If your children are stuck in one of Maryland’s many failing public schools, a new ruling by the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, might just have given them an unanticipated way out.

The case had nothing to do with schools, but instead examined whether taxpayers have the right to sue state jurisdictions for wasteful spending and violating the law. In this particular instance, Anne George of Timonium and other plaintiffs sued Baltimore County for mismanagement of its animal shelter, claiming financial harm to themselves. The court found plaintiffs “possess standing to pursue their claim under the taxpayer standing doctrine.”

This should put failing schools on notice throughout the state and particularly in Baltimore City, where the vast majority of students are not proficient in math or reading, that they can be held legally accountable for misspending money on programs that do not improve student learning. If taxpayers have standing to sue an animal shelter, how much more do they have at stake with children whose lives are being mishandled and futures diminished by almost meaningless high school degrees?

The plaintiffs were and are not asking for damages in the ongoing case, (Anne George, et al. v. Baltimore County, Maryland,) only that Baltimore County abide by its own laws. Similarly, suing schools would not be about reaping millions or billions in damages, but proving that boosting spending has miserably failed to help the vast majority of students in Baltimore City achieve proficiency in math and reading and demanding an alternative that lets children take the per pupil amount allocated to them to a place where they can thrive, whether public or private.

Baltimore residents need only look 39 miles south to Washington to see how students have benefited from expanded school choice. In Washington, nearly half of all public school students now attend charters — government-funded schools that draw students from multiple zip codes and operate autonomously from school districts. Since 2015, D.C. public charter students' scores have risen more than any other state in the nation according to National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, which are given to fourth and eighth graders every two years nationwide. On top of that, parents are flocking to charters. Waiting lists to enter public charters have grown by thousands of families over the last five years.

On the private side, D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program has boosted graduation rates, school safety, and rates of parent satisfaction, while giving low-income students the chance to attend any private school of their choice. And like demand for seats in charter schools, applications for scholarships far outweigh their availability.

For too long in Maryland, “more money!” has been the standard cry from Democrats and the Maryland State Education Association when discussing how to fix broken schools. This year, the legislature voted to spend $850 million more over the next two years to increase teacher salaries and expand pre-kindergarten programs, among other plans. It became law without Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s signature. As he said, it lacks “academic accountability” and does not address how to sustain school spending in the decades to come — in a state that chronically spends more than it collects in taxes.

Will more millions help students to learn? Over the past 20 years, school spending has risen 45% in inflation-adjusted dollars. In that time, schools have added 36% more teachers and 60% more staff, and standards have been raised over and over again. What happened? Student performance on national tests have shown Maryland students stagnating against their peers around the nation. And Baltimore City students are falling further and further behind as student scores jump in other large cities.

A whopping 70% of Baltimore City students who graduate and attend a Maryland public university need to take remedial classes in basic reading and math. And only 11% of eighth graders scored proficient in math and 13% in reading on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress. Statewide, student performance is about par with the national average. Maryland’s fourth grade students ranked 13th in reading and 24th in math, while the state’s eight graders were 23rd in reading and 33rd in math.

In the wealthiest state in the nation, these statistics should boggle people’s minds and at least make residents ask why their money is being used so poorly.

For parents with children who are not reading, writing, or calculating at grade level, the numbers should be a rallying cry for school choice now, not more empty promises for better schools of the future with a bill no one can afford. Let Democrats and the Maryland State Education Association prove in court that their ideas work, in front of a jury full of Maryland parents. The evidence suggests they face an uphill battle.

Marta H. Mossburg is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute. Reach her at mmossburg@mdpolicy.org.