KGUN 9 On Your Side, Tucson News, Weather & SportsPolitical odd couple fights for school reform
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Parents----there's a school success story in Tucson ---highlighted by a political odd couple on a mission from the President.
It's the story of the Basis charter school and a call to action for parents to make their schools better.
Here's a lesson in education wrapped in a lesson on how political opposites can pull together for a cause. It's at Tucson's Basis charter school...and it features two men who are usually so far apart on the issues, they're shocked to be working together.
The Reverend Al Sharpton is very much a Democrat. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is very much a Republican. They were shocked to find themselves allies on one issue: education reform.
Gingrich says, "We have been a nation of low expectations, low achievement, constant excuses."
Sharpton says, "If there's a place the politics and the ideology should stop it should be with you."
President Obama asked them to look for schools that can teach the rest of our schools a lesson.
That brings them to Tucson's Basis charter school. Last year Newsweek ranked it as the best high school in America. Basis gets top flight results with a no-frills approach, tough standards and teachers who know their topics inside out---though many do not have official teaching certificates.
Basis school sophomore Tyler Gastelum says, "You come to a school like this where everybody is dedicated to doing what they want to do and it's raising the education standard and you can see what happens. Everything works and I feel everybody can do it as long as they have the actual power to put the work in."
Both Sharpton and Gingrich say parents have real power in the fight for good schools...
Sharpton says, "I was raised by a single mother from when I was 10. My father wasn't there--on welfare, the whole 9 yards. But she went to every PTA meeting. She went to every open school week. She had the teachers home numbers."
Gingrich says, "They are fully capable of going to the local school board and raising cain. They're 4th, capable of going to their state legislature and asking why they're betraying their children."
People often misunderstand that a charter school like Basis is not a private school. It's a public school that gets public money. Anyone can enroll at no charge as long as there's room but charter schools operate under rules that give more flexibility than a conventional school.
