A rift over a charter school

Public schools on the Palos Verdes Peninsula are among the state's highest achieving, and two of the wealthy enclave's high schools are ranked in the nation's top 100.

But to a small band of parents, that's not enough.

"In public school districts, even as good as Palos Verdes, test results are hugely important and people are inordinately concerned with the results of various tests," said Michael Schwerdtfeger, father of three Palos Verdes students and the lead petitioner to create the first publicly funded charter school within the district.

In the area's schools, he said, "the curriculum is geared to doing well on the test, not necessarily to giving children the opportunity to learn to love to learn."

The efforts of Schwerdtfeger and his allies to create an alternative have agitated the peninsula, with opponents charging that pulling students -- and the state money that pays for their education -- out of district schools and into an independent charter school would drain resources from high-functioning schools and harm the students who attend them.

"This should not be done at the expense of or at detriment to every other child in our school district," said Lynne Starr, librarian at Ridgecrest Intermediate School and a former PTA president.

The debate over the proposed Theory into Practice (TIP) Academy is the most bitter fight in the 12,000-student Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District since the early 1990s, when declining enrollment forced the district to close several schools.

A meeting held last Tuesday to discuss the proposal had to be moved from district headquarters to a high school gymnasium to accommodate the 500 parents, teachers and others who turned out. A majority wore black to symbolize their opposition to the proposal. Public comment, which typically lasts 15 minutes at board meetings, lasted for three hours.

"This charter school proposal has deeply divided our community," said Kelly Young, an emergency room physician and mother of three children.

Some critics have accused charter supporters of simply wanting a private-school setting without hefty tuition bills.

"This is a small group of parents who want to have complete control over the curriculum and daily activities of a school, but they'd like the rest of us to pay for it," said Tracey Lyons Tozier, whose dyslexic daughter and autistic son attend Mira Catalina Elementary.