Drew Carey: School Choice 'rocks' Cleveland

Actor Drew Carey shot to fame with his nine-year sitcom “The Drew Carey Show,” which allowed him to express his love for Cleveland. “Cleveland Rocks” was the show’s theme song.

Carey has now taken that affinity for “The Cleve” – a nickname for the city from another TV show, “30 Rock” to a more important realm than sitcom city by focusing on how school choice is changing the lives of children in one of the poorest urban areas in one of the poorest big cities in the nation.

In fact, it's not just about changing lives, it's about "saving lives," said Lyman Miller, development director for Citizens' Academy, a K-5 charter school in inner-city Cleveland.



Not only is Citizens' Academy outperforming nonminority students in other parts of the Buckeye State, but it's doing so while receiving $5,000 less per pupil than its neighboring traditional public schools.

It's not possible for such a school to exist in Kentucky right now, because educrats and their self-serving politicos in the Legislature have gone to the mat to prevent charter schools that would offer similar help to the commonwealth's inner-city kids.

Neighboring Ohio, meanwhile, has 332 charter schools.

Yet while some things are different, the obstacles to growing school choice in Ohio are the same as in Kentucky: "politically powerful teachers unions are resistant to change," says Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie.

Even if that change "saves" children's lives? Yup.