When it comes to public money for private schools and oversight of charter schools, the Harford County Board of Education and the administration of Harford County Public Schools have it right by being opposed.
When it comes to public money for private schools and oversight of charter schools, the Harford County Board of Education and the administration of Harford County Public Schools have it right by being opposed.
In the school system's recently-released 2012 legislative platform, Harford County Public Schools is against any public funding of private education and it's equally opposed to any new laws that would allow charter schools to operate without being required to comply with "state law and [Harford school] board policies."
We agree. "Just Say No," that popular retort in an anti-drug campaign, is the position on both subjects we've been advocating for a long time. Public money should be used only for public education.
If parents opt to not send their children to public schools, that's a family matter and no one else's business. They can elect to send their children to a private school more to their liking, or educate them at home. Again, that's no one's business except that family's.
If any family or elected official wants to fund private education, that position becomes everyone's business.
What the school system has concluded is that private schools predominantly draw the highest achievers away from public schools as well as students from families who can most afford to pay the cost of private education. Generally speaking, those who can't afford to pay for private schools don't give them much thought as an option for their children.
When the children of those who can't afford private schools become high achievers, they sometimes become the targets of private schools. Rarely do private schools target poor performers or special needs children.
In today's Harford County Public Schools, high achievers have options with magnet schools that are as good, if not better than what they might get in private schools. If they're gifted in math and science, there's the Math and Science Academy, there's also the International Business Academy and magnet programs in homeland security, agriculture, etc.
Even if public schools don't measure up, or perhaps especially if they don't, all public money should go to them to improve the mandated public education.
As for charter schools being allowed to operate outside the purview of state law or the Harford County Board of Education, we don't think they should be allowed to operate at all.
Public money should be used for public schools. That should be the beginning and end of any discussion about giving public money to private schools or charter schools.