In the market for a school solution
Originally published in the Daily Record
By Joe Bacchus
Published on Tuesday, May 23, 2006
MPPI IN THE NEWS
Think tank Maryland Public Policy Institute intends to use a new grant to determine whether a voucher system might help foster children get a better education.
In October the institute issued a report,“School Choice for Maryland’s Foster Care Children: Fostering Stability, Satisfaction and Achievement.” The study suggested a voucher system or perhaps a scholarship program to help kids in foster care.
The institute — which searches for market-based solutions to societal problems — has received a $25,000 grant from The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation to continue the research. The Indianapolis-based foundation promotes school choice. The institute has estimated a cost of $8,000 per year to help educate each student.
“Based on all of the available research evidence, too many foster children don’t have access to a good education,” said Dan Lips, author of the MPPI report. Lips is a senior fellow at MPPI and an education researcher at The Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Compared to the average student, foster children have lower test scores, higher truancy rates and higher dropout rates, Lips said. That’s in part because they can be moved from school to school, all while coping with the stresses that brought them into foster care.
A voucher system — which would give kids access to private schools, after-school tutors and other educational resources — might help them stay on track and keep them out of trouble down the line, Lips said.
Maryland has approximately 10,000 children in foster care, with about 70 percent of those in Baltimore City, said Sue Fitzsimmons, spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services.
Fitzsimmons agreed that stability is especially important for foster children. Earlier this month, the department began a “Strong Families, Strong Neighborhoods” program that will work to keep foster children within their original school districts, she said.
Fitzsimmons said she was not familiar with the institute’s report, but the department would be in favor of anything that eased the lives of the state’s foster children. Helping them become educated is an important step.
“They need to be more than safe,” Fitzsimmons said. “They needed to be cared for, to be educated, to become citizens.”
Robert Fanger, spokesman for the Friedman Foundation, said it wants all kids to have the option of school choice, but helping the “underserved and disadvantaged” is a good place to start the conversation.
“Education shouldn’t be a challenge to them” Fanger said. “There should be one thing in their life that does good by them, and it should be education.”
Bill Reinhart, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Education, said the state has a number of systems in place to help foster children, including a 2005 law that requires school districts to transfer records within 72 hours. Before, the process could drag out as long as two weeks, he said.
However, the state is against any voucher system that would move students from public to private schools, Reinhart said. Resources should instead focus on improving the public system, he said.
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