Improving Schools

Here is an educational dozen, 12 proposals to candidates for office in Anne Arundel: Fund an effort to get [low-income] parents to read stories to their preschool children. Traditionalize open space schools. Put floor-to-ceiling walls around each classroom. Air-condition the 47 schools that don't have it. When students in a non-AC school must take a high-stakes test, bus them to a school with AC. Convert excess school buildings into "academies" for chronically disruptive students. Put a lab of 35 computers in each elementary school that has many [low-income]

When urban school districts have used incentives to get teachers to improve test scores, we got improved test scores, but in many cases as a result of widespread cheating (remember Atlanta). Now, Baltimore City has proposed the same kind of incentive system for teachers to reduce the number of suspensions ("City trying bonuses to cut rate of suspension," Jan. 15). An incentive system seems to be a strange solution to a problem that is clearly about school climate. Teachers and schools need help and support for developing strong school climates and in dealing with students, communities, and families.

When Middle River Middle School Principal David L. Lloyd learned yesterday that his school had won $70,375 from the state in recognition of improved academic performance, his eyes opened wide with surprise. "I knew we were going to be an award winner, but this is a complete surprise," he said from his seat in a banquet hall at the Holiday Inn Select in Timonium. "As soon as I get back [to school], I'm going to tell the staff." Lloyd was one of 11 Baltimore County principals whose schools received cash bonuses from the Maryland State Department of Education yesterday as part of an annual recognition program that spotlights schools that have posted improved scores on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests, as well as other benchmarks.

A decade after passage of a federal law requiring statewide school assessments, nearly 90 percent of Maryland's elementary students are passing their reading and math tests, but that success does not continue when students hit middle school. Last school year, 69 percent of students passed the math tests in eighth grade, up nearly 3 percentage points from the year before. Achievement in reading was at 79.8 percent. Middle school math scores were the low point in the latest Maryland School Assessment results, released Tuesday by the state, and are likely to be a focus of attention for a number of school systems in the coming months.

In a precedent-setting meeting, the entire Carroll County schools staff -- at about 2,200, the largest group of employees in the county -- will gather today to hear a national specialist on improving schools.The meeting will be at Western Maryland College's Gill Physical Education Learning Center.Another 200 parents and community members have been invited as well.Yesterday, 350 teachers and parents who are on the individual school improvement teams attended an all-day talk with the specialist, Larry Lezotte, at the college.

Cheer up. Now Pakistan can defend itself against India.If only Hizzoner would put the verve he exhibits for Rehrmann to use improving schools, cleaning streets, insuring safety, keeping jobs and purging waste, he could be some mayor.Republican big guns are out helping Ellen S. They know a winner when they see Democrats determined to lose.Keep those imperial rubles. The czar will rise again.Pub Date: 5/29/98

WHEN A STORY broke recently that Baltimore school officials were considering adapting the Calvert School's curriculum for use in every elementary school in the city system, no one should have been surprised to see Robert C. Embry Jr.'s name attached to the proposal. Mr. Embry is a man of many ideas -- and, as president of the Abell Foundation, he is in a position to back many of them with funds. When it comes to Baltimore City Public Schools, from which he graduated and in which his own children are being educated, Mr. Embry is nothing if not impassioned.

President Bush asked students last week to write letters with ideas for improving schools. Here's your chance to let the president know how you think your school can be better.We're interested in those suggestions, too. Send us a letter. We'll put together some of the best recommendations and print them in the paper in mid-October.Mail letters by Monday night to: School Ideas, Morning Features, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21278, or call our Sundial number until 9 p.m. Monday. Using a touch-tone phone, call 783-1800 (or 268-7736 from Anne Arundel County)

Hey, kids, let President Bush know how you think your school can improve. The president asked students Tuesday to write letters with ideas for improving schools -- and we're interested in those suggestions, too.Send us a letter and we'll put together some of the best recommendations and print them in the paper in mid-October.Mail letters by Monday night to: School Ideas, Morning Features, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21278, or call our Sundial number until 9 p.m. Monday. Using a touch-tone phone, call 783-1800 (or 268-7736 from Anne Arundel County)

Two-thirds of Baltimore County's schools will be honored todayfor high achievement and for making substantial improvements on state test scores and beginning reading skills.In a breakfast ceremony at Martin's Eastwind, the school system will hold its third annual schools recognition ceremony -- an academic pep rally to recognize the county's high-achieving schools and encourage them to keep improving.Thirty-eight county elementary schools will be lauded for substantial improvements in first-grade reading scores, and 43 elementaries will be recognized for their gains in second-grade reading performance.

Liz Bowie is to be acknowledged for her article about Dundalk High School ("Slow turnaround," Aug 28). It was quite extensive and also shows The Sun's commitment to education. While the article was primarily about Dundalk High School, much of the experience is applicable to the national issue. Ms. Bowie stated, "The children came to school with more needs than ever before. " This is a growing trend in American schools. Instead of programs that address our nation's high poverty and incarceration rates, the answer seems to be in the principal's desire to get "teachers who would ... be mentors for students who didn't get all they needed at home.

As Erica Green reported in The Sun ("Tests to decide staff fate at 5 city schools," March 10), five city schools are slated for overhaul if their MSA scores do not improve. Under the punitive system set up by No Child Left Behind, many more schools are set to join them across the country. Arne Duncan has said that No Child Left Behind has resulted in labeling more and more schools as failing, prompting him to advocate for changes in the law. But whether we change No Child Left Behind or not, the answer to improving schools is to improve the quality of teachers in them.

Five Baltimore City schools are taking Maryland School Assessments this week with hopes of not only increasing their scores, but raising them enough to meet federally mandated achievement targets that will save the jobs of teachers and staff next year. The city school board approved recommendations Tuesday that would replace staff at schools that don't meet achievement targets on standardized tests this year, a measure that led to an intense debate about school upheavals spurred by targets that many education officials say are becoming more unattainable every year.

Hiring new teachers and buying classroom technology are among the ways that Anne Arundel County school officials are planning to spend their chunk of approximately $33 million in federal stimulus funding earmarked for the school system. The largest portion of the windfall - about $18 million - will fund special education students in the form of technology for classrooms and the hiring of teachers and aides. The school system will receive about $9 million this year and next year. "We're just trying to use it as quickly and efficiently as we can and get it out in the economy," said Susan Bowen, director of budgets and finance for the county schools.

City schools chief Andr?s Alonso will receive a $29,000 performance bonus for the 2008-2009 academic year, the chairman of the school board said Thursday. The board-approved bonus, which is the same as the previous year's, rewards the strides Alonso has made in improving the district, including its recent exit from "corrective action," rising enrollment and a lower dropout rate, Chairman Neil E. Duke said in a letter. The board met earlier this month to discuss the matter and reaffirmed its decision in the past day or so, Duke said in an interview.

Irona Pope, a street-savvy community activist who defended East Baltimore schoolchildren, died of a blood infection Tuesday at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Lakeside resident was 69. Born Irona Elizabeth Lee in Baltimore, she was raised in the old Fort Holabird and Lafayette Court public housing developments and was a 1958 Dunbar High School graduate. She earned an associate's degree from Baltimore City Community College and a bachelor's degree from Sojourner-Douglass College. When her children were attending public school in the 1960s, she volunteered as a cafeteria aide.

When teams from various schools visited a "design fair" in Baltimore County earlier this month, they saw the fruits of many years of effort. By adopting new performance and assessment standards, Maryland has set the stage for schools across the state to embrace new approaches to teaching and learning. One major reward is the fact that a national school reform effort has DTC selected Maryland as one of the first four states deemed eligible to benefit from new models for improving schools without large expenditures of money.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush plans to stake his claim to be the "education president" by proposing national student testing, a federal program of research and development contracts to invent new kinds of public schools, and a plan for schools to provide children with a range of social services, administration officials said yesterday.The wide-ranging proposal, to be announced Thursday, is a bid not only to change U.S. education but also to seize the Democrats' best political issue. For two years Democrats have scoffed at Mr. Bush's speeches on education while they steadily proposed bigger expenditures for existing federal programs.

Sara Neufeld's recent three-part profile of Baltimore Schools CEO Andr?s Alonso uses the frame of a single charismatic personality to turn much-needed attention to urban school systems' ongoing struggles to meet the educational needs of their most underserved students ("Andr?s Alonso," Feb. 8- Feb. 10). Throughout the series, she returns to perhaps the central reason why city schools in Baltimore - and in so many other urban centers nationwide - continue to languish: the perception that, as Ms. Neufeld writes, "things are as they always will be."

Something is happening in the Baltimore public schools that has been missing for a long time. Enrollment is rising and attendance at school fairs is heavy, as a new constituency of families demonstrates willingness to bet on our public schools - putting their children's futures on the line. We see, too, a rising tide of hope for and faith in our schools among our civic, philanthropic and business leaders. Families and business leaders alike are inspired by an energetic schools CEO who demands accountability, and is getting results - like record gains on standardized test scores at all grade levels, and the lowest dropout rates and highest graduation rates since the state began keeping records in 1996.