Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 15, 1994                   TAG: 9412150033
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-14   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                  LENGTH: Medium

BAKER SAYS HE WON'T SUPPORT CHARTER SCHOOLS

School Board Chairman Ron Chaffin said the board believes there is not yet enough data on how charter schools are faring in other states where they are being tried. ``It's basically private schools getting public funds,'' he said.

Chaffin, Superintendent Bill Asbury and board member Sybil Atkinson presented the board's opinion on this and other legislative positions at a meeting in Baker's office.

Charter schools operate under contract with a state or locality, but without the mandates imposed on public schools. Their only obligation is to produce graduates who have mastered their subjects at certain test levels, and they have not been tried long enough to see the result, the board said.

If Virginia wants to ease up on mandates and simply judge by results, Chaffin said, it might consider doing that with public schools. The state also could put more money into public schools, he said, rather than to consider diverting basic aid to charter schools, vouchers and tuition tax credits.

Chaffin pointed out that the state still does not fully fund the Standards of Quality it requires public school divisions to meet.

Meanwhile, Chaffin said, Pulaski County schools, such as a demonstration school at Dublin Elementary, are already trying the kind of innovations associated with charter schools.

Baker said he believes charter schools, vouchers and tuition tax credits are ``first cousins.'' The board also opposes the state issuing vouchers or credits of some $3,500 to parents sending children to private schools.

``We lose eight kids, we'll lose a teacher. We lose 80 to 100 kids, we'll lose a school,'' Baker said. State money going to vouchers would mean less for public schools, he said.

Asbury said most of those who would use vouchers are people who can already afford private schools or have the means for home schooling. The people most affected are those who could not afford private schools, even with vouchers or credits, he said.

``We're going to be left with the poor, the handicapped, the special needs child. We want them, but we don't want to lose the money to educate them,'' he said.

Asbury said he also is worried about what he called ``the four-year horizon in public education'' with each new governor changing standards, adjusting funding and making programs obsolete soon after teachers are trained to carry them out.

``All the training we're doing on this, next year they'll take it and we'll be doing something else,'' Asbury said. ``There was a time when we had a 20-year horizon. The secretary of public education didn't change with every administration. We're getting ready to go through a whole new round of new standards and, every four years, it appears we're going to go through this because everybody wants to be the education governor.''

The School Board strongly opposes binding arbitration in settling employee grievances, which would allow an outside board to decide cases rather than school boards, Asbury said.

Such third-party boards are not accountable to anyone, Asbury said, while the School Board is. He noted that it would be even more accountable to the public after next year, when the county's board will be elected rather than appointed.

Grievances do not appear to be a problem that needs fixing in Pulaski County. ``We've had two grievances in four years,'' Asbury said. In one case, the board ruled in the teacher's favor; in the other, it did not.

``The School Board employs all personnel,'' Chaffin said in a written statement of the board's position. ``Therefore, it should reserve the right to dismiss employees without interference from the third party.''

Baker also agreed with the board's concern over a proposed mechanism to settle statewide issues by referendum, as places like California are doing. ``This one's sneaking up on people, and a lot of people don't know that it's even an issue,'' Asbury said.

``If we have that, about three-fourths of the state would be dictated to by the other fourth,'' Baker said, since the urban quarter has the greatest population.

``And we know where we live,'' Chaffin said.