Federal Grant to Support Gradual Charter Rollout

BALTIMORE -- Maryland will receive an $18.2 million federal grant to fund the expansion of the state's nascent charter school program, state education officials announced yesterday.

The grant may allow the state to launch as many as 30 additional charter schools during the next three years, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education said. This would more than double the number of charter schools in Maryland, which began its charter program in 2003 as a way of providing alternative methods of public school instruction.

The grant also will be used to help with the recruitment and certification of staff at charter schools, which are considered public schools but are run independently. The money will also help ensure that the new schools meet facility and curriculum requirements.

State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick announced the grant at the Crossroads School in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore, one of the most successful of Maryland's 23 charter schools. Grasmick noted that Crossroads, responsible for 150 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, is the only middle school in Baltimore that met federal standards for adequate yearly progress. Most of its graduates go to either private schools or selective public high schools.

The school chooses students by lottery, and so it is demographically similar to other public middle schools in the city; 85 percent of its students qualify to receive free or reduced-price meals.

Grasmick said the state's charter schools, which handle about 5,000 students, are generally working because of the slow and methodical approach to opening them. Other states, she said, have launched charter schools at a much faster pace, but at the cost of quality.

"We don't want to start charter schools -- as some other states have done -- that exist for two years and then they collapse," Grasmick said. "I really think for the next several years we ought to continue with our current approach to this. Most of our charter schools are good."

Most of the schools are so new it is difficult to judge how successful they have been. Some schools, such as Crossroads, have scored far better than average in Baltimore; others, such as Monocacy Valley Montessori School in Frederick, score below the county's averages and have raised questions as to their effectiveness.

Charter schools have gained in popularity nationally, especially as a way of improving performance in struggling school systems; nearly 20,000 students in the District attend charters. But they have not been adopted without debate. Opponents of charter schools, including representatives of teachers unions, say they could siphon resources away from the public school system. They also say that the schools' academic results have been uneven.

In Maryland, the main arguments have revolved around the formula for funding the schools. Each school board has varying rules on funding for building and transportation, employee benefits and special education, leading to differences in per-pupil spending between charter schools and standard public schools. The Maryland Court of Appeals is expected to rule this summer on a case concerning the funding rules.

At Crossroads, the students and teachers said they have been successful because of the small setting, high expectations and the dedication of the staff. A group of four seventh-graders nodded vigorously when asked if they wanted to go to college; students showed off their class projects, which are a centerpiece of the hands-on instructional method favored by the school.

One of the seventh-graders, Darrian Antonio Mazyck, 13, said Crossroads was a different universe from Lombard Middle School, the school he had attended the year before.

Lombard has about 500 students, compared with Crossroads' 150 students. At Crossroads, 51 percent of the students were able to pass the state math test; at Lombard, only 4.5 percent passed. But Darrian said low test scores were the least of Lombard's problems.

"That was the baddest school," Darrian remembered. "They set the bathrooms on fire. They smoked in the bathroom."

His classmates said they would never get away with that at Crossroads. One student even said going there was "a privilege."