Education Students

Amanda Walker rolled a strike and three spares at bowling. Shawna Tragesar rolled two strikes. Andrew Sweeney made a backward throw into a floor basketball net. The three youths were participating in the first Inclusion Field Day, hosted by Westminster High School for special education students from the county's high schools. The 40-plus teenagers, with a range of disabilities, participated in 10 physical education activities that had been set up around Westminster's main gym. Teachers and student-helpers assisted the youths with volleyball, a hockey shoot, a target throw, scooter handball, golf, a parachute wave, keep it up, and scoop and shoot.

Kevin Jaros, a 15-year-old with multiple disabilities, needs an escort to find his way to the school bus. To teach him about the human digestive system, his teacher, Tammy Wolanin, created the stomach, intestines and other parts in colors and textures Kevin can recognize and then stick into place on a model. He has to repeat the task over and over again to pass the alternative Maryland State Assessment -- also known as the alt-MSA -- the state's version of standardized testing for special education students.

Special education changes can help all city studentsYour article concerning Baltimore City Public Schools ("Schools Seek Millions More For Disabled," March 23) again blames spending on special education for the school system's failure to deliver educational services to regular education students. But both groups of students are entitled to quality educational services, and pitting one group against the other does a disservice to all students.Moreover, it misses the real point: Special education and regular education are two sides of same coin.

Acknowledging that many end up in special education because minor learning difficulties go untreated, Baltimore school officials are poised to begin a program to boost help to the city's struggling students.Under an agreement signed by the city and lawyers representing special education students, a team of professionals would be set up in each school to diagnose and treat a failing student's problem before he or she begins to fall behind.The school system hopes to reduce the city's huge special education population, among the highest in the nation.

Howard County school officials are proposing an ambitious, long-range plan for improving special education programs, including a request for nearly $5 million in new funds.The plan -- released yesterday and developed over several months by a 21-member task force of teachers, parents, administrators and other staff members -- calls for:More intervention and options for children who are struggling academically but might not need to be referred to special education. The county has 4,200 students in special education programs.

THE SUN'S recent series on the failure of special education in city schools has provoked a long-overdue public debate. Unfortunately, some reactions are likely to make the situation worst.The articles focused on data showing far more city students in special education than in other Maryland and major urban districts, with spending per special education student being roughly three times spending for regular education. This has triggered suggestions for wholesale retesting of special education students.

At the High Road School of Baltimore County, newly opened this year in a Dundalk strip mall, an education costs $34,000 a year.At New Foundations, a school for boys that operates out of the Chicago Title Insurance Building in downtown Baltimore, tuition is $53,000.And at the National Children's Center in Washington, D.C., where some students live year-round, an education, room, board and services cost $132,000 a year.Who pays these higher-than-Harvard tuition rates?As a Maryland taxpayer, you do.Baltimore, a city that places more of its students in special education than almost any other school district in the country, also tops the charts in the number of special education children it sends to costly private schools.

Baltimore schools chief Robert Booker says he will not pursue an immediate plan to shrink the system's special-education population, or to develop remedial programs for the thousands of special education students whose only disability might be that they have not been taught to read.Booker said he will talk with teachers and principals to identify faults in the way special education placements are made, in the hope of reducing the number of special education pupils. He also will count on the new citywide reading curriculum to help illiterate students.

Carroll school officials found themselves defending special education programs and the role of school guidance counselors at a budget hearing in Sykesville Monday as some parents questioned the effectiveness of such services.Administrators said the need for crisis counselors is clear at Charles Carroll Elementary School. An 8-year-old student at the school died last weekend after accidentally shooting himself with a handgun he had found in his home."At Charles Carroll, there could not have been a better support team as we're suffering through the tragedy with our students," Principal Richard Huss said at the hearing at Oklahoma Road Middle School.

Some of Carroll's best teachers got a chance last night to enjoy a moment in the spotlight at the annual Outstanding Teacher Awards banquet sponsored by the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce.More than 600 people attended the event at Wilhelm LTD Caterers in Westminster, including 178 nominated teachers, their families, students and parents. The event has grown significantly since the first awards banquet in 1988, when 50 teachers were nominated.The eight teachers selected to receive $300 awards from the eight participating business sponsors were: Ruth M. Aukerman, Edith S. Burbage, Susan H. Withnell, Jeffrey M. Leister, Elizabeth L. Hester, Cynthia L. Foltz, Ann M. Durham and Michael J. Chrvala.

The Maryland State Board of Education is expected to adopt an emergency regulation today to allow superintendents to waive passage of the high school assessment as a graduation requirement in certain circumstances. The superintendents in each district would gain the power to rescue hundreds of students who would not graduate from high school in June because they have been unable to pass four subject exams or complete projects. Some educators had raised concerns that whole groups of students in certain school systems had not taken government until their senior year and might not have enough time to take the test and get extra help if they failed.

Maryland's state school board made a final decision yesterday to hold firm and require this year's high school seniors to pass four subject tests to graduate in June, although it left open the possibility of exemptions for special education students and those learning English. The decision leaves 9,059 students across the state - or about 17 percent of the Class of 2009 - at risk of not getting a diploma, according to data released yesterday. Only 70 percent of African-Americans statewide and 50 percent of special education students have met the requirements.

Clarification: An article in yesterday's editions about the Maryland High School Assessments might have left the incorrect impression about when results of last spring's tests will be released. The results will be released to members of the state school board Tuesday morning, before board members might take a vote on whether to delay requiring that students pass the exams to earn high school diplomas, according to a state schools spokesman. The results of the tests will be released to the broader public later Tuesday.

Riding high on recent improvements in student test scores, Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso says special education in the city should be subject to less court oversight under a decades-old lawsuit. State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick also says there's been improvement, and she'd like to see the court begin transferring responsibilities back to the state, which monitors special education in Maryland's other 23 school districts. "If we were talking about the Cold War, we would normalize the operation," she said.

The Harford County superintendent of schools, accompanied by the county executive and a state senator, made her annual bus ride with students to celebrate the opening of the school year. Several schools rolled out a red carpet to welcome students. The faculty at Roye-Williams Elementary in Aberdeen went formal, wearing top hats and white gloves for the morning arrival. And Harford Technical High School added black and yellow balloon arches to its doors. "It is all about making students feel welcome, excited and motivated on the first day of school," said Teri D. Kranefeld, schools spokeswoman.

A greater percentage of Maryland's elementary and middle schools met federal achievement standards than in recent years, even as the state raised the bar by requiring more students in each school to pass the yearly tests in reading and math. Education officials released yesterday the state's annual report of school progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, with about 84 percent meeting targets. Maryland put 169 of 1,129 elementary and middle schools on a list of schools that need improvement, compared with 176 the year before.

Bobby Stone had such a zest for competition that it seemed appropriate to hold the ninth annual Ridgeway Elementary School Invitational in his honor this year. Every time he crossed a finish line in previous years of the Special Olympics-like event, he threw his arms straight up in the air as though had won, whether or not he had. "He just had fun," said his father, Bob Stone Sr. of Odenton. "He was winning no matter what." Bobby, who graduated from the school in Severn last year, died in September of a lung infection.

Raymond Simon, deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, met with 19 of Maryland's high-ranking educators yesterday and fielded their questions and concerns about the No Child Left Behind Act. State schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, state school board president Dunbar Brooks, and superintendents of a number of school districts participated in the discussion at Annapolis High School, which remains on the state's watch list for improvement...

NEW YORK -- There was no private office. Andres Alonso sat behind a simple desk in a corner of Room 320 - an open, airy space filled with a cluster of about 25 cubicles with low partitions, a design element to encourage greater interaction. Just steps away from Alonso's desk, inside the grand building that houses New York City's Department of Education administrative offices in Lower Manhattan, sat his boss, Chancellor Joel I. Klein. Alonso, the No. 2 education administrator in New York, who was named the chief executive officer of Baltimore's public schools last week, has earned a reputation for his accessibility and his fierce loyalty to students.

Amanda Walker rolled a strike and three spares at bowling. Shawna Tragesar rolled two strikes. Andrew Sweeney made a backward throw into a floor basketball net. The three youths were participating in the first Inclusion Field Day, hosted by Westminster High School for special education students from the county's high schools. The 40-plus teenagers, with a range of disabilities, participated in 10 physical education activities that had been set up around Westminster's main gym. Teachers and student-helpers assisted the youths with volleyball, a hockey shoot, a target throw, scooter handball, golf, a parachute wave, keep it up, and scoop and shoot.