| "Cleveland Vouchers Fulfill Two Children's Different
Needs" Eleven-year-old Charlotte Reed is on her way to Harvard. To prepare herself for that self-made dream still seven years away, she completes a grueling five to six hours of eighth-grade-level homework each night, for her fifth-grade classes at Birchwood School, a private school in Cleveland. "I want my kids to have an edge," said Charlotte's mother Bobby Reed. "At the same time, I want to be able to live in the city, where my children will be exposed to real life, to a variety of people, and not to the sterile, unreal atmosphere of the suburbs." The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program allows Bobby, the mother of four children aged newborn to eleven, to work in a field she loves, community service, and have flexibility to attend to all her children's needs. She "lives on a shoestring," but the program allows her children to attend schools that meet their very different needs. Eight-year-old Jesse, Bobby's son, is enrolled at Hanna Perkins School, a private school on the east side of Cleveland that has been successful in addressing Jesse's learning and emotional handicaps. "A year ago, he was diagnosed with depression," said Bobby. "Today, he's a happy boy and he wants to go to school every day." Bobby found it extremely difficult to place Jesse in a good school. She spent several thousand dollars having Jesse tested and many exhausting hours visiting schools, including suburban public schools she assumed would be superior to those in the inner-city. "They just don't have the programs he needed," she explained. "The public schools have so many disabled kids, the classes are huge, and this entirely defeats the purpose." At Hanna Perkins, the student:teacher ratio is 3:1. Since Jesse has made such tremendous progress at the school, Bobby now is searching for a mainstream first-grade program for him at another school for next year. The trouble is, not many schools will accept him with his history of learning and emotional problems. "I believe if the [Cleveland Scholarship] program were to expand, many groups out there with great ideas about how to educate special needs children would open schools," said Bobby. "And this would lead to the public schools being forced to improve their offerings." Meanwhile, Bobby's two oldest children continue in the scholarship program, enabling her to work for the Community Development Program. Ironically, this means she attends PTA meetings at her local public schools even though she has no children enrolled in the Cleveland Public Schools. At these meetings, she is distressed at the lack of parental involvement. "There are so many over-worked single parents out there. It's not that they don't want to spend quality time with their children. There's no flexibility in their low-wage jobs and there isn't enough time in the day." She encourages parents she meets at the Community Development Center to apply for vouchers and tutoring grants even though participating private schools have long waiting lists. With her daughter working hard to prepare herself for the Ivies and her son finally becoming more confident, stable and ready to learn, Bobby waits for a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. Although her children are in non-sectarian schools and would not be affected by a negative ruling, she still worries for the future of the program. "The program needs to grow," she said, "so it can stimulate the growth of good schools." Laura J. Swartley |