Baltimore Students

When Hank Zwally wants to do a science experiment, he climbs through a hole in his bedroom closet into an unfinished attic room where the high school senior has constructed an elaborate 10-by-12-foot cube of blue insulation. Beside the holiday decorations and the ski equipment, Zwally is trying to test a theory about global warming. When he enters the cube, the Eagle Scout can open a freezer where he is measuring the freezing and thawing cycles of sea water in two large tanks. Zwally is a science whiz, a Centennial High School senior driven since youth to solve problems in biology.

Baltimore has the potential to again be the state's greatest economic engine. Investments in education, in particular, have the power to convert a tsunami of need into a rising tide of productivity. And the Maryland General Assembly has the opportunity to leverage newly proposed legislative options to steer the course to a more prosperous future. House and Senate committees recently heard arguments for an innovative bond financing mechanism to jump-start much-needed repairs and upgrades in city schools.

Baltimore Freedom Academy students marched along East Fayette Street and in front of City Hall late Thursday afternoon, chanting "Save our schools!" and hoisting placards with such messages as "No Justice, No Peace, No Air, No Heat. " They led a procession of the school's teachers, faculty and parents into the adjacent War Memorial Building, where the group of about 40 joined approximately 200 other residents demanding that elected officials come up with funding to fix the city's deteriorating schools.

After he graduated from the old Sollers Point Junior-Senior High School in 1953, Ed "Eddie" Bartee went to work forBethlehem Steel Corp.in Sparrows Point, where he became a representative for the steelworkers' union and was responsible for a $2 million budget. "That was a lot of money for a poor boy with a high school education," Bartee recalled Saturday. "I owe it all to my teachers. ... There's no question that the training I got carried me a long way. I'm thankful. I'm blessed.

Baltimore's scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of large urban school districts across the country, though educators highlighted some progress in math and a promising trend of better-than-average results among some low-income black students. Overall achievement was poor on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test Congress mandated be given to a sampling of students across the nation every two years. The results released Wednesday showed that the city's children in fourth and eighth grades are scoring better than those in Detroit, Washington and Cleveland but behind those in New York, Boston and Atlanta.

Touring the silos and fields of a Howard County dairy farm at 20 mph in a wagon hauled by a farm tractor was fun.But the Baltimore middle-school students were more interested in the cows they saw -- and the flies the stench attracted."

The success of Baltimore's summer school seems to prove what common sense has told educators and parents for years: Children learn when they are in a small classroom with a good teacher who has lots of time to plan and expects high standards.In the words of school board president J. Tyson Tildon, "Hard work by people who understand and know the educational process pays off."The success also gives city and state school officials powerful evidence to support their proposals to create tough standards for students to pass from one grade to the next.

Salary: $36,000 Age: 24 Years on the job: Two How she got started: While attending Catholic High School of Baltimore, Schroeder and two friends began a cleaning business. Helping them was mentor Patricia Granata Eisner. Schroeder continued to operate the business while attending what is now Stevenson University, formerly Villa Julie College, as an English major. She approached Granata Eisner, the executive director of the Baltimore affiliate of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE)

You're never too young to set your sights on college, the folks at Baltimore's CollegeBound Foundation say, so the organization's "What College Means to Me" annual contest starts with kids in kindergarten. At 6 years old, MaKayla Westry knows a thing or two about the subject: She sometimes tags along to her mom's forensic accounting classes at Morgan State University. The Leith Walk Elementary first-grader's views on college ("it's fun!") won her a prize in the contest's poetry division.

St. Mary's College of Maryland will announce today a $1.5 million scholarship program for Baltimore City students that college officials hope will boost minority enrollment and the city's future. "As a public institution, we see our mission very much as helping the entire state and one of the most underserved areas is Baltimore City," said college President Jane Margaret O'Brien. About 10 Baltimore students enroll annually at St. Mary's, O'Brien said. School officials have been looking for ways to increase that number for several years.

School and health officials worked Friday to ease parents' fears after three classmates at George Washington Elementary in Southwest Baltimore were diagnosed with scarlet fever — an ailment with a scary history, but one that is easily treated and usually not life-threatening. Principal Amanda Rice and a school liaison official from the Baltimore City Department of Health met with about 50 parents Friday morning to reassure them that students were safe. The school's facilities team spent the previous evening wiping down desks, bathroom stalls and stair rails with antibacterial agents, paying special attention to the classroom shared by the students.

High school carpentry courses have given Paul "Pasha" Lippincott the skills to build a deck and a fence at his Towson home and the confidence to move ahead with a floor-to-ceiling renovation of the family kitchen. While completing his senior year and planning to pursue construction management in college, he also has gathered enough know-how and aplomb to demonstrate basic do-it-yourself tasks on BCPS-TV. The senior at George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology just taped a segment for "So Easy a Kid Can Do It," a series that debuted Monday on the county schools' cable television channel.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's desire to grow the population of Baltimore and the release of the city school system's mediocre scores on a national standardized test were reported within days of each other earlier last week ("Baltimore students' test scores still lagging," Dec. 8; "Mayor's goal: 10,000 families in 10 years," Dec. 6). With city services and resources already stretched to the breaking point, Baltimore doesn't need more people. It does need thousands of more jobs and a dramatically improved school system for those citizens already living here.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for sunny skies around the Baltimore area. The high temperature is expected to be around 46 degrees. Expect mostly clear skies and a low temperature around 35 degrees tonight. TRAFFIC Here are today's morning traffic issues . FROM LAST NIGHT... Man fatally stabbed in Central Park Heights : A man was killed in Northwest Baltimore around 8:30 p.m. yesterday, according to police. Here is an update on the situation , which includes more details about the victim and incident.

The latest Baltimore City test scores show that while the schools are making progress in raising student achievement levels, they're still far from where they need to be. The percentage of fourth and eighth graders scoring proficient or better in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams went up in every area except fourth grade reading, which declined only slightly since the last time the test was given in 2009....

Baltimore's scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of large urban school districts across the country, though educators highlighted some progress in math and a promising trend of better-than-average results among some low-income black students. Overall achievement was poor on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test Congress mandated be given to a sampling of students across the nation every two years. The results released Wednesday showed that the city's children in fourth and eighth grades are scoring better than those in Detroit, Washington and Cleveland but behind those in New York, Boston and Atlanta.

HOW ARE you spending your summer vacation? In March, the question seems ridiculously premature. Yet within the next few weeks the Maryland legislature will decide whether hundreds of struggling Baltimore students will spend next summer getting the reading help they need to bolster their lagging reading skills.Gov. Parris N. Glendening has proposed spending $1 million in state funds to send an extra 1,000 low-performing Baltimore students to SuperKids Camp. This eight-week program combines intensive reading instruction with the swimming, crafts classes and zoo trips found at more traditional camps.

Louise Muse, a dance instructor who taught ballet to hundreds of Baltimore students for nearly five decades, died Friday at Keswick Multi-Care Center. She was 91. Raised in Dundalk, Ms. Muse began teaching at Estelle Dennis' dance studio in the 1950s after spending several years as a student under the legendary instructor. Ms. Muse taught girls from nearby St. Peter's school at the studio's original site in Towson as well as adults, according to Joan Shnipper, a former student. The studio moved to 13 W. Mount Vernon Place in 1966, where Ms. Shnipper said Ms. Muse kept teaching until she was 85. Many of the day-to-day operations of the studio were handled by Ms. Muse, and she took over entirely after Ms. Dennis died in 1996.

Baltimore Freedom Academy students marched along East Fayette Street and in front of City Hall late Thursday afternoon, chanting "Save our schools!" and hoisting placards with such messages as "No Justice, No Peace, No Air, No Heat. " They led a procession of the school's teachers, faculty and parents into the adjacent War Memorial Building, where the group of about 40 joined approximately 200 other residents demanding that elected officials come up with funding to fix the city's deteriorating schools.

Students at Baltimore International College are being thrown under the bus. The school is closing, and as of August 31, it will not be considered an accredited college. Students must now find another college to continue their education. Most students like myself have already purchased books for a semester that was supposed to start July 11. Those who depended on work study are now unemployed. We also now face new college application fees and charges for other documents we may need.