Survey confirms parents’ desire to escape from Columbus City Schools

The Columbus Dispatch

5/9/2006

If anyone at Columbus Public Schools dismisses charter schools, vouchers and other educational alternatives as a passing fad or short-term challenge, a study by KidsOhio.org should convince them otherwise.

Twenty-one percent of parents surveyed said they want to leave the Columbus schools if they get the chance, while another 37 percent would be receptive to leaving sometime in the future.

If they get the chance is the key phrase. The thriving charter-school movement, combined with Ohio’s new voucher program, means that more and more schoolchildren have the chance to leave.

Sixty-three percent of parents said they likely would apply for vouchers if available. The private-school voucher program goes into effect next school year, and 13,000 students who attend 35 Columbus schools are eligible. Forty-six percent of parents said they have a favorable or very favorable view of charter schools.

The survey involved 601 households containing 1,075 of the district’s students representing 133 of the 137 schools.

More than 7,000 students already have left for charter schools, but these survey results show that if nothing changes in the district, that emigration is just the beginning.

Fortunately for Columbus, the survey sets for the district a to-do list: improve discipline and safety and provide more individual attention to students. All parents, regardless of income, race and ethnicity, expressed the same basic desires for their children’s schools.

“Their safety,” answered one parent when asked about prime concerns. “There is always either a gun, a knife or a bomb threat at Woodward Park (Middle School). In fact, they just had a bomb threat today.”

“The kids are out of control in those schools,” said another parent. “The kids have all the control.”

Superintendent Gene Harris says the district has heard and is trying to respond with a new discipline program, which soon will be given to principals and teachers, and the possibility of school uniforms. The biggest challenge for a district with nearly 60,000 students will be individual attention. But the parents have spoken.

As it stands, thousands of Columbus students can’t leave the district all at once, because there aren’t enough charter schools to accommodate them. But wherever such demand exists, an entrepreneur inevitably will step forward. That’s what happened in Dayton, where 28 percent of students have bailed out of the public schools and into charters.

Columbus school officials who dismiss the KidsOhio findings do so at their - and the students’ - peril.