MARKET FORCES MUST BE AVOIDED:

A stone not rejected: With Detroit public schools failing, large local corporations have backed something they would normally avoid: Christ-centered Cornerstone schools (Susan Olasky, 3/13/04, World)

Cornerstone School has become a model school nationwide because it has garnered support from Detroit-area corporations, including the Big Three automakers, even though the school has a Christ-centered vision. Traditionally corporations are reluctant to support Christian schools, but Cornerstone has managed to attract wide and generous support because corporate managers see the need to support an academically excellent alternative to Detroit's failing schools. Ernestine Sanders, president of Cornerstone, says executives "see the value of what's going to happen with kids getting an excellent education."

The seeds that grew into Cornerstone were planted in 1990, when a group of community leaders agreed that the city's schools were failing and a generation had been lost. The group didn't want to start another parochial school affiliated with a particular church but an independent "Christ-centered" school that could be supported by lots of different churches, businesses, community groups, and individuals. Ten months later, Cornerstone opened with 167 students.

Twelve years later that seed had grown into the Cornerstone School Association, with three campuses in three different Detroit neighborhoods, providing an education to more than 800 students, most of whom are black, and many of whom are from low-income, single-parent families. [...]

Before coming to Cornerstone in 1995, Ms. Sanders had taught English in an affluent, all-white high school, a Friends school, and a school for gifted students, so she knew what excellent suburban education looked like. She brought the same expectations for excellence to Cornerstone, and it is reflected in the building's immaculate appearance and the first-rate materials she solicits for her students.

For instance, she didn't beg for used violins, violas, and cellos for the school's music programs, but raised money for new instruments. "We need the same resources that you would give to any place where you expect excellence," she says.

That desire for excellence requires a challenging curriculum that includes Spanish (beginning in kindergarten), art and music (beginning in pre-K), and instrumental music (beginning in 3rd grade). Cornerstone graduates are sought-after by the city's several good magnet high schools and other parochial high schools.

Since the school doesn't have admissions testing and is open to all kinds of students, it offers individualized curriculum at both ends of the academic spectrum, for both slow and gifted learners. To make sure kids have enough exposure to the material, the school runs 11 months a year and gives four nights of homework per week. The school chooses curriculum based on its objectives, and then tests annually to make sure the curriculum is actually teaching what it's supposed to.

Partnerships are central to Cornerstone. The school has two kinds of "community partners," attending and supporting (one of each kind for each student), who agree to donate $2,000 per student. Attending partners also agree to come to Cornerstone four times a year to meet with their students and work together on a project. Some partners sponsor one child, some five, and one sponsored an entire class for $50,000.

Although the true cost per child is $8,400, the sponsorships and other fund-raising enabled Cornerstone to set tuition this year at $2,750 for an 11-month school year. Many students receive scholarships to help cover part of that cost, but all families pay something.

This is why the Left is so opposed to vouchers, because such schools would thrive and multiply under a voucher system. If you gave every kid in Detroit a voucher for the amount the city spends per pupil right now they could all afford to attend such schools.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2004 9:15 AM