Inside a charter school Inside a charter school (January 20, 2006)

Local author's new book chronicles a new San Jose charter's path to success

By Molly Tanenbaum

Charter schools are a hot topic in California education, but many people don't even know what they are. Local columnist Joanne Jacobs' new book is all about charter schools and why they work as an alternative to traditional public education.

The book, entitled "Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School that Beat the Odds" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005, 240 pages), is about Downtown College Prep, a primarily Mexican-American charter school in San Jose that has had surprising success in sending underprivileged kids to four-year colleges.

A columnist at the San Jose Mercury News for 19 years who focused mainly on education, Jacobs left her job in 2001 to pursue this project. Following in the journalistic footsteps of Tracy Kidder, she became close to the students she wrote about, celebrating their victories and feeling heartbroken at their setbacks. She even donated many of her own books to the school's limited library.

Originally, Jacobs' plan was to follow a charter school from conception to its realization. However, when she found she could not get proper access to charter schools in their planning phases, she sought out Downtown College Prep in San Jose, then in its second year. There, the founders and teachers at the small charter high school embraced her and felt comfortable having a writer in their midst.

"They gave me access to everything. It was wonderful," Jacobs said. "I sat in on faculty meetings, disciplinary meetings, a teacher evaluation."

"Our School" doesn't just give readers a close-up view of a San Jose charter school. It lays out a history of charter schools -- including helpful statistics and other information at the end of each chapter -- and explains how they help disadvantaged kids graduate from high school and get into four-year colleges.

Downtown College Prep, in Jacobs' eyes, is a perfect example of a much-needed shift in public education. Charters are public schools run like private schools, Jacobs says, and DCP provides an individualized learning setting where kids who were once thought incapable of getting through college were told for the first time that they could succeed.
INFORMATION: Jacobs will be at Books, Inc. on Castro St. at 7:30 on Jan. 24 for a reading and book-signing. She will also appear at Kepler's in Menlo Park on Feb. 7 at 7:30, and a "book-raiser" will be held where books can be donated to the East Palo Alto Charter School.

E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com

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