In gutting Gov, Larry Hogan's rather modest proposal to expand charter schools, Maryland's Democratic leadership has again proved its hostility to quality public education, especially for the black poor ("Senate panel rewrites Hogan's charter school law," March 26).
Sen. Joan Carter Conway, chairwoman of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, has the gall to lump charter school expansion with the racially segregated public education that was ruled unconstitutional 60 years ago.
She says she doesn't want to create a "dual" education system. "That's what we've been trying to do away with since 1954," she said recently.
Senator Conway is perfectly aware that many Baltimore City parents who can afford it send their kids to private or parochial schools. Only families without scholarships or the money for tuition are stuck with the nearest neighborhood school.
All Mr. Hogan hopes to do is to provide a measure of school choice for families without it. But Maryland Democrats are so beholden to the teachers' unions that it won't be allowed to happen. Fine, that's politics.
But please don't pose as a champion of racial equality, Ms. Conway. The black poor matter to you only on Election Day.
With charter school expansion having been so rudely rejected, Mr. Hogan is now entitled to forget intermediate measures for expanding school choice and push for voucher payments so that even the poorest families can shop for better schools.
That would certainly clear the air. Democrats need to be called out on one of the biggest lies in public life — that they care about the poor, especially the black poor.
Hal Riedl, Baltimore