NEWS
By Liz F. Kay | October 18, 2009
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.
NEWS
By Sara Neufeld | May 9, 2009
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.
NEWS
By Sara Neufeld | February 9, 2009
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.
NEWS
By Michael Cross-Barnet | May 3, 2008
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.
NEWS
By Sara Neufeld | August 28, 2007
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.
NEWS
By Sara Neufeld | October 27, 2006
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.
NEWS
By SARA NEUFELD | June 13, 2006
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.
NEWS
March 7, 2006
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.
NEWS
January 12, 2006
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.
NEWS
October 23, 2005
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.