To get to the New School of the Arts, first you have to find the Los Arcos Crossing Shopping Center. The public high school operates out of a plain storefront there, behind the Cobre Tire store, and next to Elliot Electric.
There, in a 14,000-square-foot storefront that used to be a fabric store, the New School has gone from pie-in-the-sky to up-and-running in a few manic months.On weekday mornings, more than 200 teenagers from all over the Phoenix area descend on the shopping center with their backpacks and musical instruments to immerse themselves in painting, theater, dance and music.
Out back there's a well-worn trailer where the artist/educator who runs the place goes to worry about the budget.
"It's like starting up a small business - with all the hassles," Ron Caya, New School's executive dean, said of the birth of his charter school. "Everything is `make it up as you go.' But we're going to make it."
Caya's school and Arizona's 45 other charter schools - which operate independently, but with public school money - haven't made it yet. One already came close to shutting down because of shaky finances. Some have had significant staff and student turnover. And none has been around long enough to prove itself academically.
Despite all that uncertainty, some educators and lawmakers in other states would like to follow in their footsteps.
Arizona might be one of the best places to learn. It's a newcomer in this, the biggest experiment in public schools today, so the lessons are fresh. It also has the strongest charter school law on the books, allowing for real autonomy.
As different as their schools are, and as varied as their experiences have been, charter school educators and entrepreneurs in Arizona will tell you that over these past few months they have struggled to keep their footing on a mighty steep learning curve.
It took about four years for the Valley Academy charter school in Phoenix to come into being. In three months, the school almost went out of business.
Money was, and still is, the main culprit. That and the fact that Valley started out bigger and more ambitious than other charter schools.
"We were parents and teachers - truly grass roots," said Sandy Broberg, one of the founding members. "Educators really aren't business people. And running a school is a business."
Unlike most charter schools, which lease space or operate out of existing schools, Valley Academy built a campus from scratch. Seventeen gray portable classrooms were set on 10 acres of dirt and stones leased from Honeywell. The school got hundreds of vintage 1950s clunky classroom desks from the Tucson United School District.
"We were the K mart shopping queens this summer," Broberg said.
The build-it-and-they-will-come approach was risky because of one of the basic rules of charter school financing: The state provides about what it costs to educate a student, but not the money to pay for the classrooms and desks. (Arizona is one of the few states offering start-up money, but only $1.7 million is available statewide.)
Valley opened as the largest charter school in Arizona, with more than 550 students. The average charter school nationally has about 287.
Once the school finally did open, it was over budget and in trouble. Remember, this is an independent school with no district to bail it out and no ability to raise taxes. The Valley board of directors met. Finance experts were brought in. Staff went unpaid for three weeks.
It appeared all but certain that Valley would close for the Christmas break and not reopen. But a loan from a parent, who happens to be an Arizona legislator, kept the school open for an uncertain future.
On top of all that, these independent schools still have to work with the state bureaucracy to get their money. It can be a strained relationship.
Despite all the problems, parents from all over the Phoenix area continue to send their children to the school, drawn by the promise of no-nonsense discipline and a back-to-basics curriculum.
"We're still doing the right things for kids," said founding member Cuyler Reid. "We're trying to make sure that regardless of whatever else is going on, teachers can go in and close that door and teach."
Arizona didn't take this flying leap into charter schools overnight.
Many in the state have long felt the public schools were not quite up to the task. Reform attempts yielded debatable results. Along came a reform-minded young Republican state school chief pushing school choice - namely vouchers and charter schools.
After a couple of tries, Arizona lawmakers approved a charter schools bill in 1994. Immediately there were concerns about the mess they would cause. Fringe groups would open schools. Students would flee from private schools to charters. Only elite, white students would attend them.
Now, seven months after the charter schools opened, researchers are beginning to get an idea of what Arizona's 46 charter schools have wrought. They are incredibly diverse in the way they look, the way they teach, who is doing the teaching and who is doing the learning. One school is for homeless students. One is for the deaf. Some take a back-to-basics approach. Others stress bilingual education.
Raymond Jackson didn't do a bit of advertising to fill his charter school, ATOP Academy in Phoenix. Jackson had a reputation as a can-do educator and leader, and the school filled right up. He has 278 students - the majority of them black - from kindergarten through eighth grade, a waiting list and plans to expand.
The students at ATOP wear uniforms - dark blue pants or skirts and light blue Oxford shirts. Jackson and the staff demand from the students good behavior, respect and tucked-in shirts.
"Lot of the parents who send their kids here were unhappy with the public schools," Jackson said. "They said, `Kids aren't learning, there's no discipline and the schools don't care.' Kids are here to learn."
Jackson has borrowed ideas from the most successful schools in the area and added some of his own, such as the "tool box." It's a box given to each child, and it contains a dictionary, thesaurus, a pencil - the tools for learning.
"It's a systematic way of learning how to learn," Jackson said. "We want our kids to be independent learners, so we're trying to give them the right tools."
There are 45 children and four adults in one big classroom at the Sedona Charter School, about two hours north of Phoenix. Yet the place is quiet enough that you can hear the soft New Age dulcimer/flute music coming out of the tape player on the water fountain.
Principal educator Bob Wentsch is an experienced Montessori teacher with a taste for sandals and Native American jewelry, and a wonderfully soft-spoken way with kids.
The school emphasizes individual lessons. Students keep portfolios - bulging folders full of their work - to show their parents what they've done.
There's a traditional public elementary school three miles from her home, but Jane Dougherty travels 14 miles to send her daughter, first-grader Maya, to this school. It operates out of the West Sedona Baptist Church, in the shadow of the awe-inspiring red mountains that draw artists and tourists to this desert town.
Early research shows that Arizona's charter schools have not turned out to be the white, elitist schools some feared. Because they are public schools, they must be open to everyone, and minorities seem to be reasonably well represented. As far as being elitist, some schools were surprised they got as many at-risk and low-performing students as they did.
Educators and lawmakers are keeping a close eye on where the students come from. Parent surveys done by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, indicate that about 19 percent of the charter school students came from private schools. (Arizona allows private schools to convert to charter schools.) Another 6 percent used to be home schoolers.
With all the analysis and debate going on, it's important to remember that Arizona's charter school enrollments (about 7,000 children) accounted for less than 1 percent of the state's public school children.
In the coming months and years, the state will evaluate the schools. As with the public schools, some will thrive and some will not. Unlike the public schools, those that fail - because students aren't learning or because the school fails to live up to the charter - will be forced to close.
Ultimately, the true test is what effect these schools have on the rest of the public schools. If they siphon off elite students and money from the public schools, they will have failed. Proponents say they will lead the way with innovations.
At the New School, Ron Caya wonders if that isn't already happening.
Early this year, Caya met with about 25 arts teachers from the public schools. They weren't happy. They thought he was taking their best students.
To an extent, that might be true. Caya's enrollment is a mixed bag, but many of his students are talented, focused and mature. They like the idea that their teachers - many of them uncertified - are working artists.
"Usually your teacher has a background in teaching," said Shoshana Hgiem, a senior with acting ambitions. "My teacher here has a professional background in theater. You learn more."
Recently, Caya heard from a public school teacher who had a proposal.
"They want to send some kids down here for an arts class," Caya said. "They realize we're doing some things they're not doing. As far as I'm concerned, if we don't do that, we shouldn't exist."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)