Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles featuring the perspectives of current and recent Michigan public school teachers’ experiences with school choice.

Having worked in different kinds of public schools, one Michigan teacher has found a charter school advantage.

Steve Scott spent 30 years working in large Detroit-area school districts before leaving to teach chemistry at A.G.B.U. Alex & Marie Manoogian School, a Southfield public charter school with a special emphasis on Armenian language and culture. He says his teaching has thrived under the leadership of Principal Dr. Hosep Torossian: “[He] has really taken the approach of ‘you guys are the experts, so my job is to resource you with what you need.’ He basically just turns us loose to do what it is that we should be doing.”

Scott has used the flexibility offered to provide students with innovative opportunities, helping direct a program where students build an electric car from scratch. Extra funds are provided by Square One Education Network, a nonprofit grant-making organization focused on STEM education. At the beginning of the school year, students are given two automotive batteries and assigned to build a car that can go 25 miles per hour for at least one hour. In the past four years, Manoogian students have won several competitions for engineering these vehicles. This coming year, Scott said their goals include making a self-driving electric car.

Scott was able to offer the same sort of program at his former district job, but only after encountering the added friction of “a lot more bureaucracy and a lot more rules and far more focus on test scores.” He also observed that the district’s heavy focus on standardized best practices would often constrain the ability of innovative teachers to take creative approaches into the classroom. “It’s kind of like if Gordon Ramsey cooked for Burger King, the burgers would still come out the same,” he said. “But if you turn him loose, he can accomplish really good things.”

Even during his stint teaching in conventional districts, Scott observed some positive effects from giving families greater ability to enroll in a charter or across district lines. “Once in a while I did see the public schools would start pushing things if they felt a little bit threatened by, say, schools of choice,” he said. “I think good competition can be healthy.”

The Manoogian school received a charter from Central Michigan University in 1995, making it one of Michigan’s oldest charter schools. The school is managed directly by the board and accountable both to its university authorizer and to the parents who must choose to enroll their children there. “We take the approach of if the student enjoys the day and shows up to school enthusiastic and ready to learn because we’re learning cool things, they’ll work harder and probably get better test scores,” Scott said. “So far it’s paid off.” Manoogian rates in the top fifth of schools on the state’s School Index, bolstered by solid assessment results and a 94% on-time graduation rate.

Thanks in part to the electric car project, Scott estimates that a quarter to a third of the students leave school with an eye on an engineering career. More than half of last year’s 33 graduates enrolled in a four-year university, including four at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He said two of those students were accepted into UM’s College of Engineering. According to Torossian, nine of the Class of 2019’s graduates were admitted to UM-Ann Arbor with full four-year scholarships.

Given most Manoogian students come from economically challenged homes and nearly a third do not speak English as their first language, Scott is especially proud of the results and more than willing to share the credit. “Any success we’ve had at this school is because we have a good team,” he said. “Between the administration, the staff — everybody pulls together. We all agree on common goals and push for that.”

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.