Failing Schools

Although none of Maryland's 24 school districts earned distinguished marks in the state's annual performance assessment released this week, the fact that Baltimore city schools ranked at the bottom of the list is particular cause for concern. The system has been trying to improve itself for years, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. What the state education department report makes painfully clear is that, for the most part, these efforts have failed.The image of city schools that emerges is one of a struggling, under-funded system that fails to educate the vast majority of students to minimum standards of competence and that tolerates a level of chronic absenteeism that leads to a third of students dropping out before graduating from high school.

One chronically underperforming city high school would close at the end of the next school year, and four other schools would be restructured under a reorganization plan announced Tuesday by Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso. For Alonso, the recommendation to close just a single school in Baltimore stands in marked contrast to the sweeping changes he orchestrated during his first two years as schools chief. Alonso said the more limited proposal is a reflection of students' growth on standardized tests and the improving climate of the district over the past three years.

DALLAS -- Poll after poll shows that education consistently registers among voters' top concerns -- regardless of party identification, gender or race. Parents see lower test scores, rising dropout rates and an economy increasingly driven by a high-tech work force, and they are becoming angry. The fear and frustration is especially high in poor urban areas with high minority populations and some of the worst-performing schools. Many parents in those areas are pleading for the right to choose a way out for their children.

Five of the city's worst-performing schools have been matched with academic companies that will take over their operations next school year. The school system announced Tuesday the assignments of the five partner organizations that will lead the long-failing schools and put in place everything from new curriculum to new staff. In March, the city's school board approved the list of candidates who applied to partner with "turnaround schools," which the district hopes will be saved from closure under the new leadership.

Maryland school officials gave their approval yesterday to plans to overhaul nine failing schools in the state. Teachers will have to reapply for their jobs at three Baltimore County and five Prince George's County schools. The three Baltimore County schools are Woodlawn High, Lansdowne Middle and Southwest Academy. In Harford County, the principal of failing Edgewood Middle School is retiring and will be replaced with someone who has gone through a national principal training program, called New Leaders for New Schools.

WITH THE appointment of Robert Booker as chief executive officer of the Baltimore City Public Schools, the Board of School Commissioners has completed its most important task.Without strong, consistent and persuasive leadership, the school system will not overcome the problems that contribute to the failure of students to achieve academic success.Dr. Booker has many strengths the system needs -- extensive experience in a large, urban school system; solid grounding in the intricacies of budgets and bureaucracies, and the ability to listen and to lead.

Heartened by the release of standardized test scores showing big gains for city public school students, Baltimore schools CEO Andr?s Alonso is moving quickly to follow up with the next phase of his ambitious reform agenda. The department is closing seven more underperforming elementary and secondary schools at the same time that it expands three others that have proven successful. The changes are part of a sweeping reorganization plan unveiled in March and are aimed at speeding up the pace of measurable improvements in student performance.

State school officials are scrambling to find room for more of the hundreds of Baltimore City and Prince George's County children who want to transfer this fall from failing public schools. Baltimore received 347 applications from 30,000 children eligible for transfer under the new federal No Child Left Behind Act. The district scheduled a lottery tomorrow to fill 194 seats it says are open this fall in better schools. About 700 of the 6,000 eligible students in Prince George's applied, but the district found room for only 100. "We're not interested in being confrontational," said Ronald A. Peiffer, assistant state superintendent.

Taking advantage of recently relaxed rules, several area districts have persuaded the state to remove schools from a list of those that had failed to demonstrate "adequate yearly" academic progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The results of the appeals - based on a change in how children with learning disabilities are treated under the state's accountability program - came as a relief to school systems. Remaining on the list could subject the schools to an escalating list of sanctions that includes, ultimately, a state takeover.

With Maryland moving to take control of another one of Baltimore's failing schools, city education chief Carmen V. Russo asked the state to hold off yesterday and instead let her carve out a special district of underachieving schools that would report directly to her. Russo proposed that she be given the chance to transform a dozen city schools, including the latest one targeted for state takeover, by personally working with each to improve everything from...

Seven of the worst-performing schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore County face overhauls in the next few months. But the two districts have chosen different strategies as they attack the perplexing problem of turning around schools that have failed for many years. The county is trying the more traditional approach of sweeping away most of the staff at two of its middle schools. The city will bring in outside partners, including universities and nonprofits, to help restart four middle schools and a high school.

B altimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso has presented the city board of school commissioners with a problem of both practical and philosophical import: How long should the city wait before deciding to close charter schools that clearly aren't up to the job they were intended to do? The issue came to light at a meeting of the city school board last week, when Mr. Alonso recommend revoking the charter of the independently run, publicly financed Dr. Rayner Browne Academy, an elementary/middle school in West Baltimore that is now in its third year of operation.

It may not exactly be Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, but the nation's closest thing to a political "Odd Couple" rolls into Baltimore today when the Rev. Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich visit Kipp Ujima Village Academy and Hampstead Hill Academy charter schools as part of a nationwide tour to highlight education reform. This unusual pairing of a liberal civil rights activist with the conservative former speaker of the House provides Maryland policymakers - and all educators - an opportunity to reassess where we are in America today with the quality of education offered children attending inner-city schools.

Maryland and eight other states have set up new accountability systems under No Child Left Behind that have given more flexibility and focus to the efforts to resolve problems at schools that don't meet standards, according to a report released Thursday by the Center on Education Policy. Maryland was given permission by the U.S. Department of Education a year ago to make up its own system of accountability within the confines of the act, which requires states to have a system for testing students and then giving schools consequences if enough students don't pass those tests.

Heartened by the release of standardized test scores showing big gains for city public school students, Baltimore schools CEO Andr?s Alonso is moving quickly to follow up with the next phase of his ambitious reform agenda. The department is closing seven more underperforming elementary and secondary schools at the same time that it expands three others that have proven successful. The changes are part of a sweeping reorganization plan unveiled in March and are aimed at speeding up the pace of measurable improvements in student performance.

The hiring and then rapid resignation of Brian Morris as deputy CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools received enormous media attention over the last week. Indeed, these circumstances raise significant questions about the system's vetting and hiring processes - questions that should be taken seriously and addressed. But if our reaction escalates beyond a reasonable level, it has the potential to distract our attention from the much more important news about the city's schools: Baltimore is on the verge of becoming one of the nation's top cities for education reform.

When the Baltimore school board voted last week to close six failing schools this summer and a seventh next year, it was taking its cue from the ambitious reorganization plan of schools chief Andres Alonso. Mr. Alonso wants to close underperforming schools and open new ones that offer a better learning environment. But what makes one learning environment better than another? For Mr. Alonso, the answer was always clear: Successful schools are ones with strong, capable principals and good teachers in every classroom.