Marchione

On the day that Baltimore County Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione announced he would retire next summer, county school board members set an ambitious goal to begin a nationwide search and hire a new education chief by early next year."

Baltimore County Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione is expected to announce today that he will retire at the end of the coming academic year as head of the nation's 25th largest school system.The retirement of the 67-year-old veteran educator would set off a nationwide search for a replacement that could take months. Several of the county's top education administrators could compete with outside candidates for the $128,750-a-year job.School officials and others expect an announcement to come today at an annual meeting of district administrators, ending months of speculation about Marchione, who rose from a Baltimore County math teacher to top administrator.

Test results released yesterday show a three-year, upward trend by Baltimore County first- and second-graders -- evidence, officials say, that the school system's emphasis on phonics and more one-on-one instruction in reading is paying off.Eighty-seven percent of the county's second-grade pupils were reading at or above grade level this spring, compared with 80 percent in 1997, while 88 percent of the first-graders were reading at that level, compared with...

The Baltimore County Council hammered the county's top school officials yesterday for allowing key vacancies to stay open for months as the county plans to spend millions on school construction projects."

The Baltimore County Council grilled the county's top school officials yesterday about why they need $6.1 million more than they originally requested to run the schools this year.Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione said that the deficit -- discovered in December -- is largely the result of excessive costs for personnel and special education.But council members peppered Marchione with questions during a work session yesterday about why he didn't alert them sooner than January about the deficit, whether administrative cuts would cover it and who is responsible for the shortfall.

For the first time in almost two decades, Baltimore County educators say they may have to close some elementary schools because of dwindling enrollment, perhaps shutting them down as early as fall 2000.While schools in the western, northeastern and northwestern areas of the county are bursting with students, enrollment has been steadily dropping in such southeast areas as Dundalk and Edgemere."We have enrollment declines in the southeast area, and there are some schools that we may need to consider closing," said schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione.

ANTHONY G. Marchione, the Baltimore County school superintendent, should be commended for his proposal to pay $3,500 "educational excellence stipends" to experienced teachers who teach in the system's lowest-performing schools.Compensating employees who tackle tougher assignments isn't revolutionary in most fields. Heart surgeons earn more than other physicians. Chefs make more than cooks.The correlation between how hard a job is and how much it pays is often backward in education, where systems with the greatest resources and support -- such as Montgomery and Howard counties -- pay much more than Baltimore City, where poverty can make a teacher's job harder.

More than half of Baltimore County's 101 elementary schools would receive extra teachers for beginning reading classes under the class-size reduction plan announced last week by schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione.The written plan -- presented to the school board during its budget work session -- would assign 80 teachers across the county to allow smaller reading classes in grades one to three.The school system also would spend $160,000 to complete the purchase of a standard set of beginning readers for all elementary schools.

Hoping to take advantage of the governor's plans to reduce class size, Baltimore County schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione proposed last night adding 50 math and reading teachers to next year's budget.Marchione also added 23 special education teachers to his spending plan for 1999-2000, which means that his proposed budget has 168 more classroom positions than this year's budget.The proposals were made at the start of the school board's work session on the operating budget for next year.

Trying to keep veteran teachers, Baltimore County schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione proposed yesterday a $681 million spending plan for 1999-2000 that includes substantial pay raises for teachers with more than 15 years' experience.The budget -- which seeks a 5.6 percent increase -- includes a plan to give $3,500 stipends to 100 experienced teachers to work in lower-performing schools that suffer from high staff turnover."The presence of experienced and highly skilled teachers in every classroom is very important to continuous school improvement," Marchione said.