School Funding

A friendly discussion between the school board and County Commissioners resulted in a tentative compromise yesterday over Elmer Wolfe Elementary School.The commissioners remain firm in refusing $42,000 for a courtyard amphitheater, but might allow $64,000 worth of shelving to be restored to the building project.Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown wants to see the shelving request in detail before he decides on it.The cordial atmosphere prevailed even though the commissioners were exercising a greater degree of control than in past years, and over a relatively small portion of the $145 million school budget.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer told nearly 2,000 members of the BUILD civic activist group that they have one more chance to see statewide equity in school funding become a reality."

The State Board of Education was right to reject Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold's attempt to evade the spirit of a law that prevents local jurisdictions from slacking off in their support for public schools. Protest though he might that he had done nothing wrong, Mr. Leopold's budget for the current fiscal year provided less money to support classroom education than in the year before, and had his effort been allowed to stand, that difference - amounting to about $12 million a year - would have been cemented into perpetuity.

Contending they have been victims of too few dollars for education, city students lay like corpses yesterday on the sidewalk across from the Baltimore Street offices of the State Department of Education. They were mimicking a recent anti-smoking television ad, in which body bags are heaped onto a street to symbolize people who die from tobacco-related disease. But the message yesterday was different: "No education, no life." Before dropping to the ground, more than 50 students also marched in a circle and chanted slogans protesting what they consider the "starving" of their cash-strapped schools.

Mayor Martin O'Malley pledged yesterday to spend at least $250 million a year on statewide school construction if he is elected governor and said he would propose borrowing money if necessary to pay for it. Standing next to four classroom trailers outside Germantown Elementary School in Annapolis, O'Malley said Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has failed to provide a long-term commitment to school construction and renovation, resulting in difficult and sometimes...

State and city officials are continuing to resist a judge's order that they find an additional $30 million to $45 million in funding to hire more personnel and provide more services in city schools this academic year. That amount is being unlawfully withheld from the schools, according to Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan, because the state is underfunding city schools by millions of dollars, and the city and school system have designed a harsh cost-cutting plan to eliminate a $58 million schools budget deficit.

The scene in the colorful kindergarten room at City Neighbors Charter School in Northeast Baltimore seems straight out of the 1990s, when children didn't learn to read until first grade. The kids play make-believe and draw pictures on erasable boards, while a teacher stacks mats for napping. The organizers of City Neighbors made the choice to be different from the nearby public school because they wanted to give children more time to grow. But that autonomy came after a lot of work.

The long-running feud over money between Howard County's government and schools may be quelled under a new effort launched by a prominent local businessman.Donald Manekin, senior vice president and partner of Manekin Corp., quietly has been gathering support among public officials and community leaders for the creation of a countywide "vehicle for dialogue" on education funding.The idea is still in its formative stages but likely would involve regular, noncombative discussions and planning sessions among representatives of the schools, county executive's office, County Council, business community, parents and teachers.

The state Senate's powerful budget chief said yesterday that he may sponsor legislation that would attempt to force Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to restore nearly $50 million he trimmed from a popular public school aid program. Sen. Ulysses Currie, chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee, said he will propose legislation to require the governor to include in the budget money to alleviate cost disparities among the state's school districts -- unless the Education Department submits a bill doing the same.

No sooner had Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold unveiled his proposed budget for next year than Superintendent Kevin Maxwell was complaining that the schools were being shortchanged by $12 million. It was the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the two men over what it really means for the county to maintain its state requirements for school funding. It's not entirely clear which one is right about the law. But what is clear is that the General Assembly was right to approve legislation this year adding specificity and teeth to its maintenance of effort law. The argument between Messrs.