Arguing that paying out more than $10,000 per charter school student would severely harm the Baltimore City Public Schools? finances, city school officials Tuesday asked the state?s highest court to cut them a break.
“I guarantee if the court says the government has to fully fund what the charter schools want, there will be major financial problems in Baltimore City, including layoffs,” Baltimore City school board attorney Warren Weaver told The Examiner after a hearing on the amount the schools have to pay city charter schools.
The ruling, which could take months, will affect all of Maryland. At issue is how much and what type of funding the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners is legally required to give the charter schools.
“The theory is a charter school is a public school,” said Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert Bell. “And therefore should not get less money for its population than any public school. … It?s entitled to the same amount as the other public schools.”
About 4,000 students in Baltimore are educated in charter schools, while more than 80,000 students attend traditional public schools. City school officials say that the $10,956 charter schools are supposed to receive per student, according to the Maryland State Board of Education, is too much money and includes “duplicate” funds, such as already-paid-for administrative and building maintenance costs, that waste taxpayer money.
The state Board of Education came up with its figure based on how much money the city public schools spend per student, Weaver said.
“The principal of a public school gets less money than the principal of a charter school across the street,” Weaver said.
The judges must determine what the 2003 Maryland Public Charter School Act means when it requires that the city board provide publiccharter schools with funding “commensurate with the amount disbursed to other public schools in the local jurisdiction” and whether the board can satisfy its obligation with services instead of money. Charter schools proponents argue the city is trying to shortchange them.
“We?re trying to get the funds to get schools going ? to give the children a chance and a choice,” said Dennis Bakke, the president and chief executive officer of Imagine Schools, which runs Patterson Park Public Charter School, which, with City Neighbors Charter School, is battling the city over the funds.
“Parents love them,” Bakke said of his schools, adding that charter schools have been proven to get better results than traditional public schools because of more flexible and superior curricula. That argument, when brought up by Bakke?s attorney, Richard Daniels, drew disagreement from the chief judge.
“The jury is still out on that,” Bell said of charter schools? effectiveness.
