State School

Sixteen students who were involved in serious incidents of misbehavior have been told they can never return to Baltimore public schools, even as city and state school board members debate the legality of denying students an education. The city students, who are 16 or older, were permanently expelled last school year under a practice instituted last October by city schools chief Andres Alonso. Angry about the number of small fires that were being set in schools, Alonso told parents in a letter that he would permanently expel all students who were involved in arson or explosives.

Most parents of young children and education advocates may have breathed a sigh of relief last week. The House of Delegates approved a budget that was relatively kind to K-12 public schools, and the Senate may be convinced to do the same. But in the next few days, the outlook could change substantially. That's because this Wednesday is the deadline for local governments to apply for a waiver of maintenance of effort - a state law requiring them to spend as much on public schools on a per pupil basis as they did the year before.

... Maryland could use a lot more scientists and engineers, particularly those who have security clearances and graduate degrees. A Towson University analysis of the state's work force needs after the national military base realignment takes place in five years shows Maryland will have a shortage of residents to fill high-paying technical jobs. "The level of education has to go up to meet the needs," said Daraius Irani, director of applied economics at the Regional Economic Studies Institute at Towson University.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday for a new generation of legal attacks on states' public school financing systems -- claims that those systems are racially discriminatory.In a brief order, without explanation, the court turned down appeals by Pennsylvania's governor, Tom Ridge, legislative leaders and state education officials seeking to block a lawsuit by the city of Philadelphia, its school district, and children and parents in the city.That suit, which has not gone to trial, says that school funding formulas provide significantly more money to districts that have a high proportion of white students than for those where minorities are more populous.

School was probably the last thing on your mind this summer. But school safety has been on the minds of teachers, administrators, school boards, police officials -- even the president.The school shootings in Littleton, Colo., last spring got folks thinking hard about the threat of violence in schools. Of the schools we called, all of them said they had addressed safety issues in the last few months and made changes. Your school might have made changes like these:* More locked doors, meaning fewer student and public entrances.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening said yesterday he intends to increase education spending by $130 million next year -- including money to cut class sizes -- but stopped short of committing to the state school board's ambitious plan for ending social promotion and overcoming a teacher shortage.In a rare public meeting with the state school board, Glendening and schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick also disclosed that they have begun discussions with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for additional support of Maryland's education reform.

The state school board voted yesterday to require all low-performing Maryland eighth-graders to attend summer school to improve their reading and math skills, a move that could affect more than 30,000 students within two years.The board also opted for a broadly worded anti-harassment regulation, rejecting an explicit protection of gay students. It ordered educators to draw up plans for seminars to be held at schools across the state promoting safety and respect for all groups.The summer school program is part of a safety net of early help for students that the board created yesterday in preparation for the state's new high school exams in English, U.S. government, math and other subjects.

"We may adjust the time limits on reaching the goal, but we're not likely to adjust the goal."-- Nancy S. Grasmick, state superintendent of schools, commenting on overall gains in the annual Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests and the likelihood that, despite continuing improvement, they would not reach achievement goals set for 2000"We have high poverty, yet we're doing real well. This is a breakthrough year. Every school has something to brag about."-- Allegany County Superintendent John O'Connell, whose school system has had the second-highest point gain among Maryland's counties"In some sense this isn't a totally happy day. Any of us in the upper group can't feel very good as long as Baltimore City is where it is in the scoring.

There's more than just UMThe letter from John Shapiro (Nov. 1) calls the University of Maryland's "our state school's basketball program."If he means state-funded school, what happened to the Baltimore area's Coppin, Morgan and Towson, or others in the state such as Salisbury, Bowie, Frostburg, etc.? How about equal coverage for all.Just who ordained UM as the state school?Harry E. Bennett Jr.BaltimoreStop bashing RavensWe all know that the Cleveland Browns were in dire financial straits when they moved here.

Critics of Maryland's public school systems urged legislators yesterday to "get back to basics" and pass a bill making phonics the state's primary method of reading instruction.In sometimes emotional testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, phonics advocates argued that public schools have done irreparable harm to children by clinging to failed methods of reading instruction."When you can't read, you feel ashamed. You think you're stupid," said Conrae Fortlage, who said she has been afflicted by spelling and reading problems as a result of a nonphonics "whole language" curriculum.

Sixteen students who were involved in serious incidents of misbehavior have been told they can never return to Baltimore public schools, even as city and state school board members debate the legality of denying students an education. The city students, who are 16 or older, were permanently expelled last school year under a practice instituted last October by city schools chief Andres Alonso. Angry about the number of small fires that were being set in schools, Alonso told parents in a letter that he would permanently expel all students who were involved in arson or explosives.

Local and state officials are at odds over who is responsible for conducting background investigations as they seek a replacement for former Baltimore school board chairman Brian D. Morris. Most involved suggest it is someone else's job to search for the kind of troubling history of bad debts and court judgments that led Morris to resign last week from a $175,000-a-year system job, which he received after serving for six years on the city school board. Gov. Martin O'Malley's office says the state school board is responsible.

Maryland and 45 other states have agreed to develop a common set of academic standards for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, a national shift away from local control over schools that seemed unlikely even a few years ago. The agreement signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley and state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick was led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It would only commit Maryland and the other states to craft a common core vision for what every student should know in math and reading, but it is a step that is expected to eventually lead to the adoption of national standards and tests.

A decade after the state began putting in place a more rigorous standard for getting a high school diploma, only 2 percent or less of the senior class will not be walking across the stage because they failed to pass the requirement, which is in its first year. State education officials said yesterday that the latest data show about 1,275 students out of a class of 54,000 probably won't graduate in June because they haven't passed the four subject tests or done projects to make up for their lack of knowledge in those subjects.

Most parents of young children and education advocates may have breathed a sigh of relief last week. The House of Delegates approved a budget that was relatively kind to K-12 public schools, and the Senate may be convinced to do the same. But in the next few days, the outlook could change substantially. That's because this Wednesday is the deadline for local governments to apply for a waiver of maintenance of effort - a state law requiring them to spend as much on public schools on a per pupil basis as they did the year before.

With three months left in the school year, more than 8 percent of Maryland seniors are at risk of not graduating, education officials said Tuesday in releasing the first precise count of how well the Class of 2009 is meeting the High School Assessments. This year's seniors are the first who have been required to pass four tests in biology, English II, American government and algebra or do extra projects to prove they have mastered the material before getting a diploma. Despite the large number - 4,660 students in a class of 53,000 - officials told the state school board that they are confident that most will qualify by retaking tests in April or May, completing the projects or getting waivers.

Maryland's schools won another gold star this week when the College Board reported that the state ranked first in the percentage of high school seniors scoring well on the Advanced Placement tests, which entitle students to college credits at many higher-education institutions. The accolades will surely please state school officials, who have touted the progress the state has made in recent years. But like similarly upbeat assessments of state graduation rates and student achievement levels last month by the journal Education Week, the report shouldn't distract attention from the serious challenges the state still faces, particularly in its most troubled school districts.

Maryland education officials said they will wait until late October to release detailed data on how many seniors in each county and school risk not graduating in June because they have not passed the High School Assessments. The delay pushes back the time when the state school board can take up the issue of whether to adjust the test policy for the Class of 2009, the first graduating class that is being required to pass exams to graduate. The data, which was expected this month, is not ready, state officials said, because local school districts have not given the state complete files on each student in the class and where he or she stands academically.

A record $3.3 billion in new local and state school spending during the past five years largely has gone toward the hiring of new teachers, raising salaries and lowering the ratio of students to teachers, according to a new report to the Maryland General Assembly. At the same time, the number of students passing state reading and math tests has increased in every county. Those increases have been significant even for minority and special-education students and particularly for students learning English for the first time.

Gov. Martin O'Malley called longtime state schools chief Nancy S. Grasmick "a pawn of the Republican Party" yesterday, and other top Democrats said she should resign, indicating on the opening day of this year's legislative session that they might make good on threats to force her out. In his first public comments about Grasmick since she was reappointed by the state Board of Education, O'Malley criticized her support for the federal No Child Left Behind...