Reforming the county school bureaucracy
The time has come for Baltimore County to debate drastically reducing the Board of Education central bureaucracy.
The Board of Education has moved toward "site-based management" in an effort to decentralize. Thus the size of the old bureaucracy can be significantly reduced if decisions are truly to be made at the local level.
The time is ripe for change. Earlier the board countered efforts to expand the bureaucracy. County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III promised in his campaign to shift funding from the central office to the classroom.
Now it is up to the Baltimore County Council to take action to finish the job of shrinking the education bureaucracy.
The educators currently in expendable central office positions can be reassigned to the classroom to reduce class size and directly help kids.
Many of them have advocated the latest educational theories. Reassignment to the classroom would give them an opportunity to implement those theories and serve as models to other teachers.
Problem schools like Kenwood and Randallstown in particular could use the additional staffing and expertise. Other schools that do not get these bonus educators could be used as controls.
Next year the school climate and student achievement can be compared and the experiments evaluated.
This proposal is not an attack on central office administrators. Many are quite competent; many once were and would again be outstanding classroom teachers if given the opportunity to work with kids.
This is, however, an attack on an outdated centralized philosophy.
In order to help kids, I propose shifting 78 administrative positions to create 78 full time teaching positions.
Eliminating these positions in order to use the personnel for reducing class size would benefit kids . . .
This reduction would basically reduce current positions based on 5 areas to the 3 areas that were in use about 20 years ago. Some areas such as payroll are not targeted at all. The majority of central office positions will remain in place.
Educators currently in expendable central office positions should not be penalized for changing needs. But no new appointments should be made to positions that are to be eliminated. Salaries should be frozen at current levels.
Next year salaries would be reduced by 10 percent if the educators remain in teaching positions. The following year their salaries would be reduced to the going rate for the position.
This allows for ultimate budgetary savings, protects retirement earnings and gives time for attrition to work its course. The argument is usually given that the county council can't control tTC the education budget.
However, the council can guarantee the funding -- provided the positions are eliminated and the funds are used to reduce class size.
If the board refuses, the council could cut those funds this year.
% Let the debate begin!
Martin D. Peters Jr.
Baltimore
?3 The writer is a teacher at Overlea High School.
Frazier's safety
Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier is one of the most encouraging, exciting forces at work in this city today. He is the antithesis of the stale bureaucrat sitting behind a desk maintaining the status quo. He is out there.
He is out there taking on the city's drug markets, which had been virtually ignored by his predecessor and which are the primary source of Baltimore's crime problem.
He is out there giving power to district offices and enacting tough internal changes to build a more effective police force.
He is out there, trying new concepts to make officers more visible, such as kobans, which cannot help but improve downtown vitality.
He is constantly out there, speaking to citizens in their neighborhoods and business leaders in their offices, prodding them to do more to help his officers fight crime.
Does Chief Frazier's activism ever make some people uncomfortable? Yes.
Chief Frazier's visibility is essential to fuel positive change but also puts him at personal risk. I do not doubt his family's need for an extensive security system and, in fact, consider it a small measure of support for stirring things up in this city.
Carolyn O'Keefe
Baltimore
Miles owes apologies
In my 21 years as a police officer, I have never seen a defense attorney act as Steven L. Miles did in his defense of Nathaniel Hurt. For Mr. Miles to go on television and guarantee that his client would be found not guilty was a disgrace.
Obviously, Mr. Miles was thinking primarily of himself and not his client. He not only owes Lt. Charles Key an apology but he owes one to Mr. Hurt.
I think Mr. Miles has been "talking about it" far too long. He believes his own hype. Let's hope he follows through on his pledge not to defend again in criminal proceedings. Obviously he's out of his league.
Gerald A. Goldstein
Baltimore
Faces of shame
As composite sketches of the men sought in the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City were released on TV, you could almost hear a sigh of relief from America's non-white community.
