City School Board

Baltimore's board of school commissioners is scheduled to vote this week on a second round of school closings, an inevitably painful process that has left many individuals and communities upset that their neighborhood schools are being shut down or reconfigured. Despite the pain, in many cases the recommendations that emerged from the system's facility solutions committee reflect the board's general preference for converting traditional middle schools to K-8 schools. But in at least one case involving Harlem Park schools, the board should reconsider and try to come up with another solution.

Carl Stokes fills his days working to get a new all-male city charter school off the ground. The former 2nd District Baltimore City Council member who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1999 wants to open the Bluford Drew Jemison Math Science Technology Academy in East Baltimore by late August. "This is going to be much more rewarding than politics," he said this week. Stokes will be director of operations at the school, which is supported by public funds. He also hopes to raise $750,000 from local philanthropic organizations.

GOING STRONG, Walter Sondheim Jr. is awaiting the millennium like everyone else. It will mark the seventh decade in which he has led efforts to improve Baltimore and Maryland public life.When problems fester, mayors and governors put Mr. Sondheim on boards. When the problems are crucial, they make him chairman.He is the motivator, mediator, facilitator, diplomat, tactician and consensus-builder, harnessing diverse personalities to a common goal.Other people burn out at this sort of thing.

THE GREAT educator John Dewey is said to have coined the phrase "laboratory school" when he founded an elementary school on the campus of the University of Chicago 102 years ago.Dewey was concerned that education on his campus wasn't getting the same attention as the hard sciences. He wanted a place where professors could conduct research under tightly controlled conditions over long periods -- the definition of a laboratory.More than a century later, J. Tyson Tildon, chairman of the city school board, lamented recently the lack of solid research to back up the textbook series proposed for Baltimore elementary school reading classrooms.

Just seven weeks before a state-imposed April 15 deadline, the new Baltimore City school board appears no closer to naming a leader for the troubled school district than it was when the search began and is ready to start again virtually from the beginning.The top contender for the job - Michael Rossi, a former BankAmerica Corp. executive who some board members describe as a "genius" - backed out unexpectedly last week.And in a sign of obvious frustration, the board has dismissed Heidrick & Struggles, the Washington-based firm it hired in August to conduct the search.

DURING THE recent campaign, candidates for state offices clamored to get aboard the education bandwagon. But one key issue was hardly touched: The need for reform of the state's politicized, inequitable and inadequate public school construction program.Does this description unfairly taint a program that has poured more than $1 billion into schools over the past decade and has been acclaimed as among the most progressive in the nation? I don't think so.During his campaign, Gov. Parris N. Glendening hailed each subdivision's share from this year's $230 million program, the largest in more than 20 years.

The Maryland State Board of Education moved Baltimore schools further toward reform yesterday by unanimously approving that system's master plan for improvement.Required by legislation last year that created the city-state partnership overseeing the schools, the plan lays out strategies for improving student achievement and creating effective management for the 109,000-student system.The plan spells out specific changes, such as a new reading curriculum for the coming school year, and sets broader goals through 2002.

The Baltimore City school board has winnowed its choices for a permanent chief executive officer to three finalists: a San Diego County finance officer, a high-ranking school administrator from New York City and the former chief executive of a local institution.Board members -- citing the candidates' desires for confidentiality -- refused to divulge any of the candidates' names. But The Sun has learned that two of the finalists are Robert Booker, the auditor and controller for San Diego County, Calif.

The Maryland State Board of Education moved Baltimore schools further toward reform yesterday by unanimously approving that system's master plan for improvement.Required by legislation last year that created the city-state partnership overseeing the schools, the plan lays out strategies for improving student achievement and creating effective management for the 109,000-student system.The plan spells out specific changes, such as a new reading curriculum for the coming school year, and sets broader goals through 2002.

More than a year after teachers demanded a crackdown on school crime and classroom troublemakers, Baltimore's school system is close to adopting a tough new discipline code.Proposed to the new city school board this week, the code is intended to bolster principals' authority and specify the range of punishments for students who violate school and district rules.For example, it would allow principals to confiscate pagers and cellular telephones -- which students are not allowed to have in school -- for up to two weeks on a first offense, and for the duration of the academic year on a repeat offense.

The Maryland State Board of Education has developed a series of questions it will ask city school board candidates about their backgrounds, a result of revelations several weeks ago that the former board chair had a troubled financial background. The first changes to the vetting process for the three-year volunteer term on the city school board include asking whether the candidates have paid their taxes, have been convicted of a crime, have a civil judgment against them or have been disbarred from practicing law or had a professional license revoked.

Had anyone taken the trouble to properly vet Brian D. Morris' credentials, it's hard to see how he would have gotten a seat on the school board six years ago, much less have been in a position as chairman to be handed an unadvertised, $175,000-a-year job overseeing the city schools' day-to-day operations. Not only did he have a long history of financial and legal woes, but it also turns out that he never quite finished the University of Maryland bachelor's degree he claimed to have earned.

State board of education members began interviewing candidates on Thursday to fill vacancies on the Baltimore school board, a position receiving heightened scrutiny after the disclosure of financial problems and fraud allegations concerning the former city board chairman who took and then quit a high-paying schools job last week. Three of the candidates have been supported by city schools chief Andr?s Alonso. Alonso had recently created an unadvertised $175,000-a-year deputy CEO position for former city board chairman Brian D. Morris, but Morris stepped away from the job Saturday after revelations of his 15-year history of legal and financial problems.

Local and state officials are at odds over who is responsible for conducting background investigations as they seek a replacement for former Baltimore school board chairman Brian D. Morris. Most involved suggest it is someone else's job to search for the kind of troubling history of bad debts and court judgments that led Morris to resign last week from a $175,000-a-year system job, which he received after serving for six years on the city school board. Gov. Martin O'Malley's office says the state school board is responsible.

Brian D. Morris, the charismatic and well-connected former Baltimore school board chairman who was to start a high-level school district job Monday morning, resigned Saturday amid questions about the hiring process and his history of financial troubles. In statements issued Saturday, the school board and Morris said he had decided to withdraw his name for the $175,000-a-year post, which would have given him oversight of school system operations. Since Tuesday, when the school board approved the appointment on the recommendation of schools CEO Andr?

Brian D. Morris, who resigned as Baltimore City school board chairman this week to accept a six-figure job overseeing school operations, has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits and bad-debt claims the past 15 years, including foreclosures, garnisheed wages, unpaid taxes and other cases involving his personal finances and business ventures, according to city court records. The city school board hired Morris, 38, as a deputy CEO on Tuesday, giving him a $175,000 annual salary and oversight of all the school system's central operations, including finance.

Everard Grant knows his 16-year-old stepson made a huge mistake when he lit a poster on fire at his Baltimore high school. But he doesn't think he deserves to be shut out of the city's public schools forever. The boy, Tyrone Jamison, is one of 34 students who have been permanently expelled from Baltimore schools this academic year. That number has increased drastically over previous years because of a decision by schools chief Andr?s Alonso to impose the most severe punishment for those caught committing arson or detonating explosives.

The Baltimore School for the Arts opened in 1980, the same year Fame, the movie about a talented bunch of street-wise kids at a public performing arts high school in New York, debuted. What so endeared viewers to the movie was the terrific sense of youthful energy and passion the cast brought to its portrayals of aspiring dancers, actors, artists and musicians. That same creative excitement was apparent in the very first class of 68 students at the Baltimore School for the Arts. At a time when the city's dysfunctional public school system seemed constantly plagued by crisis, it was a magical bright spot that showed what educators with vision, skill, hard work and dedication to excellence could accomplish when they put their minds to it. More than 25 years later, that fantastic energy is still the hallmark of the school, which just completed a $30 million renovation of its Cathedral Street campus that combines the best of old and new. The renovated buildings are among the most easily overlooked gems on the city's new architectural skyline because the biggest changes are inside - where new dance studios, practice rooms, classrooms and office space and a light-filled third-floor library have sprouted - while the elegant 19th-century facades were painstakingly preserved to blend in with the historic Mount Vernon community.

President Bush's proposal to provide $300 million in scholarships to children in failing schools has redrawn the old lines in Maryland between voucher advocates who argue that parochial schools offer a good option for some poor children and those who see them as an attempt to undermine public education. In his State of the Union address Monday night, Bush said he would ask Congress to support the package, which would be called Pell Grants for Kids. "This is a voucher program that is intended to support parochial and private schools under the guise of helping low-income children," said Bebe Verdery, education director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.

Chanting their familiar refrain, "No education, no life," an estimated 300 city students and supporters met at City Hall and marched along downtown streets yesterday demanding that the governor pay the school system $800 million from a court decision. Under the leadership of the Baltimore Algebra Project, the protesters demanded funding to comply with a 2004 ruling that said the city schools had been unlawfully underfunded by $400 million to $800 million since 2000. The Baltimore Algebra Project, a student-run tutoring group, had planned the protest for weeks.