Idaho charter school brands itself as the patriotic, "free market" capitalist choice [View all]

[HiPointDem]

The public charter school in Gooding touts itself as a "patriotic" choice for parents, with a focus on individual freedoms and free market capitalism...."Every day in their classroom (students are) singing `proud to be an American' and if they're not singing `proud to be an American,' they're singing another song about America." On this day, neat rows of students wearing their red, white and blue uniforms belted out "God bless the USA" in the school cafeteria...After the weekly assembly and singing, first graders returned to their classroom and recited for a visitor the school motto in perfect unison from the first line, "We are patriots, patriots, patriots," to the last, "We are proud of the red, white and blue."

North Valley Academy includes K-12th grades and was approved by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission in 2008. It opened amid some outcry from Gooding's traditional public school system, but not because of the new school's curriculum...The school's academics are based on the Core Knowledge program, a grade-by-grade curriculum outlined by conservative education theorist E.D. Hirsch Jr., a professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.

The local district lost roughly 10 percent of its total enrollment to the new charter school that first year - along with the funding that went with it - and the town of about 3,500 suddenly had two groups of students: Those who wear uniforms and those who don't.

Far from being deterred by any sense of divide, school founder Deby Infanger is planning a second patriotic-themed charter school in Idaho Falls, which has support from Mormon businessman Frank VanderSloot, a national campaign finance co-chair for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. VanderSloot has offered to donate use of a property and refurbish a building to house the new school, Infanger said.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_THE_PATRIOTIC_SCHOOL?SITE=NYKIN&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-01-16-03-53

Charter schools moving from the big cities to the country now.