The Power of Words. Mark Patinkin: This charter school is making a difference

6/16/98
MARK PATINKIN: This charter school is making a difference

       If you want to see the potential of charter schools, meet Terryl Desuze: An inner-city fatherless black male who served time in juvenile prison and by now should have been little more to society than a problem.
       His only role models were friends who'd say you're a sucker if you don't sell drugs.
       Then Terryl transferred to a charter school.
       "Right now," he says today, "I work at an investment firm, Merrill Lynch." He does filing, and has learned from mentors.
       "I actually invest in stocks myself," Terryl says. He put $425 into Exxon and has so far realized $75 in gains. He says he's into long-term growth.
       He attends the Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, a high school of 200 in Providence. It's part of the public system, but with the freedom to try new approaches. That's why it's called a charter school. It's the only one in the state.
       The reason there aren't more is that teachers' unions are against them. They don't like losing control over things like hiring.
       Union leaders insist their main concern is quality. Charter schools, they say, don't make a difference.
       They would not say that if they met Terryl Desuze. Or visited the Textron-Chamber Academy.
       I did. If they gave certifications for being an inner city, educational miracle, the Academy might qualify.
       I don't say that because I met one at-risk kid who was turned around.
       Almost every student there is Terryl Desuze.
       "We recruit from the Training School," says Rochelle Baker, the Academy's admissions director. "We recruit from gangs."
       They make a point of seeking kids likely to drop out, and among them, pick the few committed to one more try.
       Ninety-five percent of the student body is minority, most of those are from broken families below poverty.
       Last week, the Textron-Chamber Academy held graduation for its 34 seniors.
       Here are the results that union leaders, by inference, dismiss as making no difference:
       One graduate will work full time, four will go into military service, and the other 29 to college.
       It's important to stress that Terryl Desuze ended up in the Training School after entering the Academy, not before. He was with some friends who assaulted a pizza delivery man; they ran when the police came, Terryl didn't.

After-school pressures
       He's not the only Academy student arrested, and Rochelle Baker explains why that's an important fact: After hours, she says, students face old pressures, make bad choices, get into trouble.
       Public schools, she says, seldom help with such trouble, at least not in depth. Often, that's where students are lost.
       "Here," Baker says, "we pull them back."
       How, I asked Terryl, does the school do that?
       "They get involved with your life," he says. "They visit your house. When you're not in school, they call."
       Kids didn't know how to deal with that attention at first.
       Terryl recalls: "We'd say to each other, 'Man, you can't cut school. They'll call your house.' " The teachers even know everyone's names.
       Sometimes, says Rochelle Baker, she and other staff will get a cup of coffee and sit outside the nightclubs students frequent.
       "We always catch a few coming out at 2 or 3 a.m. Some of them have challenged us for intrusiveness. But most say, 'Thank you.' They see somebody's out there, an adult in their community who cares about them."
       I asked Terryl if there are other examples of teacher involvement.
       He nodded: They'll notice if you're behind, and stay after school to work with you. They'll give you their home phone numbers. They'll suggest tutoring even if you don't ask for it.
       "They don't let you sink," he said.
       It was also hard at first for Terryl to deal with the school's academic standards. A "D" -- his previous average -- was no longer good enough.
       "When I came here I was still lazy," he recalls. "But the teachers push you. They talked to my mom about why I wasn't doing great in school. I was like, whoa."
       Didn't his previous public school expect a lot from him?
       "They probably did," he said, "but if you didn't do good, they don't care."

Private sector aid
       It's perhaps not fair to say those schools are at fault. Public school teachers have bigger classes and fewer resources. They don't get the kind of help from businesses the Academy does: $325,000 from Textron alone. Companies also give students there part-time employment.
       "At the end of the day," Rochelle Baker says, "these kids transform. They take coats and ties from their lockers. The girls put on appropriate slacks and skirts."
       Once on the job, they're put together with mentors.
       In opposing charters, teachers' unions will point out how desperate some public schools are for better facilities. If there's money from the business community for public education, they imply, it should go to the schools most in need.
       The obvious truth, of course, is that companies would not give that kind of money to a bureaucratic system tied up by union rules.
       They're giving it the Textron-Chamber of Commerce Academy because it's an exciting model.
       The more such models we have, the more private support we'll see along with more stories like that of Terryl Desuze.
       I asked Terryl if he keeps up with his old crowd.
       "Most have dropped out," he said. "A few, I think they sell drugs, get into trouble."
       His plans?
       He'll work full time at Merrill Lynch during the summer, then study computer engineering at CCRI.
       Ten years from now?
       "I think about being the first black CEO of a major computer corporation," he said.
       He was told it sounds like a daydream.
       He disagreed.
       "I know I can do that," he said. "Once I put my mind to it, I can do anything."
       That, he said, is what he learned at school.

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