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Education’s Less-Traveled Road

Originially Published in the Daily Record

By Dan Lips
Published on Friday, April 09, 2004
OP-EDS

Facing a fork in the road, Robert Frost famously took the path less traveled. That choice, he wrote, “has made all the difference.” Last Friday (2/27), the Maryland Senate offered Gov. Robert Ehrlich his own two roads. Following the recommendations of the Thornton Commission, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to increase state education spending by $1.3 billion. For Ehrlich, deciding whether to veto the legislation will surely make all the difference.

At first glance, it seems the right road is to approve the higher spending. That is the path taken by most other states; real per-pupil education spending nationwide has increased by 92 percent between 1972 and 2002. More money, everyone hopes, will equal better schools.

So where has the well-trodden path led America’s children?

According to the U.S. Department of Education, even as education spending per pupil has increased to more than $9,300, there’s been no evidence of significant academic improvement. Average student test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress remained flat during the same period.

The American Legislative Exchange Council recently compared education spending and academic achievement levels across the 50 states — considering more than 100 measures — and arrived at the conclusion that “increasing education spending is not enough to improve student achievement.”

With strong evidence suggesting that the problems facing education aren’t from a lack of funds, Gov. Ehrlich should question whether $1.3 billion in new spending — a 63 percent increase in state funding per pupil— is the right way to improve education. Moreover, with Maryland facing a $700 million budget shortfall, the increased state funding will mean significant cuts in other programs and/or require new revenue in the form of legalized slot machines and higher taxes.

So perhaps Gov. Ehrlich should consider taking the road less traveled: Instead of increasing funding for the educational status quo, he should shake up the system by giving parents more options for how to educate their children.

Fortunately for the governor, there are a few tracks on this road. Over the past decade, lawmakers across America have embraced parent-centered reforms such as charter schools, scholarship vouchers, and education tax credits. Research on these pioneering reforms suggests that choice rewards both students and taxpayers. 

For example, researchers from Harvard and the University of Wisconsin studied the Washington, D.C. privately funded voucher program and found that African-American who transfer into private schools outscore their peers who remain in public school. Most interestingly, the improvements aren’t limited to those who leave public schools: Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby found that after the voucher program was initiated, public schools began providing better outcomes at a lower cost.
 
Unfortunately for Maryland families, state lawmakers have lagged behind the rest of the nation in adopting parent-centered reforms. Maryland placed 46th on the Manhattan Institute’s rankings of states in terms of education choice. Last year, Gov. Ehrlich proposed the most basic parental choice proposal, calling for the enactment of a strong charter school law. But lawmakers ultimately passed a weak law that has done little to provide options for parents.

Maryland’s willingness to provide additional funding for education provides state lawmakers with an excellent opportunity to embrace educational choice. A core priority of the Thornton proposal is to improve opportunities for Maryland’s most disadvantaged students. Instead of simply giving more money to status quo public schools, that $1.3 billion could be used to provide the 300,000 Maryland students eligible for the federal free and reduced school lunch program with a voucher worth $4,300. That’s enough to foster widespread school choice: The average private school tuition in America is $4,700 a year, according to the Department of Education.

Sadly, the voucher proposal above would likely be deemed too drastic. It illustrates, however, how much could be done by moving toward parent-centered education reforms. There are numerous school choice initiatives that don’t require significant new resources. Rather than betting $1.3 billion taxpayers dollars on an education system that hasn’t worked, Maryland lawmakers should be betting on parents. Gov. Ehrlich should take a bold step down the path toward a better education for Maryland’s children by embracing school choice.

— Dan Lips is Senior Fellow for Education Policy at the Maryland Public Policy Institute (www.mdpolicy.org). He is authoring a forthcoming analysis of the Thornton education reform plan.