WASHINGTON — When the time came for Frederick resident Anne Sechler to send her daughter off to kindergarten in the fall of 2013, she faced a difficult choice.
“The neighborhood that we live in, though it’s a decent neighborhood, is districted for a school that I guess doesn’t meet my standards of performance,” Sechler said in a phone interview.
Sechler said she initially thought she might have to pay for her daughter Everett to attend one of the three publicly funded charter schools in the county. After doing some online research she discovered that wasn’t the case. Sechler’s charter application for Everett was accepted and the little girl, who turns seven on Monday, has attended Frederick Classical Charter School for the past two years.
So far, the experience has been positive for mother and daughter. “Most people don’t even know what charter schools are, I feel like it’s more of a buzzword,” Sechler said.
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately run institutions that that must meet academic standards, but generally have more freedom than traditional schools in getting their students to meet those standards. The schools are meant to offer additional choices for parents in where to send their children to school. Many have waiting lists to get in.
Critics fear that charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools and operate with less oversight than regular public schools.
A public opinion survey released by the Freidman Foundation for Educational Choice this week showed that 53 percent of respondents nationally said they supported charters, while 27 percent opposed them. The margin of error for the survey of 1,002 participants was plus or minus three percentage points.
Last year, 61 percent of respondents in the annual Friedman poll said they liked the alternate school option, while 26 percent were opposed. Many of the 2014 supporters moved into the “don’t know” category in 2015, Paul DiPerna, a research director at the Friedman Foundation, said during a panel discussion on Tuesday.
Public opinion data on charter schools isn’t available for Frederick County. But Missy Dirks, president of the Frederick County Teachers Association and a former art teacher at Brunswick Elementary School, said the charter school issue is complicated in Maryland.
Unlike in many states, the choice schools in Maryland employ unionized teachers, Dirks said.
“It’s not about the regular public school teachers versus the charter school teachers [here],” Dirks said, noting that the teachers association has a positive relationship with two of the district’s three charter schools.
Much of the concern about alternative choice schools comes from parents who want to make sure that their public tax dollars are being spent on giving children a good education, Dirks said.
In Maryland, Dirks said the tough rules imposed on charter schools have kept fraud and waste at a minimum.
Mustafa Karakus, president of the Monocacy Montessori Communities Inc., the nonprofit organization that runs Monocacy Valley and Carroll Creek Montessori schools, said he has met some Frederick residents who are clearly opposed to charter schools. However he said he believes if the schools were represented as magnet programs, fewer would complain that charters take resources away from traditional public schools.
“Once they understand the choice aspect and that the charter schools aren’t actually competing, they’re more likely to support it,” Karakus said.
Tom Neumark, president of the Frederick Classical Charter School – Everett’s school — said he believes parents in Frederick are mostly supportive of the choice schools. It’s the teachers and the school boards who are against them because they compete with other local schools, he said.
“Parents do love these schools and want these schools,” Neumark said. “Unfortunately the political environment here has not caught up with what parents want.”
Maryland’s state charter school law makes opening up a new school costly, said Brad Young, president of the Frederick County Board of Education. Even amid the difficulties and limited number of charters, some parents are still interested in giving their children a different educational experience.
Frederick County students wishing to get into one of the three charter schools have to apply through a lottery, Young said.
“There’s clearly more demand than we have supply right now,” Young said. “I do think there is a desire for more charter seats.”
At Frederick Classical Charter School last year 500 students were on the waiting list, Neumark said, enough children to fill an entirely separate school.
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