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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (21018)	12/22/2003 1:40:32 PM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793691

Does the fact that parents have an alternative encourage public schools to try a little harder? I don't know, but I know that it might. And I think it's our obligation to find out. A charter school in a bad neighborhood in Sacramento called Oak Park supports this view. Instead of vouchers, a kid named Kevin Johnson who grew up there to become an NBA star contributed time and money to help the community get organized. They decided to throw out the school board and administrators and shut down the failing high school, and start a charter school. The result is a vigorous local populist movement w. a lot of enthusiasm and involvement. I expect good results out of the kids in future years. As might be expected, property value increases have exceeded nearby areas as people are anxious to move in to an improving neighborhood. I owned some single-family homes in there area over the three years this played out, and have sold at (in one case) nearly 3x my acquisition cost ($52k vs $139k). That's further incentive for a virtuous cycle, once locals get control away from the large special interests.