To Improve Educational Opportunities in Baltimore City, Expand Public and Private School Choice

By Dan Lips
Published on Monday, September 22, 2008
On May 17, 2008, 300 students from across Maryland sought to be among the first 80 students to enroll in the SEED School of Maryland, a statewide college preparatory academy set to open in Baltimore in August 2008.[1] The lucky students were drawn through a lottery. The Baltimore Sun reported that parents cried with joy when their children's number was called. Families with unlucky children whose numbers were not called were left shedding tears of disappointment. "It was a long shot...but it was a chance we had to take," explained Maurice Chandler, who son was seen crying when he was not chosen.[2] This scene is evidence of the crisis in Baltimore City's public schools, where a child's opportunity to attend a safe and effective school is left to chance. For more than a decade, state and local policymakers have sought to improve children's opportunities by reforming the city's beleaguered public school system. Those reforms have largely failed. [1] Tanika White, "Parents, kids pin their hopes on one white orb in boarding school lottery," Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2008. [2] Ibid. Read More »

Baltimore Students Deserve School Vouchers

Originally published on FoxNews.com

By Dan Lips
Published on Friday, August 25, 2006
Bad news just keeps coming for Baltimore City public schools. The city’s high-school graduation rate has slipped below 40 percent -- worse than every city in America except Detroit. State education officials recently labeled six Baltimore City public schools as “persistently dangerous.” Some 22,000 students languish in schools that have failed state benchmarks for six or more years. Unfortunately, Maryland state lawmakers appear unwilling to reform even the worst public schools in Baltimore City. During the last legislative session, Gov. Robert Ehrlich proposed a state takeover of 11 chronically failing public schools. The General Assembly not only approved a measure to delay changes for one year, it overrode Gov. Ehrlich’s veto of the legislation. Yet change could come to city schools if the Bush administration and some in Congress have their way. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill to unveil a plan to give private-school scholarships to disadvantaged students in some of the country’s lowest-performing public schools. The Opportunity Scholarship Initiative would provide $100 million in grants to cities such as Baltimore with a high density of failing schools. The grants would be used to give low-income public-school students scholarships to attend private school or intensive after-school tutoring programs. Only students in the lowest-performing public schools would be eligible. In Baltimore, that would include more than 40 schools, attended by more than a quarter of the city’s public-school students. Read More »

School Choice for Maryland Foster Care Children

Fostering Stability, Satisfaction, and Achievement

By Dan Lips
Published on Tuesday, October 11, 2005
There are an estimated 523,000 foster care children in the U.S. Maryland has approximately 11,500 foster care children, 7,000 of whom are in Baltimore City. This paper is based on the understanding that these children require specially tailored education and assistance to help wit the difficult transition from youth to adulthood. Unlike their peers in traditional families, foster children often do not have an adequate safety net or social network. They are unable to rely on parents and other relatives for support during the school years and to facilitate a smooth transition out of the home and into adulthood. Read More »

A School Voucher Program for Baltimore City

By Dan Lips
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Baltimore City’s public school system is in crisis. Academically, the school system fails on any number of measures. The city’s graduation rate is barely above 50 percent and students continually lag well behind state averages on standardized tests. Adding to these problems is the school system’s current fiscal crisis, created by years of fiscal mismanagement that has now caused multimillion dollar budget deficits. Despite persistent problems in the city’s public schools, city officials continue to oppose studentcentered, parent-directed school choice reform proposals such as school vouchers. Such voucher programs have proven successful in other cities, such as Milwaukee and Cleveland, which have seen test scores and parental satisfaction climb. Washington D.C. was the most recent city to launch a school voucher program. More than a thousand low-income students were awarded vouchers for the fall of 2004. This paper explores how Baltimore could enact a similar school voucher program. It examines the current state of the Baltimore City school system and considers other cities’ experiences with vouchers. Read More »

Maryland and Virginia Students Deserve More Choices

Originally Published in the Washington Times

By Dan Lips
Published on Friday, April 01, 2005
Nikia Hammond is a singlemother, working hard to provide for her four elementary-school children. She's also on the front lines of a national debate about education reform. Read More »

Beyond the Thornton Commission Proposal

By Dan Lips
Published on Monday, May 17, 2004
In 2002, the Maryland General Assembly approved Senate Bill 856, requiring the state to provide an additional $1.1 billion for public education by 2008. The legislation formally committed the state to the proposal by the Thornton Commission on Education Finance, Equity and Excellence to boost the amount of per-pupil state aid to education from $3,500 to more than $5,600—an increase of 63 percent.1 The following year, new governor Robert Ehrlich’s office submitted the first budget to include funding for the Thornton proposal. Read More »

Education’s Less-Traveled Road

Originially Published in the Daily Record

By Dan Lips
Published on Friday, April 09, 2004
Facing a fork in the road, Robert Frost famously took the path less traveled. That choice, he wrote, “has made all the difference.” Last Friday (2/27), the Maryland Senate offered Gov. Robert Ehrlich his own two roads. Following the recommendations of the Thornton Commission, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to increase state education spending by $1.3 billion. For Ehrlich, deciding whether to veto the legislation will surely make all the difference. Read More »

Maryland Democrats Need to Follow the National Party on Charter Schools

Maryland Policy Update No. 0005

By Dan Lips
Published on Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Name the politician who called for the creation of hundreds of charter schools, saying they “can help to save public education in this country by proving that excellence can be provided to all children from all backgrounds, no matter what experiences they bring to the school in the first place.” Read More »