from the Washington Post
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; Page A18
IT’S GUERRILLA turf war, with children caught in the middle. Attempts to establish public charter schools in Maryland have been thwarted at almost every turn by entrenched school boards, teachers unions and principals resistant to any competition. A state law is meant to encourage the presence of charter schools. But the law empowers local school boards as the only authorities that can approve or deny charter school applications, a fundamental weakness that allows defensive officials to resort to red tape and stalling to block charters.
The most recent funny business has been in Anne Arundel County, where the Chesapeake Science Point Charter School got as far as an official timeline to review its contract with the county school board. As reported by The Post’s Daniel de Vise, the applicant did not see a draft until three days before the end of the timeline, April 21, and the document was loaded with unfinished clauses and references to attachments that did not exist. Throughout the state, school boards and charter school applicants are racing to reach agreements in time for the schools to open in the fall, and they are running into foot-dragging.
Chesapeake Science Point applicants said they had expected to meet regularly with Anne Arundel school system administrators during the period. But one Chesapeake proponent said the school board repeatedly deferred his requests to meet and then produced a draft agreement full of holes: blank lines, editing notes and references such as “insert clause.” P. Tyson Bennett, the county school board attorney, conceded last week that the district had fallen behind schedule in negotiating with Chesapeake and another charter school applicant seeking to open this fall, the Knowledge Is Power Program.
Three other charter school applicants, two from Baltimore and one from Prince George’s County, went before the Maryland Board of Education last month to seek help in resolving disputes, but progress has been slow. In Howard County, the first attempt to open the Columbia Public Charter School was rejected last year by the Howard County Board of Education. The board rejected a second attempt last week.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) pushed hard in his first go-round with the General Assembly for a bill to expand the presence of charter schools, but lawmakers weakened it by making local boards the sole authorities to grant charters for publicly financed, privately managed schools. It’s not that charter schools are magic roads to excellent educations. Some have worked well; some have been disorganized disasters. But other states and the District are giving these schools a chance, by allowing universities, colleges and independent commissions as well as local school boards the power to grant charters. Maryland’s law needs changing to open the door and let creativity go to work for the state’s public school students.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301386_pf.html