The Education Voucher Is A Boat To Freedom
by Cleaster Whitehurst-Mims
The parents at Marva Collins Preparatory Prep and Cleaster Mims International Day/Boarding schools, along with millions of parents throughout this nation, were jubilant on the day of the Supreme Court's school choice decision.
Visualize being trapped on an island, your food supply is low and you sight a large boat sailing your way. Would you not be filled with jubilation?
After the decision in favor of Cleveland schools, our hope for the expansion to Cincinnati was very high. We formed a Parent Research Committee to keep abreast of the discussions on the issues and determine its benefits to MCPS and CMI.
A close scrutiny revealed that our candle of hope was being snuffed out by those who seek to politicize, debate, and skew possible public funds away from private schools.
Our committee agreed that educational choice is not a "right" or "left" issue; it is not
a conservative nor liberal issue. Instead it is a "literate lifting" issue that leads to freedom. Choice is a right that all Americans relish, and must not be snuffed out.
In our search, we found that private and public education have co-existed for years. Private education has always provided quality educational choice for the affluent, giving them an edge and an option. It has saved the government many education dollars.
The wisdom of the Court, in expanding educational choice to the masses, is evidence that these men and women realize that nothing is more precious or significant to our freedom than our right to choose.
The decision to provide public funds to "nourish the mind" is just as noble today as the decision to provide public funds (food stamps) to nourish the body over forty years ago.
The government guidelines did not stipulate where recipients should use their food stamps. They were not told to shop only at Kroger or A&P. The recipient could go to any store as long as they used the food stamps for food which was government inspected.
Simplistic as the example may seem, I believe that the welfare program serves as a model for the implementation of the educational voucher program. With today's technology, the program should work more efficiently.
We are here to find a way that the government can provide public funds to the parents who wish to send their children to Marva Collins Prep School, a nonpublic, nonsectarian school.
Thirteen years ago I retired to volunteer to administer the school. Having been driven by my mother’s voice echoing in my memory for fifty-five years these words, "Put God first and education second and you will be richly blessed," I had no other option but to try and save one child at a time.
After thirteen years of struggle and sacrifice, fortitude and frugality, I remain as persistent today as I was in 1990 when a group of desperate, poor and middle class parents came together under my leadership to form a school that has changed the educational landscape of our Cincinnati community. I am motivated by my belief that when America makes education a priority for all her children, she will be more richly blessed.
The parents came together because they felt that they were trapped in a system where administrators and teachers made exuberant salaries, worked in aesthetic buildings, taught their children very little, but blamed the parents for the children's lack of academic achievement.
The parents were frustrated, tired and hopeless. Out of their desperation and my determination, we brought to the urban shore a hope that we continue to foster.
Those who oppose vouchers as an educational choice based on the claim that vouchers will skim off the best and the brightest from the public schools, need to hear our story.
We started a private, nonsectarian, co-ed, school for preschoolers (3 years of age) through the sixth grade.
Rev. L.V. Booth and Olivet Baptist Church provided housing in its basement
for the cost of gas and electricity.
I purchased 100 used desks for $1.00 each, selected books from Goodwill, yard
and library sales.
We embraced Marva N. Collins' teaching methods and techniques and honored
her by putting the school in her name.
We raised $18,000 from a raffle for startup funds.
We opened the school on October 1, 1990 with two teachers, a secretary, a
volunteer administrator and 43 students whose academic achievements reflect
all points on the "Bell Curve." They were not the brightest, but became the best
and the brightest.
The makeshift classroom, recycled books, furniture and equipment yielded a phenomenal success rate. Within seven months, students had increased reading and math grade equivalent scores 2 - 6 grade levels above their entrance scores.
After five years of operation, MCPSC had shattered the myth that students’ ability to achieve was somehow tied to lots of money. The aesthetics of the environment had no profound effect on learning. Instead we found that love and expectations brought about our student achievement and the school's success.
As a result, our little candle has attracted the attention of parents and statesmen around the state, nation and world.
Don't snuff out the candle for the parents whose children are labeled slow, disadvantaged, uneducable, ADD. Their parents are still pleading for help.
Marva Collins Prep and CMI give them an opportunity; we strip away the labels, forbid the Ritalin, put them in uniforms, love and teach them, and change their whole life.
Don't snuff out the candle for the parents who are having major problems paying
their tuition.
Take a moment and reflect on these cases:
Picture a small child tenaciously tugging on the teacher, screaming, "Mom, I
don't want to leave my school." The mom can no longer afford to pay tuition.
She has no choice. This child is now in a private high school as a result of
a scholarship donation.
Imagine a mom, of a fourth grade son who is learning algebra, burning
paper and rags to keep warm in the winter and burning candles to study because
she has to choose between tuition payments and gas and electric bills. This child
is now in college and the mom is 30 hours from receiving her bachelors degree.
Have you looked in the tear stained face of a mother whose child was in the
fifth grade and could not read, and every institution she tried labeled her
child uneducable? Her only option is to drive 100 miles a day to a private school
that will help her. This child returned to his public high school as a reader,
graduated from a vocational school, and is now a productive employee in a
uniform factory, paying taxes.
Think of how I feel every time I face a parent with a dire need. I have no scholarship money, no massive endowment fund to help a weeping, single parent whose child has been tracked in a special ed class (public cost per pupil about $9,000). The parent enrolls all children in MCPS (private cost $7,500 for four). This parent took a second job, and Hamilton County vouchers paid for after-school care. This "special ed" student graduated from a highly selective high
school in the top 10% of her class, graduated from college (2001) with a 3.8 GPA, and is currently preparing for Law school.
As CEO and volunteer administrator, I am faced with these and many other hopeless cases. The major problems we face are the problems of tuition funds for parents. The solution to many parents' problems are funds (private or public) to make educational choices for their children.
Don't snuff out their candle of hope. Provide them with the boat that will take them to an island of knowledge and enlightenment. America's future will be richly blessed.
Exhibit A
Historical Profile
Few non-sectarian, private schools can claim the struggle of the Marva Collins Preparatory School (MCPS) of Cincinnati, a school that was established on volunteer labor and donations of its director, parents, and supporters. With a donated building for the payment of gas and electric bills, used furnishings, used books, and a fundraising raffle, MCPS created an educational institution that raised the academic levels and gave hope and success to at-risk, average and gifted students.
1990-1991 o Incorporated as a private non-profit and non-sectarian school
o Opened for operation with 43 students (pre-K through sixth grades) in the basement of Olivet Baptist Church, L.V. Booth, Pastor.
1991-1992 o Increased enrollment to 120 students and added grades seven and eight
o Procured state approval to operate as a school pre-K through eighth grades.
1992-1993 o Acquired Science Grant from Jergen Foundation
o Set up hands-on science lab
o Increased enrollment to 140 students.
1993-1994 o Raised $40,000.00 from forty individual donors for down payment of first school
o Purchased via land contract the Hebrew Country Day School
o Moved into the Marva Collins Prep School’s first campus
o Established hands-on science lab
o Set up a before and after school care program
o Increased enrollment to 150
o Acquired a library grant from Procter and Gamble
o Furnished the Library and Resource Center
o Received national acclaim from Walter Williams, syndicated columnist.
1994-1995 o Increased enrollment to 200 students
o Secured bank loan to pay off land contract mortgage on Dawn Road campus
1995-1996 o Purchased the St. Theresa’s Nursing Home on land contract for the future home of residential school
o Received Charter from the State of Ohio
o Established after school tutorial program
o Set up Capital Campaign Drive.
1996-1997 o Received State of Ohio Auxiliary funds for textbooks, computers, and
administrative costs
o Expanded after school program to include foreign language, computer
classes, and performing arts
o Received Title II & Title VI of less than $2,000.00 from government.
1997-1998 o Obtained the services of 25th Hours Grant Writing Service
o Appointed a Capital Campaign Manager
o Received first grants exceeding $25,000.00 each.
1998-1999 o Increased student enrollment to 250
o Established International Exchange Program
o Traveled with sixteen students, twelve parents and two staff members
to South Africa on first exchange program.
1999-2000 o Hosted thirty students, five teachers and eleven parents from South
Africa
o Renovated the Theresa’s Nursing Home into school classrooms and
boarding facility
o Opened day school for operation on September 4, 2000 at the newly
renovated facility in Silverton, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati
o Moved 105 fourth through eighth grade day students to new boarding
school facility
o Hired two faculty members from South Africa
o Augmented the curriculum with a Spanish Program
o Augmented the curriculum with a Physical Education Program.
2000-2001 o Officially opened the day and boarding facility
o Moved faculty and staff personnel into residence hall
o Stocked new library with books
o Set up Computer lab
o Equipped Science Lab
2001-2002 o Raised funds for kitchen and laundry facilities
o Completed kitchen renovation
o Leased kitchen facility
o Set up Student Store
o Changed name of residential school from Marva Collins Preparatory
School, Inc. to Cleaster Mims International Boarding School, DBA
o Added an athlete component
o Incorporated the Cleaster Mims International Boarding School,
DBA.
2002-2003 o Officially opened the Cleaster Mims International (CMI) school
as a secondary extension (7th-8th grades) of the Marva Collins
Preparatory School, Inc.
o Hired recruit, counselor, and athlete directors
o Enrolled fifteen residential students.
EXHIBIT B
HISTORY
The Cleaster Mims International Boarding School, DBA, a non-profit, private, non-sectarian, co-educational, secondary school, is rooted in an affiliated with the Marva Collins Preparatory School, Inc. of Cincinnati (MCPSC).
In 1990 Cleaster Whitehurst-Mims, President/CEO, founded and incorporated the first Marva Collins Preparatory School in the nation; embraced the methods and techniques of Marva N. Collins, founder of Westside Preparatory School of Chicago; named the school in honor of this renown educator for her contribution to educational reform and established a non-profit, private school serving students in pre-kindergarten through the sixth grades.
In order to make tuition affordable for its student population (low and middle incomes), Cleaster Whitehurst-Mims volunteered as school administrator and MCPS became an excellent educational institution that raised the academic levels and gave hope and success to students, many who were labeled “uneducable.” The school quickly became a model for Cincinnati and the state of Ohio. Mims did not build this “island of excellence” with government funds but with volunteer labor, public and corporate donations, used books, used furniture, and used equipment.
In 1991, two grades - seventh & eighth - were added to meet the demands of parents seeking academic and moral excellence for their children. The population grew rapidly. After three years MCPSC out grew its first home (Olivet Baptist Church facility); after five years it outgrew its 200 capacity building which was purchased in 1993, and after ten years the school expanded to a larger building which included a boarding facility.
In 2002, the Board of Trustees named the boarding facility the Cleaster Mims International Boarding School, DBA to honor the founder, president, chief executive officer, and volunteer administrator of MCPSC. The boarding school was established to meet the needs of parents seeking a secondary school that employs the methods and techniques rooted in the principles, policies and pedagogy of MCPS of Cincinnati.