STATEMENT OF
Barbara Davidson
Maryland Coordinator,
The Center for Education Reform
Before the 
Maryland Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee
February 2001

        Maryland children deserve a charter school law that allows a wide variety of healthy independent charter schools to evolve. An expansive system of charter schools would help improve all schools for all children, as well as provide quality alternatives for children who are without options. Charters also address several common education challenges our state faces: They ease overcrowding in the traditional public schools, reduce class size, institute more specific and often more rigorous curriculum and allow teachers more flexibility to do their jobs day in and day out.

        We urge the Committee to review the current legislation with these goals in mind. The purpose of charter schools is not to create an alternative system, but to re-infuse and re-invigorate our existing institution of public education in a more purposeful way.

        We have had our experts analyze the existing legislation against the standards of the national charter school community, as well as the other 37 laws in existence. Unfortunately, the bills before the Maryland legislature do not serve to create the kind of charter school environment that would foster strong, healthy public charter school options.

        The leadership bill is only a restatement of what current law already allows for school boards to do. The bill sponsored by Senator Chris McCabe, while a step in the right direction, also contains acute limitations.

        An effective charter school bill needs to establish a blanket waiver from all rules and regulations regarding public schools, except those dealing in the critical fields of health, safety and civil rights. If you place the burden on the charters to request specific waivers, you set the stage for a series of conflicts that will only serve to delay or prevent charter school approvals and hurt the very children it is supposed to help.

        The bill establishes an additional chartering authority, but does not provide that authority with the teeth necessary for an effective charter law, because it leaves with the local board the power to grant all waivers. Details are left up to negotiations with the local school board that can, among other things, unilaterally decide which regulations a charter must abide by, require added application criteria making compliance so difficult that no school will apply, refuse to provide anything beyond basic funding, or require additional employee certifications.

        In addition, while the State Board of Education may establish an appeals board for applications that are denied, there are no guidelines on the limitations of that process. Appeals processes should be carefully prescribed so as to be effective, with specific criteria for rejection or acceptance spelled out NOT by regulation, but in the law. In most states, a good appeals process means that the board cannot turn down the applicant unless the proposal violates the law in some manner. By doing so, the law guards against pure hostility or subjectivity.

        At this time, you have the option of approving a bill that essentially maintains the status quo, or one that does not provide any incentives for the creation of charter schools. Given this conundrum, the Center for Education Reform reluctantly recommends that the Committee create a study commission to review successful charter schools and effective laws throughout the country. To that end, we offer our services in sponsoring study trips to places from California to Massachusetts so that the committee members may engage in their own due diligence.

        It is critical that you study and review effective laws in order to lay a solid foundation for Maryland’s entry into this important education reform endeavor. Failure to do so may result merely in passing legislation that will create obstacles and roadblocks to vital reform efforts.

        The reason we believe in charter schools is because of the thousands of teachers, parents and taxpayers who are not, and should not, be satisfied with the progress their schools are making, or the quality of academic achievement reached by their children.

        Consider just the results of the state-wide Maryland School Performance Assessment Program:

        Maryland students, and particularly minority students, deserve better.

        Appended to my testimony is a review of more than 50 studies outlining the successes of charter schools throughout the nation. Most charters are aimed specifically at children who are not succeeding in a "one-size-fits-all" traditional public school. These lessons from other states show that charter schools are an effective means of educating not only underserved children, but children who pose challenges to the current system by their need for more individualized education than the current system can offer.

        The components that make these charter schools successful and numerous are components which need to be in Maryland’s legislation. Among these components is –

        Of primary importance in Maryland, however, is ensuring multiple chartering authorities and a variety of applicants. States that permit a number of entities in addition to local school boards to charter schools or that provide applicants with a binding appeals process, encourage more activity than those that vest authority in a single entity or provide only an advisory appeals process.

        And states that permit a variety of individuals and groups both inside and outside the existing public school system to start charter schools encourage more activity than states that limit eligible applicants to public schools or public school personnel.

        In short, a good charter school law provides the opportunity for improvements in the education of all children. Let’s be clear: Any charter school law will not do. Parents deserve a strong charter school law, as does public education. The opportunities are in the details.

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