Is School Choice An Option For Maryland?

It seems that the idea of school choice is picking up some steam with some of our local citizens. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, school choice allows parents the opportunity to send their children to the school of their choice (public, charter or parochial). It has been implemented in some form in several school districts around the country. The root idea is that competition will force public schools to improve if they wish to continue receiving the lion’s share of your local property tax dollar. It is essentially an economic argument. If people have choice in where their child goes to school, they will use their choice (which equals dollars) to provide their children with the highest quality education which they can afford.

Some districts that have allowed some form of school choice have only gone so far as to implement Charter Schools. Charter Schools are financed with tax dollars but have an independent board of directors. Usually their only obligation to the state is to meet certain achievement levels. Students must apply for admission, but the degree to which the board may be selective is usually defined by the state (or locality). Delaware is our closest state with Charter Schools. At present there are 13 schools in operation with another four planned for next year. Maryland does have a very weak charter school law in place.

The major problem with Charter Schools is that they are usually allocated a set amount per pupil to cover operating costs, but aren’t allocated capital funds. In some areas they are allocated a piece of the capital budget.

Probably the most popular form of school choice is a voucher program. In such a program students are given a voucher which is good for a set amount of money. This voucher can be used to pay all or part of the student’s tuition at a private school of their choice. Unfortunately there are very few operating voucher programs in this country. In addition, most voucher programs provide a voucher that is worth substantially less than the average per pupil cost of public education. In addition, most districts that have implemented a voucher program only permit students from “seriously underperforming schools” to participate. It is difficult to adequately measure the success of students in such a program when a short period of time has elapsed and when the only students allowed to participate are coming from schools in the bottom quartile (or even the bottom decile). Florida, under Gov. Jeb Bush has adopted both charter schools and two voucher programs.

Another method of school choice is a purely public method. This allows students to attend any public school in the district. The problem with this method is that districts usually restrict the selectivity of schools and also give present students (and siblings) first option. While this does make sense, it is also difficult to allow students from underperforming schools the opportunity to attend good schools. Opponents then argue that the system is “unfair”.

If you are interested in school choice, the first place to look is the Alliance for School Choice. This is a non-profit founded by Clint Bolick (founder of the conservative public interest law firm Institute for Justice). Here you can get information and find out how you can get involved to bring school choice to your county or school district. The Heritage Foundation also has a wealth of information about school choice.

Here in Maryland we have a several serious obstacles that must be overcome before school choice can become a reality. The largest hurdle is the fact that Maryland is a one party state. The teacher’s union is locked at the hip with the Democrat Party (both nationally and in Maryland). Until the citizens of Maryland have a viable and conservative (or at least moderately conservative) Republican Party school choice is a pipe dream. The liberal answer to poor education results is to increase funding. You only need to look at the schools in Washington, D.C. to know that this is not the answer. The District has some of the worst schools in the nation and spends over $13,300 per pupil per year (the highest per pupil cost in the continental U.S.). A viable two party system is necessary for even a real discussion of this issue to take place.

The other large hurdle is an activist judiciary. Most private schools in this country have some religious affiliation. Liberal judges want to use the establishment clause to prevent school choice. The constitution doesn’t say “separation of church and state” anywhere in it, but judges insist on the notion that public money going to a parochial institution is some violation of my rights. I’m not Catholic, but I certainly don’t oppose kids using a voucher to attend St. Francis De Sales.

This brings us to the next hurdle which is government intervention. One of the reason that public education is both failing and terribly expensive is that the national and state government place a large regulatory burden on local school districts. This is the root reason why a relatively small share of the average public school budget is actually spent in the classrooms.

If you believe in the free market, both economically and ideologically, school choice should be for you. The question is how much to you believe in it? Until enough like minded people come together to fight for this idea it will never happen. The Maryland legislature will pay just enough lip service to keep you off of their backs. Their idea of education reform is to pump more dollars down the same hole. It will take time, but as more courageous governors and legislators push to enact school choice around the country the evidence in favor of these options will become too much for the teacher’s unions to rebute. School choice is efficient, affordable, and will deliver a quality education for more children than the present system.