Erica Green's article, "City school board gives approval to two new charter schools," (June 14) would, at first glance, appear to report good news. Under careful scrutiny, two good proposals for ways to educate our kids were granted charters. How can you not be supportive of that?
But wait! Near the end of the article she notes, that city schools CEO Andrés Alonso "recently acknowledged that the large number of charter schools [35] has become of financial burden for the district."
Finally, someone acknowledges that the golden solution is also a red problem!
You may think building new charter schools is a great idea, but this costs a lot more than filling up empty seats in existing schools.
There are small, successful independent (private and parochial) schools that once had full classes, now with hundreds of vacant seats.
Studies have proven that city funded support given to parents to take children to the school of their choice is a cost effective way to allocate scant resources — in fact it can increase the money the city has to spend in its public schools. Generous private philanthropists who gamble on new charters could, instead, provide scholarship aid to help families meet the full cost of and ensure our kids have access to these good schools.
The folks with their fingers on the purse strings need to get smart and generate new ideas beyond starting new multimillion dollar charter schools, as wonderful as they may sound, before we go even further into debt and risk giving our kids even less choice than they have now. Want to attract 10,000 new families to Baltimore? Making it possible for parents to access all our schools may be one way to do it!
Charlton Hughes, Baltimore
