the government -- these families choose to fly under society's radar and privately home school.

One woman thinks that this path of isolation for any Catholic is a serious mistake. Betty Crotty believes it is time for these Catholic families to pull themselves out of their own exile. She is creating a model for educating children in a Catholic setting without compromising anything. Her model is not just an option for the well-to-do, because the taxpayers of California are paying for it through the state's charter schools program.

Charter schools were established by the legislature in 1992. The idea was to allow communities to establish self-governing schools. Under law, the public elementary and secondary schools operate under the governance of school districts and county offices of education. The idea is that the charters would receive public funding but would not be subject to many of the laws generally governing school districts. The charter establishing each such school is the performance contract for the program, including the goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success.

One of the strengths of the charter school law is that various types of schools are acceptable, including non site-based charters that serve collections, or "clusters" of home schoolers. One of these is Homesmartkids, which is chartered out of the Knightsen School District in Contra Costa County. One of the homeschooling clusters currently served by Homesmartkids is run by Becky Crotty on her three-acre property in Galt. While her school is a member of the Homesmartkids charter, she prefers to call her school a "do-it-yourself school" for home schooling families, rather than a charter.

Crotty said, "I like to call it 'do it yourself school' -- not a home school, because that implies that Mom, and Mom alone, does all the work, and it is all done in their living room -- that is too confining." Several years ago, Crotty began researching the possibility of a charter school to serve her own kids, but in doing so, she became aware of the needs of other Catholic families, particularly those with large families. She said, "Mom is trying to home school and having babies and trying to home school and having babies -- and you know what? It's just not working for them. Yes, it's better than sending them to the public schools, but it's not the Catholic education that we should be proud of. It's not the Catholic education that I received."

Crotty points out that in many dioceses the Catholic schools do not provide authentic Catholic education, and for those parents who don't trust their diocesan schools, home schooling is a last resort, and in many cases, the best choice. But especially with large families, the quality of instruction may suffer. Crotty said, "it's often not realistic for them to do what it takes every single day to deliver systematic instruction to the children. How do you do that when you have six or more kids? Some women are miracle workers, but I would say by and large, the majority of women can't, and they know they can't. Father will tell you that the confessional lines are full [of these women], and they go in and they weep because they know they aren't doing what they need to do; but there is no alternative. So this really has became more of a mission of mercy."

Her school, St. Don Bosco, currently has nine students in the elementary level and seven preschoolers, for whom they do not currently receive public funds. "This is a group of home schooling moms saying we're going to do this ourselves. And this is a publicly funded private school. Our teacher is paid for by the state. The books are paid for by the state. Our math books are from Saxon. Overall it is a kind of classic approach. Yes, we have to abide by state standards, but we do not fear standards. Bring them on, and bring more on because I want to stand up and be counted. I'm not going to make excuses for the education my children receive."

Ironically, most of the students at St. Don Bosco are Mormon. She said, "are we, the hosts of this school setting, Catholic? You bet. Do we surrender our identity for one minute? No. I try to get more Catholics to come, but many Catholics fear anything that has to do with the government."

I asked Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter School Association, if he thought what, if any, were the dangers of accepting public money. He said, "I don't know if I'd use the word, 'danger'. There are a lot of parents out there who are simply dissatisfied with what their public schools have to offer. Charters offer the best of what public schools can offer. They are open to all. They are tuition free. They are non-sectarian, but they can be so in a manner that doesn't work against the values of the parents."

The fear that many have of government involvement in education does not seem rational to Crotty, but she says she understands its source. Her sensitivity to the issue has been reinforced by her correspondence with Andrea Yates, who is serving life without parole in Texas for the drowning deaths of her children. Crotty said, "on the heels of news of the Andrea Yates murders and what she went through, I was talking to someone about the case and how some of us also get into an isolationist mindset, like she did. And sometimes we go through postpartum depression, and who knows what can happen? And this person said to me, 'why don't you write her?' And I did." Yates eventually wrote back, and Crotty said their correspondence has made real to her the reason why her school is needed.

Crotty said, "she [Yates] was a home schooling mother, and she was formerly a Catholic but got hooked up with her fundamentalist husband. And some types of fundamenalist ideas have permeated Catholic home schooling in that they cultivate this fear of the government -- that is not Catholicism. Catholics do not need to be taught to fear the government. But there is a certain kind of fundamentalist mindset that is very isolationist, that we are going to hunker down and protect our own -- [Yates] fell victim to that. And, in addition to this, in her mental illness, she drowned her kids to prevent them from being contaminated from the world so they would go to heaven. We don't know if they did or not, but as Catholics, I think we need to avoid this isolationist mentality."

Matt White, a Sacramento-area resident who teaches both in a public school and also part-time for Antelope View Charter in Antelope, another independent study charter school, agrees that Catholics have nothing to fear from participating in a government-funded charter school. He said, "I think this kind of charter is very Catholic because it allows parents the freedom to educate their children at home." He also sees charters as being helpful in a larger reform agenda because they offer a competitive alternative to traditional public schools.

Crotty sees larger social implications for participating in the charter movement. "Why should we surrender our position in the world because we are afraid? We can't always send our kids to the parish schools, we can't send them to public schools, but that doesn't mean we can't use all the resources to get what we need to give our kids a great education, which is what this school is all about."

The chartering organization that St. Don Bosco is affiliated with, Homesmartkids, pays the teacher $1,500 per child per year, plus the teacher receives approximately $75 per child per month of state-allocated tutoring funds. Each child is allocated $1,300 per year for curriculum and supplies. The state will not pay for religious education. But Crotty points out, "If you have a professed Catholic in this kind of setting, they are going to teach as a Catholic because that is who they are." Crotty says that rigorous attendance records are kept so that the students meet the minimum of 180 state-mandated days of schooling requirement. On top of this, her school setting offers religious instruction to those who desire to attend.

The law is what makes this freedom possible. The state education code 47605 states: "in addition to any other requirement imposed under this part, a charter school shall be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations." The chartering school for the St. Don Bosco cluster of homeschoolers is entirely nonsectarian, which essentially allows the community around St. Don Bosco to be true themselves on their own time.

Matt White agrees that the law allows room for religious instruction outside of the chartering standards. He said, "the charter school law allows you to use religious materials as long as the state does not pay for it and you can demonstrate the students are progressing [in the mandatory subjects]." Crotty's school has catechism on Thursdays and Fridays, both non-mandatory days. The non-Catholic students still get their 180 days of minimum instruction because their parents can certify that they are in school, at home.

The implications of this are striking. I asked what would prevent churches from signing up as charters? She said, "there are charter schools meeting in churches in San Francisco and Oakland today. The charters were granted by the local school districts or boards of education, and the teachers are paid directly from the charter."

Not all parents are present every day at St. Don Bosco. But to be eligible for enrollment, a parent has to commit to come in at least one day a week. Crotty said, "this is not day care. They don't drop their kids off and just pick them up later and just deal with the teacher. The teacher holds everyone accountable to their role, whether it's cleaning the kitchen or whatever. So this is not really an option for working parents. This is an option for home schooling parents."

The teacher at St. Don Bosco is credentialed to teach high school math. Trained as a bio-chemist before becoming a mother, the teacher decided she wanted to home school her own kids. She has to update her credentials to teach elementary grades at St. Don Bosco. A representative from CalState TEACH, the state's accrediting agency, comes once a month to assist in this, and he reviews the teacher's performance.

Matt White from Antelope View points out that even though the charter law has been written in such a way that they can be a good option for Catholics, vigilance is required because the enemies of charters have large resources and are an active voice against the charter movement. In particular, the California Teacher's Association has an interest in ending charters because teachers in charter schools are non-union, at-will employees of the charter. White says the Association's literature he receives as a public school teacher is very anti-charter and very socially liberal. The emergence of charters, like Crotty's, will likely fuel the animus of such groups.

But Gary Larson of the Charter School Association is encouraged by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's frequent references to charter schools during his campaign. Even though many Catholics had reservations about his candidacy for its failure to defend human life, the incoming governor has publicly linked charter schools in a positive way to a larger education reform agenda. The new secretary of education, Richard Riordan, is also a supporter of charter schools. Larson said the association is still working on its legislative package for the second half of the current 2003-2004 session. He admitted that the association will be free to take a much less defensive posture because of the likelihood that Governor Schwarzenegger is going to prevent punitive legislation from becoming law. Still, Larson said they have to be aware lest the legislature does harm to the charter movement by "inflicting death by the thousand cuts theory through over-regulation."

How isolated are home schooling families? What non-governmental alternatives are available to combat this isolation? A future Faith article will explore these questions.

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