City School System

FOR GOOD and sufficient reasons, this year's crop of candidates for mayor of Baltimore was disparaged months ago in the harshest terms. Civic leaders tried to recruit a star replacement. Their effort failed, and the city must now come to terms with its choices.That chore may not be as frightening as some had thought.Even with more than 20 candidates in the field, the campaign process is beginning to show which contenders have talent and potential for growth. Differences in policy, style and substance are beginning to emerge, though much more detail is needed from men and women who claim they can run a $1.8 billion city.

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.

Baltimore's privately managed public schools show little difference from comparable city-run schools on test results, attendance, parent involvement -- or even cleanliness, an evaluation released yesterday found.The report, prepared by the Center for Educational Research at University of Maryland Baltimore County, represents the first outside evaluation of the closely watched Education Alternatives Inc. experiment.While reporting few positive results in achievement, the report said, "Change takes time and there has been an investment in the first three years that can be recouped by continuation."

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.

The Baltimore School for the Arts, the city's most innovative public high school, is going through a period of transition and uncertainty as it seeks a replacement for its soon-to-be-retiring principal, David Simon. He is proving a hard act to follow.Mr. Simon, who is the only director the school has had since its founding 15 years ago, was supposed to step down in June. But the search committee's first choice to replace him decided not to come. It seems that when word got out that Baltimore was interested, his present employers moved heaven and earth to keep him where he was.The difficulty of finding a successor for Mr. Simon, whose vision has shaped virtually every aspect of the School for the Arts, reflects the unusual position the school occupies in the city school system and among Baltimore arts institutions.

School failures aren't due to racismThe tone of Wiley A. Hall's recent commentary on the Baltimore City school system suggested a situation that is the result of racism toward inner-city schools ("School funding inequity most costly to children," Dec. 6).Earlier, The Evening Sun published figures comparing how much state money was given to the city per child with state funding for county students.City children received state funding far in excess of any other subdivision. The subdivisions then added money for each child from their tax base.

Not the SameRichard Lelonek (letter to the editor, Sept. 8) writes as if learning about religion and praying are the same thing. They are not. In fact, ACLU would agree that education about religion is an important part of both history lessons and philosophical discussions.What is wrong is when the public schools go beyond teaching about and begin praying or proselytizing. Truly, much good could be done if students truly understood the vast variety or religions, just as much good would be done if students understand the philosophies of Rousseau and other non-religious philosophers.

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.

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 had one of the highest concentrations of high-school dropouts in the country in 1990 and the second-highest in the Northeast, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Census data reported to Congress by the U.S. Department of Education this week show that 22.8 percent of all 16- to 19-year-olds living in the city had not completed high school or were not currently enrolled in school.The data rank Baltimore ninth in the nation, behind Trenton, N.J., and seven California cities.But school and business officials in Baltimore disagree on whether the Census Bureau data accurately reflect the city's chronic dropout problems.

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.

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.

Top administrators in the Baltimore City school system were used to staff meetings with fluid agendas that left time for all to speak. But now, Andres Alonso was presiding. And class was in session. When I send you an e-mail, the schools' new chief executive told them on that summer day in 2007, I expect a reply within 20 minutes. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. This wasn't a conversation, but more like a lecture, one in which students keep quiet for fear of being admonished for falling behind on their homework.

Looking around, this is not where one might expect to find inspiration about Baltimore's future. A vacant lot, tired-looking rowhouses, an old industrial site, a defunct school used most recently as a homeless shelter. But there we were on a warm Saturday morning, in the geographic center of the city - a neighborhood whose main landmark is a graveyard - about 100 sweaty parents and 25 restless kids in a stuffy room of what was once Mildred Monroe Elementary. We gathered during a season of rebirth to plant a seed of change.

There was a time when kids could lounge at the pool until Labor Day, when going back to school coincided with the first chills of autumn air. But most of the hundreds of thousands of students returning to classes this week don't remember that far back. They know standardized tests and August beginnings, as those dreaded March assessments drive schools to squeeze in more teaching earlier. In Maryland, the only children left at the beach are those from Worcester County, where traditions die hard and the first school bells won't ring until Sept.

Staff and administrators at a start-up Baltimore high school are in an uproar over news that the city school system plans to transfer two of its teachers midway through the academic year. The system routinely transfers teachers in October based on the enrollment of its schools a month after classes begin. Officials say the Academy for College and Career Exploration is staffed for 300 students, but 260 are enrolled. Therefore, it makes sense - and it is the system's policy - to transfer the extra teachers to schools that need them.

It's been a tough school year at Frederick Douglass High. In the fall, the football team was forced to forfeit its first winning season since 1998 over allegations that an academically ineligible student was permitted to play. In the winter, the West Baltimore school became a political battleground after Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele visited and accused the city school system of shortchanging Douglass students. In the spring, Douglass turned up on a list of 11 failing city schools that the state was targeting for outside takeovers.

Council weighs plan to borrow $120 million for capital projects Baltimore's City Council will consider a plan to borrow $120 million for a wide range of capital projects - from renovating city schools to modernizing libraries - under a series of ordinances introduced yesterday. Known as the loan authorization program, the borrowing that would occur every two years would go to voters for a referendum this November. The money would be used for projects taking place in 2008 and 2009, including recreation centers planned for Morrell Park and Clifton Park and replacement of the water supply system in at least one city building.

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.

In Maryland's cities and elsewhere, an underclass of disconnected teens and young adults struggles silently to make a life and a living. They need help - from guardians, neighborhoods and governments. Instead, they are neglected or they receive such unreliable aid that they feel safer going it alone. That's dangerous for them and for Maryland, which cannot afford to lose at least 15 percent of its future work force statewide, according to an estimate by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation.