A new report by the Abell Foundation concludes that Maryland needs to dramatically increase the state's efforts to recruit successful charter school organizations in order to boost achievement levels among low-income minority students in underperforming public schools. It's a finding that has been echoed by several recent studies, and officials are apparently beginning to take heed. Given Gov. Larry Hogan's pledge to make expanded access to charter schools a priority for his administration — and his appointment this month of former Del. Kieffer Mitchell as a special adviser on the issue — lawmakers need to step up to the plate this year and finally ensure Maryland families have access to the expanded range of choices for educating their children that charter schools can offer.
The Abell study, which examined the performance of charter school operators across the country, found that those with the best track records are run by organizations that operate several schools in the same district rather than a single stand-alone program. That allows them to replicate effective instructional strategies developed at one program in all their other schools in the district, which in turn benefit from the shared institutional knowledge, economies of scale and proven record of success.
Yet even in Baltimore City, which has 33 of the 47 charter schools in Maryland and which has embraced charter schools as integral to its reform effort, there are only two organizations — the Baltimore Curriculum Project and the City Neighbors Foundation — that operate three or more schools in the district. (The Knowledge is Power Program, or "KIPP," operates a network of 141 schools across the country but has only two in Baltimore.) The Abell researchers say these are the kinds of large charter management organizations that have the best chance of boosting achievement levels among city school children, 85 percent of whom come from low-income families, but that the state's current charter school law acts as a disincentive for more of them to open schools here.
The factors charter management organizations consider when making decisions about where to create new schools include how much autonomy and control they can expect to have in choosing curriculum and hiring personnel, whether the per pupil funding formula of the district is adequate to cover the cost of their programs and whether there is adequate community support among neighborhood associations, business groups and private philanthropy to sustain a school's operations over the long term.
For example, some states pay for facilities maintenance and repair by giving charter schools a certain sum over and above the public schools' basic per pupil funding formula, while others — including Maryland — make charter operators pay those expenses out of their operating budgets. The result is often that even the best charters can end up underfunded compared to their public school counterparts. Other disincentives include union contracts that prevent charters from replacing ineffective teachers, local school boards that routinely view charter applicants as competitors rather than complements to public education, and rules that require charters to adopt the same auditing and accounting procedures as regular public schools.
The upshot is that while jurisdictions like Baltimore City clearly could benefit from the innovative instructional methods and unique financial and governance strategies of the best charter management organizations, getting them to open more schools here has been an uphill battle — and will remain so until Maryland's charter school law is changed to make the state more competitive with other jurisdictions that erect fewer obstacles to charter schools' success.
Not all charters operate well, and other states have had problems with standards that are too lax. But there is a happy middle ground, and Maryland isn't in it. The General Assembly needs to work with Mr. Hogan to find the optimum blend of flexibility and accountability so that all children have the best possible chance for a good education.