July 13, 2010|By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun
Praising his efforts to bring stability to an often-troubled system, the Baltimore school board is negotiating a new three-year contract with CEO Andrés Alonso, just days after he became the longest-serving superintendent in the city in more than a decade.
The move comes nearly a year before Alonso's current four-year contract expires and as education reform advocates call for the superintendent to shift his focus from his early work of overhauling the school system's management to strengthening teaching and learning in the classroom.
Baltimore school board President Neil Duke said contract negotiations are under way to retain Alonso, through at least 2014.
Alonso, who as of July 2 became the longest-serving superintendent since Richard Hunter ended a six-year tenure in 1994, said he does not know when exactly he will sign the contract. But he said that for now, "I'm not going anywhere."
Alonso said he is contacted by head hunters from other districts "weekly."
Duke said the board believes that Alonso has brought steadiness to the school system and the CEO position, which due to its turnover had become a mockery in some education circles. The city has had seven school CEOs, including Alonso, since Hunter left.
"There were folks of the mentality in the district that he wasn't going to last very long, because no one else really did," Duke said. "But he's done an outstanding job and brought stability to the district, and stability is a common denominator in a lot of successful districts."
Duke says that though Alonso's contract doesn't end until June 30, 2011, "We don't see the need to wait until next year for a decision that's fairly obvious."
Some education experts in the city agree that it makes sense to re-sign Alonso now.
"I think the city is unbelievably lucky to have him and even luckier that he is willing to stay," said Robert C. Embry, president of the Abell Foundation.
Duke said the board wants to renew Alonso's contract at about the same salary.
Alonso, 53, signed his first contract with city schools for $230,000 and a yearly increase of $10,000, bringing his current salary to $260,000. As of last year, he was the fifth-highest-paid superintendent in the state. His contract also allows up to $30,000 in performance-based bonuses and school-related travel expenses.
Duke said the board is scrutinizing in particular how to measure Alonso's performance in the new contract.
"The clarity of purpose and mission has been the singular greatest accomplishment," Duke said. "Originally, we were like, 'Where are we going?' Now, we know where we're going and we have to track how to get there."
In a recent interview, Alonso reflected on his past and future tenure in the city, pointing to an illustration he received as a birthday present from his staff in June.
A caricature on the wall of his office shows Alonso in a raft full of his executive staff, navigating — with animation and a fearless stance — a temperamental stream full of boulders that display the names of recent controversies in city schools, such as "test tampering" and "bullying."
"The work is experienced as if you're in an ocean," Alonso said, chuckling. "There's a lot of waves on the surface, but I think our work has been about changing what's happening about the bottom of the ocean."
The CEO burst onto the Baltimore scene in 2007 as a self-described "reform-minded" superintendent, preaching accountability and autonomy as the gospel for how the system operates and how to produce the best outcomes for student achievement. He called for students to have equal and adequate financial investments under a program called "Fair Student Funding" and more school choices under "Expanding Great Options," which he said are still works in progress.
"We are constantly an organization that is reflecting on how it's doing its job, what we missed, what got dropped," he said.
It is in part, he said, those principles that have contributed to the school system's achieving the lowest dropout record in history last year at 6.2 percent.
There have been modest gains in student achievement, but a slow but steady increase in the school system's graduation rate, which hit 62.7 percent at the end of the 2009 school year. It was a slight increase from 62.6 percent in 2008, and the school system's highest graduation rate since the state began recording it in 1996.
Arguably, Alonso's most recognizable reforms have come by way of cutting the layers of bureaucracy, reducing the school system's central office by nearly 32 percent in the past three years, and shifting bodies, resources and responsibilities to principals to manage their schools, including their own budgets.
But there have been casualties, observers say.
