School Districts

The chief justice's comment came in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision last week that sharply limits the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools. Roberts said school officials in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., had failed to show that their plans considered race in the context of a larger educational concept, and therefore did not meet a standard set in Brown v. Board of Education, the historic 1954 desegregation decision. ?The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race.

WASHINGTON -- It may have been purely coincidental that the Supreme Court banned the use of race to achieve racial diversity in public schools only hours before the year's first presidential debate to focus on minority issues. Coincidence or not, the Supremes could hardly have handed Democratic candidates a better issue with which to energize their liberal base. In a 5-4 decision Thursday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declared that public school systems cannot use a student's race to achieve or maintain integration.

Legislators gave a skeptical reception yesterday to an advocacy group's claim that state funding to help children at risk of academic failure is going instead to teacher salaries, heating bills and other general expenses. Advocates for Children and Youth briefed lawmakers on a report the group released last week saying that while the state has sent an extra $500 million to school districts to help educate at-risk students, the districts are spending less money on programs targeted to them.

Somerset County school officials insist that the arrests of 15 students at Crisfield High School in recent months were justified. Some incidents have been challenged by parents as excessive and have been brought to the attention of the Maryland attorney general's office and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Although none of the arrests has yet been found to be improper, they point to a breakdown in school disciplinary practices and the need for broader school-community efforts to provide supports for students.

American youths are so out of shape and childhood obesity has reached such alarming proportions that almost anything schools can do to encourage more physical fitness is welcome. So an effort by Maryland's General Assembly to require more school time for physical education deserves consideration - though it's too bad it takes a state law to get schoolchildren hopping, jumping and running around. In fact, good physical health, which is a product of exercise, contributes to academic performance.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton scrambled yesterday to pull the nation's governors behind his proposal to link federal education aid to school and student performance, as a growing chorus of skeptics questioned whether the idea would simply multiply the federal regulations governing local school districts.Clinton met with 53 state and territorial governors at the White House to promote a proposal that could prove to be the most dramatic change in federal education funding since the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s.

IF THEY haven't already, school systems now must take sexual harassment seriously.The Supreme Court last week made school districts liable for damages if they ignore complaints of severe, pervasive sexual harassment by students.Last year, the high court ruled that schools could be liable if teachers harassed students. Now schools must also be prepared to discipline students for harassment and develop programs that promote appropriate behavior.Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the court's majority, asserted that a federal law, which bars sexual discrimination in schools and colleges receiving federal money, also covers sexual discrimination when it creates a hostile learning environment.

NEW YORK -- Most school districts applauded last week's congressional agreement to set aside more than $1 billion for the hiring of additional teachers to reduce class sizes next year. But their experience this fall in spending a similar federal windfall has shown that it takes more than money to put an effective teacher in front of a classroom.In some cases, just finding the classroom has been a struggle.This fall, school districts began spending $1.2 billion that President Clinton and Congress allocated to poor and overcrowded districts as the first installment of Clinton's seven-year plan intended to recruit as many as 100,000 elementary school teachers.

WASHINGTON -- More than a third of the nation's public schools, colleges and universities remain unprepared for the havoc the year 200 computer problem could cause in their computerized systems, the U.S. Department of Education reported yesterday.In a random survey conducted last month, the department found that about 60 percent of the schools were Y2K compliant, but the percentage of school districts saying they won't be Y2K-ready by Jan. 1 has doubled since summer.If the computer problems are not corrected, the department said, everything from a school's payroll records, bus schedules and heating systems to sprinkler systems could malfunction.

MARYLAND faces a growing shortage of qualified teachers that couldn't come at a worse time. Appalling deficiencies in two major school districts -- Baltimore City and Prince George's County -- and a surge of teachers nearing retirement make it imperative that more bright college students become Maryland teachers.A Glendening administration bill creating a $3,000 scholarship for B-average students who agree to teach in Maryland public schools after graduation is a welcome step. While the stipend won't pay full education costs, it would cover more than 60 percent of tuition and fees at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Most school districts find something that works for one particular teacher for one particular group of kids and then try to force everyone to apply it, as if teachers were robots and kids were interchangeable. It doesn't often result in high-quality education, but it sure makes life easier for central office bureaucrats. Education is supposed to involve professionals building relationships with kids. Good teachers in good schools get to know their students and then figure out what works for those kids.

President Barack Obama is relying heavily on educators to pull the country out of its economic doldrums, and Maryland will soon receive $210 million in federal stimulus dollars for local school districts. Acknowledging that the huge federal package needs a jump-start of its own, Obama on Monday announced an accelerated spending timetable for a variety of programs, including money for 135,000 teachers, principals and support staff nationwide. While the administration portrayed the announcement as a new initiative, school systems across the state were already prepared to spend federal money.

Six Maryland schools were scheduled to reopen Wednesday morning after state health officials, relying on advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, decided the severity of the swine flu outbreak did not warrant keeping students at home. The decision to reopen the sites reflects a deeper understanding of the virus and its potential to spread quickly beyond schools. "It is no longer necessary to keep schools closed," said John M. Colmers, state secretary of health and mental hygiene.

There is a disconnect in the American education system. Blacks and Hispanics drop out of school in huge numbers, leading to high incarceration rates. Meanwhile, the schools impose a one-size-fits-all curriculum that envisions four-year college as a universal goal and marginalizes and minimizes alternative career paths. It's time to connect the dots. Real reform, especially in large urban school districts, cannot occur until we recognize the reality that many students will not attend a four-year college - and provide alternative avenues to success for those students.

Maryland schools are expected to get about $1.1 billion over the next two years from the federal stimulus package that President Barack Obama is scheduled to sign today, an amount that is expected to offset any state reductions in education aid needed to balance the budget. Most of the money - about $721 million - is intended to prevent cuts to school programs, giving the state significant flexibility in how it is used. Education advocates had worried that the aid would be earmarked in ways that would have prevented Maryland from using it to reverse planned budget cuts.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget chief is recommending a $37.9 million cut to many of the state's largest school districts in the middle of the academic year, The Baltimore Sun has learned. If cuts were applied evenly to the 13 affected districts, Baltimore would get $6.5 million less from the state this year, according to the proposal now being studied by O'Malley. Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Howard counties would sustain cuts of $1.5 million or more. The cut would help the state close a $415 million gap in its current budget, which has been battered by declining revenues linked to the national economic downturn.

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.

A sweeping, sometimes controversial set of reforms to turn around embattled Annapolis High School won the approval of the Maryland State Board of Education yesterday, staving off threats of state intervention. The board backed the three-year restructuring plan by Anne Arundel County school officials, and a report prepared for the board gave high marks to Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell's initiative last year forcing all 193 staff members - from custodians to the principal - to reapply for their jobs.

A new report confirms complaints that a lot of teachers and school districts have voiced about the federal No Child Left Behind law - that the focus on reading and math doesn't leave enough time for other subjects, such as social studies, art and music. It's a dilemma that didn't originate with NCLB but has been exacerbated by it. The best solution is to recognize, as Maryland does, that exposure to a variety of subjects is what constitutes a well-rounded education. According to the Center on Education Policy, more than 60 percent of school districts have increased instruction time in elementary schools for either or both English language arts and math since 2001-2002, just before NCLB was enacted - and 44 percent have done so at the expense of other subjects.

In a report outlining where Maryland can make the smartest investments to prepare for the influx of people associated with the military base realignment and closure (BRAC) process, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and a government-wide committee sensibly focused on education, along with transportation. Getting people around the state more easily - particularly on improved public transportation - is essential. And preparing more students for BRAC-related jobs is also critical. At the least, it will require honoring existing commitments for education spending.