Why don’t Maryland politicians choose school choice? They should

The number of charter school students in Maryland is about one-third the national rate, but there are still 46 charters in the state, 31 of them in Baltimore City. Photo by Getty Images.

School choice doesn’t come close to packing the political firepower of a woman’s reproductive choice. But it is an explosive, divisive issue on its own.

In education, the culture wars over race, LGBTQ and religion get most of the attention.  However, school choice, as Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Cara Fitzgerald writes,  “is now a potent, deeply polarizing partisan issue.” Conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proclaimed it “ the most important domestic issue in the country .”

And the political right is winning big. Fitzgerald, in her book “The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America,” concludes: “Today, as a result of the school choice movement’s success … the very existence of the traditional public school is threatened.”

The most prevalent forms of school choice are charter schools, vouchers and tax savings accounts.

Charter schools

Charters in 46 states enroll around 7.5% of all public school students. In Maryland, legislation in 2003 authorized local education agencies (LEAs) to create public charter schools with more autonomy than other schools. Last school year there were 49 charter schools in Maryland (31 in Baltimore City), with about 25,000 students. (Disclosure: My son serves on the board of a charter school operator in Baltimore City.)

Charters get high marks. A national study at Stanford University found that charter students had reading and math gains that outpaced peers in traditional public schools, and students of color benefited most. Positive academic results occur in Maryland ,  especially in Baltimore  City.

Vouchers and savings accounts

Contrary to public charters, these put money directly in parents’ hands to pay for private school. Evidence of effectiveness is lacking. Yet conservative proponents argue that parents’ “freedom to choose” is justification enough, and these programs are mushrooming nationwide .

Opponents respond that vouchers and savings accounts actually subsidize private (primarily religious) schools, and many subsidized students, disproportionately from higher-income families , have never attended public schools. Opponents also echo Fitzgerald’s warning that these programs, even when targeted to low-income families, are a Trojan horse for ideological  conservatives who want to totally eliminate public schools.

Maryland has no saving accounts and only a small voucher program, known as BOOST . Under BOOST, vouchers provide scholarships to low-income students who attend a participating private school. Because of the opposition of most Democrats, funding is small.

My own view and the political landscape

I applaud Annapolis’s resistance to vouchers and savings accounts but think more should be done to support and encourage charters.

It’s an uphill climb politically. The Kirwan Commission (on which I served) ducked the issue of charters. Local school boards, which resent limits on their authority, flat-out oppose them.  The Maryland State Education Association union supports them because Maryland is one of the few states that requires teachers in charters to be covered by collective bargaining, the same as teachers in other schools, but it resists targeted financial aid for them.

As a result, the total number of charter students in Maryland is about one-third the national rate . Worse, there is a current crisis in funding that puts charters in serious danger. Here’s the situation.

Maryland law requires LEAs to provide charter schools with funding that is commensurate with amounts that other schools receive. A state board decision in 2005 determined that LEAs could not withhold more than 2% of commensurate funding for central administrative costs.

However, last year the state board interpreted the impact on charters of the provision in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future mandating that at least 75% of most state funding follow students to their individual schools. The board held in effect that the 75% provision superseded the commensurate requirement, thus allowing LEAs to withhold 25% of the funding for central administrative purposes.

Now, for example, Baltimore City schools is holding back the maximum 25 % to spend essentially at its discretion.

The fiscal chasm between 2% and 25% is huge, and in my view, the state ruling on 75/25 is misguided. The 75/25 formula  seeks to assure that funding is actually spent in schools on students. That’s laudable. But charter schools were already spending at least 98% directly on their students so the 75/25 split doesn’t make sense as applied to them.

To their credit, the state board and the Blueprint Accountability and Implementation Board are considering a resolution to create a work group to “develop a framework for regulations” on charter funding. Hopefully, it will tackle head-on the lack of transparency and justification for what LEAs are withholding under the 75/25 provision. If the work group doesn’t propose regulations that are fair to charters, a legislative remedy should be sought.

In any event, Democrats in Annapolis should seek to expand state aid for charter start-up costs and facilities. They should do this not just because it’s good for schoolchildren, but because it’s good politics.

The Dems’ political dilemma over school choice

Nationally, Democrats – as public support for school choice has grown — have lost their supremacy as champions of public education.  One education expert concludes :  “Charters enjoy support among base Democratic voters, but not among elites and powerbrokers.” A majority of Black and Latino families favor school choice. Yet, President Joe Biden cut back federal aid for charters.

That’s a political mistake. Public charters should be supported as a middle ground offsetting Democratic rejection of vouchers and savings accounts.

I am not as glum as Fitzgerald. No doubt, as she observes , the “line drawn between public and private education [is] blurred.” But public schools are certain to survive (and hopefully improve). They are mainstays of neighborhoods and communities. Moreover, private schools, if  they expand exponentially, will prove disappointing. They, from elite to religious, have not come up with a secret sauce to dramatically improve the academic chances of the vast numbers of students who are poor and of color.

So, listen up Annapolis. There’s a chance to show Democrats across the country how to recapture the political high ground on school choice: Choose public charter schools.

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