Maine’s education committee had a public hearing on LDs 380 and 430, sponsored by Sen. Matthew Pouliot and Rep. John Andrews. These would undo the harm caused by two bills that significantly limited school choice in our state. One bill permanently capped at 10 the number of public charter schools permitted to operate in Maine.  The other permanently capped enrollment in virtual public charter schools and prevented these institutions from expanding their services to new grade levels.

LD380 and LD430 are intended to allow expansion of choices available to students and parents who feel that the online programs of their local schools are not meeting their needs and and believe that the hybrid learning models are unsatisfactory. They are intended to expand the opportunity to enroll in one of Maine’s two virtual charter schools and take advantage of their flexibility.  It should be obvious that restricting choices and reinforcing a rigid system of centralized controls makes little sense while Americans everywhere are contending with the hectic and fluid conditions imposed by the pandemic.

It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely that our legislators have found time to research the issues that have arisen about charter schools. It is highly likely that they have heard from the teachers’ unions, the department of education and colleges of education. It’s not a cynical sneer to say that all these “stake-holders” have stakes in the status quo, or that liberal Democrats are ideologically committed to centralized authority.

Political strategists and analysts treat the unions as part of the Democratic Party coalition. It’s pointless to look for a neutral, uncommitted observer to settle the debate about the public education monopoly vs. the school choice options. There are two recent books that offer insights into the two sides

Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University, once served as assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration.  She was advocating reform of public education when I first began to read her articles but since passage of the No Child Left Behind Act she has lost interest in reform.

Her Reign of Error (2012) argues that the achievement gaps between Asian, whites, Blacks and Hispanics are rooted in social, political and economic structures. This logic leads her to a familiar argument on the left, e.g,, we can’t solve the education problem without transforming society, we can’t end crime without transforming society, we can’t eliminate the differences between men and women without transforming society, we can’t control obesity without transforming society, we can’t….you name it…without transforming society. It’s hard to avoid concluding that their real objective is to transform society wholesale.

A contrary view is presented by Prof. Thomas Sowell’s Charter Schools and Their Enemies. In it he examines New York City’s charter schools, comparing students of similar ethnicities who attend classes at the same grade level and at the same school building. His examination the state’s test results for grades 3 through 8 he found that the Charter schools outperformed traditional public schools by very wide margins.

Half his book is made up of appendices analyzing the data. Most of the rest disputes the arguments in favor of suppressing charter schools. While Sowell argues that the opponents of charter schools are deluded and self-interested Ravitch condemns the wealthy “Corporate Disrupters” like Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, Michael Bloomberg, et al. as “masters of chaos, which they inflict on other people’s children. Their goals are “a calculated…campaign to privatize America’s public schools, to break teachers’ unions, to tear apart communities and to attack teacher professionalism…”

She gives an account of these plutocrats’ goals, but doesn’t tell us their motives. Readers are left to guess that they just like being evil. Readers might also guess that I find Sowell more to my taste. They wouldn’t be wrong.

John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008 is a retired history professor, and emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board Member and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at JNFRARY777@gmail.com