Education Program

Alexander Boser started reading at an early age and was devouring Harry Potter books by the time he was 4. "There really wasn't a sign of a problem except that this kid just wanted to read all the time," said his mother, Katharina Boser. But the youngster, now 10, has been diagnosed with attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD). He gets anxious in school, is sensitive to criticism and has trouble memorizing facts, Boser said. Even though he is in a Gifted-and-Talented math class at his Ellicott City elementary school, he also has an individualized education program (IEP)

Every year, Maryland schools face a persistent challenge: finding teachers to educate the thousands of children coming through their doors. Even with recruits from other states, career-changers and retired educators returning to fill vacancies, many systems are looking to themselves - and their students - for a solution. They have adopted the budding Teacher Academy of Maryland, a career and technology education program that introduces classes about teaching into high schools. "We've taken care of every career in the universe except our own," said Marjorie Lohnes, supervisor of career and technology education for Carroll County, where students can take classes for future jobs in health, engineering and fashion, among other fields.

Fourteen years ago, Vaughn G. became the unknown soldier of special education, a West Baltimore boy whose name was chosen to lead a class-action lawsuit seeking better schooling for disabled youngsters.In the decade since Vaughn G. vs. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore was settled amid high expectations, neither the young man nor the crusade named for him has fared well.Though ever larger and more costly, Baltimore's special education program is widely viewed as a failure -- evidenced by court records, test scores and unemployable teen-agers who finish high school unable to read the street signs in their neighborhoods.

Anne Arundel County school officials are wasting money putting children struggling to learn to read into costly special education programs meant for mentally disabled and autistic children, according to an independent audit."

Every week, Carolyn Walker sees the product of one of the nation's most expensive special education programs. A 17-year-old struggles with first-grade work. A 14-year-old boy can't recite the months of the year. A 10th-grader doesn't know the alphabet."I don't know how they keep going to school when they're so deficient," says Walker, who runs the Partnership for Learning, a nonprofit tutoring program for teens accused of their first crime. "I don't know what the school is thinking in terms of passing them and moving them on."

SYLVAN LEARNING Systems, the Baltimore-based tutoring and testing company, has grown so rapidly that it is now one of the world's five largest private providers of educational services, with 1997 revenues projected at more than $200 million.Hardly a month goes by without news that Sylvan has entered another niche in the relatively small for-profit education industry. The company employs more than 8,000 part-time teachers directly or through its network of franchised tutoring centers, and it is the world's largest computerized testing firm.

Odessa Dubose plans to earn a degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health without spending much time in Baltimore. She'll do most of the work from her computer in Miami.Peter Edwards plans to earn his in Milwaukee.Neither will have quit jobs, left families or lugged belongings across the country. But with any luck, they will learn biostatistics and epidemiology as if they had.Like just about everything else in American life, the correspondence course has entered the computer age.Last week, 37 students from around the nation arrived in Baltimore for the launching of Hopkins' "distance education" program -- a 15-month course that will be taught largely over the Internet.

Tara Dawn Holland, the reigning Miss America, visited the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup yesterday to promote an education program for inmates."

Last week, more than three dozen hunter education professionals from 13 states in the Northeast met in Ocean City to discuss common concerns about hunter safety programs and the future of hunting in their states.A common concern among hunter education program leaders who attended the annual U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 5 Hunter Education Workshop was the perception nonhunters have of hunters and hunting."We are interested in getting the word out that hunting is an acceptable form of recreation, and that hunters are responsible people, too," said Vic McCallum, head of Maryland's Hunter Safety Education Program.

The president of the Harford County Council wants to increase by $2 million the proposed $96.4 million school system budget.Jeffrey D. Wilson said he wants to give the schools the money to hire more teachers, maintain a federal program for disadvantaged elementary schoolchildren, increase spending for students with disabilities and start an alternative education program for high school students.The money would be in addition to the $8.9 million increase proposed by County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann -- but still less than the $14 million the school system requested.

Use it up - Wear it out - Make it do! It's the credo that your parents or grandparents lived by. Posters from the World War II era screamed it at careless consumers and those without money to consume. Now, as more Americans have been swept into what some have dubbed the nation's "Great Recession" - and many more worry that it is only a matter of time - this mantra of frugality is once again becoming a way of life: a call to thrift echoing beyond foreclosed homes and growing unemployment lines.

In an increasingly wired (and wireless) world, an online presence is becoming indispensable for institutions ranging from businesses to nonprofits to government agencies. Grasping this new reality, Baltimore County education officials last year wisely launched a pilot online education program that served 106 students - almost all of them previously home-schooled. This initiative deserves to be made permanent. The county executive's office disagrees and denied a $2 million request for online education in the 2008-2009 school budget, blaming poor economic conditions.

Over the past month, the Anne Arundel County school system has received many e-mails about the special education program for students with emotional disabilities at Chesapeake High School. Many have expressed concern that students enrolled in the Chesapeake Regional Program (CRP), which operates in a wing at Chesapeake High School, pose a safety danger for students in the high school's general education population. It is evident from recent public comments that misperceptions still exist.

Alexander Boser started reading at an early age and was devouring Harry Potter books by the time he was 4. "There really wasn't a sign of a problem except that this kid just wanted to read all the time," said his mother, Katharina Boser. But the youngster, now 10, has been diagnosed with attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD). He gets anxious in school, is sensitive to criticism and has trouble memorizing facts, Boser said. Even though he is in a Gifted-and-Talented math class at his Ellicott City elementary school, he also has an individualized education program (IEP)

Every year, Maryland schools face a persistent challenge: finding teachers to educate the thousands of children coming through their doors. Even with recruits from other states, career-changers and retired educators returning to fill vacancies, many systems are looking to themselves - and their students - for a solution. They have adopted the budding Teacher Academy of Maryland, a career and technology education program that introduces classes about teaching into high schools. "We've taken care of every career in the universe except our own," said Marjorie Lohnes, supervisor of career and technology education for Carroll County, where students can take classes for future jobs in health, engineering and fashion, among other fields.

The Carroll County school system plans to change the way it handles student tobacco violations, modifying a regulation that has been around for more than 15 years. While some Board of Education members expressed concerns last week, others praised the move to try something new in an effort to reduce tobacco use among students, not just discipline them. The regulation changes, which would have the district team up with the county Health Department, would save the school system money, while also providing additional opportunities to follow up with - and, ideally, reach - second-time offenders, said Dana Falls, director of student services, in an interview.

WASHINGTON -- A company led by President Bush's brother and partly owned by his parents is benefiting from Republican connections and federal money targeted for economically disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act. With investments from his parents, George and Barbara Bush, and other backers, Neil Bush's company, Ignite Learning, has placed its products in 40 U.S. school districts and plans to market internationally. At least 13 U.S. school districts have used federal funds available through the president's signature education program, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, to buy Ignite's portable learning centers at $3,800 apiece.

A few weeks ago, I dialed a phone number for a certain State Department of Education program in a state prison. I identified myself to the state employee who answered the phone and made a simple request. I asked for the full, official name of the program, along with a brief description of the program, and I'm pretty sure I said "please." You'd have thought I was asking how to make a dirty bomb. Officer Whistle-blower's termination hearing is postponed. pg 4b

Board of Education to meet Wednesday The Carroll County Board of Education will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday in Room 007 of the board offices, 125 N. Court St., Westminster. The regular meeting agenda will be posted on the school system's Web site at carrollk12.org. Meetings will be broadcast live on CETV, Channel 21 on Adelphia cable TV, and repeated at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sunday and the following Thursday, and 9 a.m. Saturday. Information: 410-751-3020. Physical therapy class to graduate Carroll Community College will graduate its Physical Therapist Assistant class of 19 students in a ceremony at 2 p.m. Thursday.

Hundreds of parents and students visited the Applications and Research Laboratory last week for a better glimpse of the school system's academy-style career and technology education program. Visitors had the opportunity to view displays and talk with business and industry representatives on workplace skills and expectations. Six hundred students are enrolled in the academies, said Richard Weisenhoff, coordinator of Howard's career and technology education program. "Our projections are up for next year," Weisenhoff said.