Calvert Curriculum

THE LAST 18 months of Sam Stringfield's 5 1/2 -year term on the Baltimore Board of School Commissioners were the worst. As the school system's financial woes deepened, Stringfield and his eight board colleagues were branded "dysfunctional." People cursed them at board meetings. A radio talk show host gave out Stringfield's home number and urged listeners to vent their anger. Stringfield went to state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick and privately offered to resign. She urged him to stay on. That whole period was hurtful, Stringfield said.

Liberal evilYour selection of cartoons for the "1994 in Review" on theDec. 30 Other Voices page proves that liberals are every bit as mean-spirited as they claim conservatives are.Gary A. SmithBaltimoreCalvert's successAnyone who has been reading the newspapers over the years should have noticed that the Calvert School program at Barclay Elementary School has consistently produced superior results and won accolades.While educational philosophies come and go, the very successful Calvert School program is celebrating its 100th birthday.

"Divorce the Baltimore County Public Schools," bellowed the RTC billboard that parents erected on Liberty Heights Avenue last month, summoning residents to yesterday's meeting at Maximum Life Christian Church.It was a signal that a group of African-American parents, known as the Education Coalition of Organizations, had reached the breaking point in its effort to reduce the 30-point gap in test scores between black students and their peers in other ethnic groups.Yesterday in Woodlawn, there was talk among the 30 parents and educators of forming a private school based on African ideals, charter schools -- independent schools run with public money -- and promoting taxpayer-financed vouchers for private school tuition.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's decision to keep Education Alternatives Inc. in Baltimore for another year was the correct one from a logistical viewpoint. You cannot terminate a program of this size just weeks before the start of a new school year.The program deserves at least another year to prove, or disprove, the wisdom of this particular privatization experiment in the city's public schools. An academic review of the Minnesota contractor's success at nine city schools showed a mixed bag of results.

WHEN A STORY broke recently that Baltimore school officials were considering adapting the Calvert School's curriculum for use in every elementary school in the city system, no one should have been surprised to see Robert C. Embry Jr.'s name attached to the proposal. Mr. Embry is a man of many ideas -- and, as president of the Abell Foundation, he is in a position to back many of them with funds. When it comes to Baltimore City Public Schools, from which he graduated and in which his own children are being educated, Mr. Embry is nothing if not impassioned.

The Baltimore-Washington corridor is an economic powerhouse in many areas -- federal contracting, anyone? -- but it may soon become known as the nexus of another, growing industry: online education. The $400 million purchase of a local education technology startup by a British company this fall is the latest sign that the region is successfully producing firms that develop cutting-edge technologies for schools or seek to transform them entirely. The purchase of Connections Education Inc. by Pearson PLC, a London-based education publishing conglomerate and owner of the Financial Times newspaper, was also among the biggest acquisitions of a Baltimore company in years.

Sondra Elise Banfield Dailey, a book publisher who had been active in the 1960s civil rights movement, died of cancer Feb. 27 at her son's Canton home. She was 66. Born Sondra Elise Banfield in Baltimore, she lived on Springdale Avenue and was a 1962 graduate of Forest Park High School, where she was cheerleading captain. Her father was a Provident Hospital physician; her mother was a social worker and political activist. "Sondra was the first black cheerleading captain to hold that position, and it was the tradition that she would become homecoming queen.

Two things happened last week that should make Mayor Schmoke feel better about his stewardship of the Baltimore public schools than he should have felt at any time since he took office in late 1987.First, The Sun ran a remarkable week-long in-depth series of articles on the school system which portrayed in horrifying detail the educational deprivations which are the consequence of the inadequate resources available to the city schools.Second, the mayor and his new school superintendent, Walter G. Amprey, announced a bold and innovative educational experiment -- a five-year program under which a private corporation will run nine schools at the same cost per-pupil as the city, but free of most of the city's stifling bureaucratic controls and incompetencies.

An article in Monday's editions of The Sun should have said that the cost of the Baltimore public schools' conference, "Promising Practices in Education," was paid for by the Baltimore City Foundation.The Sun regrets the error.After months of dealing with a succession of negatives, from budget deficits to threats from state officials to take partial control of the system, Baltimore public school officials are ready to accentuate the positive.The Baltimore public school system is sponsoring a national conference this week that will highlight its education innovations.

GOOD THINGS are happening in the Baltimore City Public Schools, although we don't hear much about them in the news media. Here are some examples:Test scores are on the rise, albeit modestly. At a press conference last December, state schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick said, ''Baltimore city should be commended for the progress they've made.''Systemic school reform is well under way. The Maryland State Board of Education recently praised our far-reaching efforts that span curriculum, teacher training, innovative instructional models and accountability for results.