Lots of Small Steps Lead to Progress
INDIANAPOLIS STAR EDITORIAL - JULY 5, 2005

Anyone frustrated by Indianapolis' seemingly intractable education and dropout problems should talk to Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana President Jim McClelland about the inaugural year of the charity's two charter schools.

It was certainly difficult as parents, teachers and students struggled to adapt to the Indianapolis Metropolitan schools' model of individualized study and internships. Seventeen-year-old freshmen -- a particularly difficult at-risk group -- often were so far behind they were referred to Goodwill's youth learning center to start work on earning a GED.

Yet McClelland is "more excited about what we're doing with these schools than I have been about what we've done in the past few years." Why? Because the positive moments he's seen outweigh all the negatives.

There's the time in the cafeteria when McClelland was about to sit down for lunch with a Goodwill vice president when one student asked him to sit with her and two of her schoolmates. "They carried most of the conversation," McClelland says.

Or earlier this year, when an architect showed the students plans to remodel space in Goodwill's headquarters on West Michigan Street for the second Met school. Instead of simply listening, they pointed out flaws in the designs. McClelland was floored by their ability to "see cause and effect relationships."

McClelland had a conversation with a young woman who told him she liked the occasionally chaotic school because it was "peaceful." That was the moment he realized school could be as much a refuge as a learning institution.

Challenges do remain. One student who amazed McClelland with his eloquence has a long way to go before he has the writing and spelling ability to match. McClelland admits that for some students, struggling long before they arrived at Met, "it's going to be a four-year journey" before they finally catch up.

Yet, as McClelland puts it, "there's undeveloped potential in every student. Part of what we want to have each student do is develop their potential."

The Goodwill charter schools have a chance at making it happen, as do the Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation's 21st-Century charter schools, the private and public schools attended by students with vouchers from the Educational Choice Charitable Trust, and the concepts behind Indianapolis Public Schools' George Washington Community School and the district's small-schools initiative.

No single solution will improve the educational -- and economic -- destinies of the city, state and nation's poor children. A thousand different programs must make it happen. And they're all worthy of our encouragement.