City School System

My brother and I graduated Cardinal Gibbons in the late '70s. This place changed my life. I had no idea of it's financial problems. Gibbons has always been a bright spot during troubled times in the city school system. They were personally interested in the individual student. The all-male student body and dress code made for a unique environment and reduced the daily distraction that high school kids deal with today. What a shame. Conrad Johnson

The Baltimore school board unanimously passed a $1.2 billion budget Monday that essentially remained intact since it was presented. The last budget of outgoing schools CEO Andrés Alonso includes cuts to per-pupil funding and high schools but retains spending power for principals and adds academic programs. The $793 million that would go to schools represents a 36 percent increase since 2008, when Alonso implemented the "Fair Student Funding" structure — which funds schools based on enrollment and gives principals autonomy over their budgets and hiring.

Citing the city school system's long-standing failure to provide services for thousands of disabled students, a federal judge gave state education officials control over a sizable portion of the troubled system yesterday. An emergency order, issued by U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis, is the latest development in the politically charged tussle over control of the city school system. It marks yet another sharp turn in a lawsuit that is more than two decades old. Garbis considered proposals submitted by the Maryland State Department of Education, the city school system and the attorneys who represent special-education students.

The city school board is considering proposals for seven charter schools that include two named for female trailblazers, another attempt at an all-male, college-preparatory program in East Baltimore, and an elementary school for at-risk youths. The new programs were presented to the Baltimore school board Tuesday as part of the district's annual charter application process. The applicants, the majority of which want to open in 2014, had made it through at least one round of interviews with a district charter advisory board.

Social Security must join in budget cutsThe president, Congress and senior citizens are living in a dream world when they declare that this country can reduce taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget without touching entitlements, particularly Social Security.The selfish attitude of middle- and higher-income senior citizens wishing to push the burden of increasing debt onto their children and grandchildren is unbelievable.Granted, there are needy elderly people who need assistance.

First- and second-graders in Baltimore significantly improved their performance on a standardized test this year, meeting or exceeding the national average in three of four areas measured, scores released Friday show. In math, the city's first-graders outscored 63 percent of their peers in a national sample on the Stanford 10 exam, compared with 55 percent last year. They outscored 50 percent in reading - meeting the national average for the first time - compared with 47 percent a year ago. Second-graders scored at the 57th percentile in math, up from the 49th, and the 46th in reading, up from the 42nd.

SO MANY hopes were attached to last year's state-mandated overhaul of the Baltimore City public schools that all student achievement tests are scrutinized eagerly for any signs of turnaround. That's why palpable disappointment followed the release of the latest scores from a twice-a-year reading and math test.Instead of showing system-wide progress, the scores suggest that while some pupils are making headway, many others are not. The results are so lacking in consistency that no broad judgment can be made about the city school system other than to say it is still undeperforming badly.

Ten Baltimore organizations have received $2.6 million in matching grants from philanthropist George Soros to fund programs intended to ease escalating needs amid the economic downturn, the Open Society Institute's city chapter announced. Soros created the Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation to help people particularly affected by the dismal financial climate. He allocated a total of $5 million for OSI's Baltimore office, the remainder of which will be distributed in 2010. "In this particular time with the economic recession, some populations that are most vulnerable have been very hard hit," said Diana Morris, OSI-Baltimore's director.

In the annual battle of the budget in Annapolis, Baltimore's ailing school system is under the gun.The issue: a move by the House of Delegates to withhold $4.8 million in city school aid as a way of prodding what some legislators see as a recalcitrant school administration.In less than a week's time, the House action has become a virtual referendum on the city school system and on the propriety of state interference in the affairs of local government. And it has revealed a split in thinking between the House and the Senate on how best to encourage Baltimore school reform, as well a rift among city officials themselves.

Record-keeping problems could cost Baltimore's school system at least $12.2 million - and perhaps millions more - as federal auditors examine the spending of Medicaid dollars earmarked for special-education students. The $12.2 million represents about half of the $24 million in Medicaid money the city schools received in the 1999-2000 school year for services such as speech and physical therapy. Federal auditors had problems proving that the services were provided and the people who provided the services were qualified to do so. The auditors plan to examine four additional years of records, and if they are found lacking, the city schools could be liable for millions more.

Gretchen Crews, a retired librarian, teacher and club manager, died Dec. 27 at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center of injuries sustained in a fall at her Towson home. She was 83. Born Gretchen Matthews in Baltimore and raised in Wyman Park, she was the daughter of Howard Matthews, a state auditor, and his wife Gretchen, a home economics teacher and homemaker. She attended Margaret Brent School in Charles Village and was a 1947 Eastern High School graduate. She earned an English degree at Goucher College and later received a library science degree at Towson University She taught English in the city public school system and later was a librarian, both in the school system and at the old Bay College at Howard and Centre streets.

The Baltimore school system is evaluating whether to retain hundreds of temporary employees and plans to let many of them go by the end of the week - before schools close for the holiday break. Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system, said the effort to cut down on temporary employees was spurred several months ago by the city's teachers union, which expressed concerns about temporary employees filling union jobs. At the same time, school officials vowed to do a better job of checking the credentials of temporary professionals after a worker hired on a temporary basis at Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School was charged last month with sex abuse.

The Baltimore school system failed to follow its policies when hiring a temporary employee who allegedly misrepresented himself as a child therapist and is now charged with raping a teen. City school officials said Shawn Nowlin, a 27-year-old arrested Nov. 26 on charges that he impregnated a 15-year-old in Harford County, was hired in September 2011 to oversee "partnership coordination" and act as a community liaison at Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School under the title "Temporary Professional II. " Nowlin was employed for a year under that title, but the rules say temporary workers' employment cannot exceed 90 days.

Baltimore city school officials acknowledged this week that lax employee verification protocols may have contributed to a temporary employee -- who was recently arrested on charges he impregnated a 15-year-old girl in Harford County -- taking on a number of leadership roles at Hazelwood Elementary/Middle School. In the story today, officials said that Shawn Nowlin was hired as a temporary professional to do outreach work, but posed as, among other things, a child and family therapist for the school system.

The Baltimore city school system announced Tuesday the closure of 26 school buildings in the next decade, as part of a large-scale plan to overhaul its dilapidated infrastructure. The highly anticipated "10-year plan" would also see 136 school buildings replaced or renovated. It also calls for reducing the number of school buildings in the district from 163 to 137 to right-size the district's facilities to its population and increase its utilization rate. Four schools are recommended for closure at the end of the current school year: Baltimore Rising Star Academy; Garrison Middle; Patapsco Elementary/Middle School; and William C. March Middle School.

Because Baltimore City has long struggled to correct the problems of its chronically underperforming school system, Maryland has for decades funded education in the city at a higher level than other jurisdictions. That is why a preliminary audit report detailing evidence of waste, fraud and abuse in the system represents a potentially devastating indictment of the city's school reform effort. If allegations of mismanagement, lax oversight and incompetence lead lawmakers in Annapolis to question the city's use of the public funds it receives, support for school reform here could dry up overnight.

l Given the meager resources available to the city school system, it is understandable that officials would jump at the chance to equip schools with free color televisions, video recorders and satellite dishes. In return, beginning this fall, the schools have to show 12 minutes of programming provided by Channel One each day in the classes of 45 middle and high schools. Two of those 12 minutes -- or six hours over the school year -- will include commercials for such products as burgers, bubble gum and acne cream.

Baltimore school officials have been getting an earful from angry students, parents and community residents who fear that their neighborhood schools might close as part of a systemwide downsizing effort. The protesters are right to press their case, since the Board of School Commissioners is still two months away from any final decisions. But the board also needs to honor its promise of a totally transparent process. Declining enrollment and pressure from the state are forcing the city school system to eliminate more than 2 million square feet of space in the next three years.

The Baltimore school system has hired a leading data forensics company to review thousands of state assessment results dating to 2009 — a third-party analysis that school officials say is needed to inject fairness into investigations of alleged cheating. But the move has come under fire from the president of the principals union, who says the $275,000 contract with Caveon Test Security is a waste of money for the financially strapped school district and a misguided effort by schools CEO Andrés Alonso to confirm his long-held suspicions about cheating at some schools.

The family of a 6-year-old special-needs student who died after he jumped from a moving school bus has filed an $80 million lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the Baltimore school system and the contractor hired to transport him. The boy's mother, Lisa Avery, filed the lawsuit this month, accusing the school system and the bus personnel of M.R. Hopkins Transportation Services Inc. of failing to ensure the safety of her emotionally disturbed...