This year’s legislative session reveals a lot about the freedom of Maryland’s educational environment. As the state’s lawmakers consider a hefty $8.8 billion public school budget for fiscal 2024, they are also debating slashing the funding for Maryland’s only school choice program by 20%.  

Governor Moore’s recent budget proposed a funding cut of $2 million from the $10 million Broadening Options and Opportunity for Students Today program, also known as the BOOST. Sadly, he also suggested completely eliminating the program over the next few years by limiting new BOOST applications to those with a sibling already receiving a BOOST scholarship for the current school year.

The BOOST is a school voucher program that gives low-income Maryland parents the option of taking their children out of public schools that may be struggling and sending them to better quality private schools. The program provides an average annual scholarship of $3,100 to more than 3,200 students.

The financial help is only available to low-income families who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, so downsizing or eliminating the program would devastate Maryland’s low-income students. These kids depend on the program to avoid attending local public schools that do not meet their educational needs.

Cutting the BOOST funding sets back the only real progress Maryland has made in recent decades toward expanding school choice. According to the Cato Institute, Maryland’s education freedom ranking out of 50 states rose from 50^th (last) to 46^th place in 2016 after the state’s adoption of the BOOST program.

The BOOST was a better model for the future of Maryland’s children and a necessary but not a sufficient move in the right direction.

The BOOST program recognizes the shortcomings of a one-size-fits-all public schools approach. It empowers Maryland parents to send their children to less regulated private schools whose curriculums better fit their children’s unique educational needs.

Before BOOST, private schools were only available to the families who could afford them, while the BOOST program, available only to low-income families, helps those who most desperately need educational options and freedom. In fact, one quarter of those receiving the BOOST scholarships are from Baltimore City, where many children are failing in low-quality public schools. Almost 60% of recipients are students of color.

A school choice program like the BOOST also helps improve the quality of public schools through competition. It’s economics 101: an increase in consumer choice applies pressure on the traditional counterparts to provide higher quality services at lower costs.

Gov. Moore’s BOOST funding cut is clearly a mistake. Given Maryland teachers unions’ historical animosity toward the program, Gov. Moore obviously faces enormous political pressure to act in a way that would be detrimental to Maryland’s school choice.

To put things in perspective, the $10 million BOOST funding is already meager compared with the $8.8 billion public school budget under debate. But unlike promising higher pay for already well compensated teachers or expanding pre-kindergarten programs that are not proven to improve student outcomes in the long term, expanding school choice programs like the BOOST is a guaranteed way help Maryland’s low-income children.

Maryland lawmakers should pressure Gov. Moore to reconsider his education budget priorities and keep his promise of “leaving no one behind.” Maryland should emulate school choice leaders like Arizona that are expanding rather than downsizing school choice programs like the BOOST to make their state more competitive at educating our future leaders.