Unfair & Uneven

Unfair and Uneven

Local school districts are at the beginning stages of preparing their FY 20 budgets.   So are the non-public Maryland State Board of Education accredited special education centers. The two processes are both unfair and uneven when it comes to the non-public special education sector.  There are similarities and differences between these two processes.

The Maryland accredited non-public special education schools are neither private nor public.  They are private in that they can hire and terminate staff without regard to union rules and regulations.  They are public in that each of those staff members must meet the same certification qualifications as public school personnel, even though they are paid dramatically less.  These schools are also required to follow specific MSDE regulations.

But the public schools have privilege that the non-public schools do not have.   The local school districts can put as much money into the education of their students as the county councils and county executives will allow.  It is not unusual for public school systems to increase an annual budget by 3-5%.   Whereas, the non-public schools are given an annual budget inflator cap each year. For FY 20 that cap is 1.9%, well below increases in public school budgets.   As a result, even though non-public staff need to meet identical certification standards, they are paid as much as 15-20 thousand dollars less after about five years of service.  Add that discrepancy to the fact that children are only sent to non-public schools when the public schools acknowledge they cannot provide an appropriate education to meet the learning challenges of the children they refer.

So staff in non-public schools meet the needs of the most challenging learners at a dramatically reduced salary.  What’s fair about that?

The inflator rate offered to non-public schools is supposed to equal the Cost-of-Living Index for Urban Areas (COL-U).   However the increase in funding offered to local public school districts by the state for the upcoming school year is well above this number.  Definitely an uneven playing field.

There are lots of other inequities.   Public schools may high substitute teachers with only a high school education.  Non-public schools are required to only use people with a college degree.   MSDE monitors non-public schools very closely. Monitoring teams are sent in every 3-5 years and for several days they examine every aspect of the school’s operation.   The sheer size of public school systems prevents that kind of drilled down monitoring.  In many instances public schools monitor themselves.

No one really cares except the people who work in a non-public school and the students in non-public schools and their families; they are getting a first-rate education even if the staff are paying for it with reduced salaries. The playing field is unequal and uneven but we keep playing because we do really care about the kids.