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Children Need Charters

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

Education

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

The teachers union in the City of Baltimore may kill one of the highest-performing public schools in the state, KIPP Ujima Village Academy, over wage issues. If negotiations fall apart, its future rests in proposed legislation to make it easier for public charter schools in Baltimore to operate by their own rules.

People can see the 330 student victims of union intransigence as it relates to KIPP, whose model relies on longer school days and years than other public schools.

Unseen are the thousands of children prevented from learning in a rigorous environment like KIPP's by school boards that arbitrarily deny charter-school applications. Charters suffer because Maryland has some of the most feeble laws governing the start-up and operation of public charters.

Frederick Classical Charter is a case in point. The fate of the school remains in limbo since the local board denied its application in November. The terms of three of the members who voted on the proposal have since expired, and the application awaits new consideration.

The school, whose curriculum includes study of Greek and Latin and an internationally respected math program, was told its curriculum was both too similar and too different from local standards. The board also faulted Frederick Classical for the size of its proposed classroom space, even though regulations do not require applicants to have a building at the time of consideration.

Then there is the case of Global Garden Public Charter School in Montgomery County, whose application was rejected last year by the local school board for being "insufficient." The group behind the school appealed the decision to the Maryland State Board of Education. It found that the explanation given to the group was "vague and, at best, confusing" and asked the local school board to revisit Global's application and one other.

Delegate Kathy Afzali, R-4A, is a co-sponsor of HB 1067, a bill to make the process of opening a charter school more transparent and standardized within each county so that future applicants do not have to suffer arbitrary decisions by an education establishment afraid of competition.

As the mother of school-age children said, "One-size-fits-all education doesn't work for all children, and charter schools have proven their worth throughout the country."

Statistics show parents could use more school choice in Maryland. The state boasts about having the best public schools in the country at the same time more and more high school graduates need remedial education in basic math and reading skills in Maryland colleges.

If the state truly wants to create the best public school system in the country, it should welcome competition from public charters and give them both a fair application process and an equal chance to succeed. In most states schools are not bound by collective bargaining agreements as they are in Maryland. And few give local school boards total control over the process, which one advocate likened to McDonald's being given the power to decide whether other fast-food chains could open.

The state must stop graduating students with meaningless degrees. Giving public charter schools a level playing field to compete should be a key step in the process.