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A School Lesson in Maryland

Maryland has added a chapter to a long-running story in education:
how to make sure poor school districts have the means to provide a
basic education.

Commentary > The Christian Science Monitor’s View

That issue, replete with tensions between
local control and state authority, has usually
found its way to the courts. More than two
dozen state supreme courts have ruled on
school funding, usually finding for plaintiffs
who seek more educational money.

The courts’ keynote: State constitutional
requirements, which typically call for a
"thorough" or "adequate" education for all,
must be met.

Maryland hasn’t gone the litigation route,
though some of its poorer districts have been
on the verge of that. Instead, the legislature created a commission in
1999 to study its school-financing structure and recommend
changes. The commission’s guide was the state’s requirement of an
adequate education for all.

But what’s "adequate"?

That word could denote the minimum necessary. The commission,
however, decided it meant that all schools should be equipped to
meet Maryland’s current performance goals. These include
attendance over 94 percent, a dropout rate no higher than 3.75
percent, and a 70 percent passing rate for elementary and
middle-school students on state tests.

What would that cost? A study looked at 59 Maryland schools that
already meet those standards and what they spend. The result was a
recommendation to nearly double state education aid over the next
six years, from $3,500 per student to $6,000 – a total spending boost
of $1.3 billion.

Remarkably, at a time of tight state budgets, Maryland’s lawmakers
early this month made the commission’s recommendations law. Thus
one state, at least, has moved to solve the school-funding dilemma
without pressure from judges.

A glance around the country finds much more controversy than
consensus à la Maryland. In Texas, debate rumbles over a
court-impelled "Robin Hood" property-tax structure that transfers
money from rich districts to poorer ones. In Ohio, a court-appointed
mediator fails to resolve an 11-year dispute over school funding. A
judge in North Carolina demands stronger state action to assure that
each student gets the constitutionally required "sound basic
education."

Maryland doesn’t necessarily have smooth sailing ahead. The first
two years of its program are funded by a boost in the state cigarette
tax. Beyond that loom hard decisions on how to pay for more years
of increased aid.

But its setting of high goals, based on an ambitious definition of
"adequate," is a positive note in the evolving story of school
performance.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0425/p08s02-comv.html

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