A charter school organization that has gained a national reputation for raising test scores among low-income black students in Washington, Baltimore and elsewhere was turned down yesterday by the Anne Arundel County school board in its effort to start a new school in Annapolis.
The board's denial of Knowledge Is Power Program's Harbor Academy underscored the uphill battle facing even established groups that wish to open charter schools in Maryland, which has been slow to embrace the charter education movement.
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Charter schools are tax-supported but operate largely outside the school district bureaucracy.
The organization wants to open a charter middle school in Annapolis, which has a large black population and a well-documented performance gap between white and black students. At Annapolis Middle School, for example, 4 percent of black sixth-graders performed at the "advanced" level in reading on the 2004 Maryland School Assessments, compared with 39 percent of whites.
"You'd think the board would welcome having a charter school that seeks to close the gap between students that don't perform as well as their counterparts," said Carl Snowden, an activist for black issues in Annapolis who works as an aide to the county executive. "KIPP, I thought, was a rational and reasonable way to rebuild confidence in the school system."
But the school board voted against the request, 5 to 3. The deciding factor was concern that the charter school would drain enrollment from the city's two public middle schools. Some parents in the Annapolis feeder system feared that the school, planned for 320 students in grades five through eight, could force drastic redistricting or a school closure to compensate for falling enrollment at neighboring schools.
"That weighed on my decision, because I am very responsive to public input," said board member Tricia Johnson, who voted against the school. "Don't get me wrong, the KIPP program really seems to be marvelous."
The charter group, which operates 38 schools nationwide, is among the most successful franchises spawned in the charter school movement, which began in Minnesota in 1991. The KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore has the highest fifth- and sixth-grade math scores in the school district. The KIPP DC: KEY Academy in Southeast Washington has the highest math scores in the city. The nonprofit group has been featured on "60 Minutes."
The organization's officials vowed to appeal to the state school board, as is their right under Maryland's 2003 charter school law.
On the same day that the school board turned down the request, it approved a second charter-school application from a comparatively unknown group in the Baltimore suburbs. The Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School received conditional approval to open a 120-student middle school in Glen Burnie.
A school district committee reviewed both applications and delivered virtually identical findings. The Chesapeake proposal received 162 points of a possible 282 in the district's scoring rubric; the Harbor Academy proposal received 155.
The committee and Superintendent of Schools Eric J. Smith recommended approval of the two charters, contingent on the applicants working out remaining concerns.
Andy Smarick, a board member of the proposed Annapolis school who also serves as director of the Charter School Leadership Council in Washington, said he and other leaders of the nonprofit group were surprised and disappointed that their application was rejected.
"The reason why this was such a good match is KIPP has a track record for succeeding with these students in other places," he said.
