Tenure

In response to the Sun's editorial "Not No. 1 in reform" (Dec. 22), why not make the National Board Certification for teachers the litmus for teacher tenure in Maryland? Teachers cannot sit for the National Board Certification until they have completed three full years of teaching in the same school district and must submit a portfolio, which should include video recordings, examples of student work and documentation of accomplishments outside the classroom that impact student learning.

The first months of a college athletic director's tenure are typically spent getting a feel for the landscape. For Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson, his first seven months included leading a major overhaul that included the messy divorce with a popular football coach who also happens to be an alum and the sudden retirement of one of the country's most respected men's basketball coaches. Add to that the decision to eliminate as many as eight teams. A little more than a year after Anderson replaced Debbie Yow, and you get a feeling of - if not quite have some sympathy for - what he has faced since coming here from Army in October of 2010.

T. Rowe Price portfolio manager David R. Giroux has spent more than a quarter of his life working at the Baltimore company and plans to spend many more years there. Giroux joined Price as an associate analyst after graduating from college in 1998. Now 35, he still doesn't see himself anywhere else. "Everyone says the grass is greener on the other side, but I don't think that's true here," said Giroux, who manages the company's $11 billion Capital Appreciation Fund, a mutual fund known for its conservative approach.

The nomadic professional baseball career of Orioles left-hander Dana Eveland has seen its share of spring training sites. When the 28-year-old pitcher arrived at the Ed Smith Stadium Complex last weekend, it marked Eveland's seventh stint with a big league organization in as many years. The Orioles hope Eveland, acquired in a trade with the Dodgers during this offseason's winter meetings for a pair of prospects, has found his form. Eveland - on the other hand - hopes he's found a home.

A proposal to make Maryland's teachers wait longer before receiving job protection - a change that officials say might help the state gain federal funding - is sparking a debate over how to elevate the quality of the teaching profession. Some educators say that tenure should be reserved only for those teachers a school system is willing to invest in for decades and that new teachers should be given far more training and mentoring. The legislation to change teacher tenure was introduced last week by Gov. Martin O'Malley after being proposed by schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, who believes it will help the state's chances of getting federal Race to the Top funding.

In response to state Sen. Paul Pinsky's opinion piece ("A flawed '50% formula,'" May 4). I agree with his concern for an honest discussion about fairly evaluating Maryland teachers' performance. However, the telling point in his piece was about the tenure threshold being raised from two to three years. In a high stakes performance based career such as teaching I see absolutely no rationale for "tenure" being given. Period. As a parent in Montgomery County I've seen the difficulty of principals' being unable to fire or demote longstanding low performing teachers.

Some education leaders and advocates say they are concerned a proposal that would change the tenure law for teachers in Maryland might backfire and make it more difficult to get rid of ineffective teachers early in their careers. Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso said this week that he is worried that "a bill that was intended to make tenure more meaningful is actually making tenure meaningless." The proposal would extend from two years to three the time Maryland teachers must put in before receiving tenure and is part of a larger education reform act introduced by Gov. Martin O'Malley.

JERUSALEM -- Ariel Sharon's outsized brown leather chair sat empty at his Cabinet's table for the last time yesterday as government ministers formally ended the stricken Israeli leader's tenure as prime minister. By a unanimous vote, the Cabinet declared Sharon, who has been in a coma since suffering a devastating stroke Jan. 4, to be permanently incapacitated. The vote was a formality, spurred by legal necessity. Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, assumed the duties of office the night the 78-year-old leader suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke.

IN SELECTING a mutual fund, investors have been known to look at almost everything, from past performance and star ratings to cost structure, tax-efficiency to turnover, quality of the parent company to background of the manager. That last category, the one where investors gauge the manager, may be the most subjective. Judging a manager may come down to an impression gleaned from a television interview or a snippet from a magazine article or a fund's promotional brochure. But a recent study completed by Morningstar.

Patricia Burt and Shirley Fleischmann came as outsiders to the all-male engineering faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy. But it wasn't until they were up for tenure that their sex became an issue.Even though they felt comfortable teaching at an institution where nine out of 10 students are men, both professors say they are convinced they were denied tenure solely because of their sex and have filed federal discrimination complaints.The complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have triggered a review of the promotion rates of female employees at the academy by the Navy's Office of Civilian Personnel Management that is to start this week.

A significant issue that permeates higher education is the need for better preparation for a substantial sector of the instructional workforce: occasional, part-time, and non-tenure-track instructors, known generally as adjunct faculty. Most colleges and universities rely upon this group to offer numerous courses to both undergraduate and graduate students, since it offers universities a means to serve a rapidly growing number of students in a cost-effective manner. However, little attention has been paid to ensure that adjunct faculty members have the tools they need to be effective in the classroom, and this cohort is often viewed as an appendage rather than as a vital component of a campus community.

The councilman wouldn't return their calls. Shirley Supik and her husband, Jeff, were trying to stop Baltimore County from tearing down the historic former Underground Railroad safe house they own. So, Jeff Supik stuck a note on the front door of Councilman Kenneth Oliver's home. The politician called them, angry that the man had gone to his house, but he quickly changed his tone. "[My husband] said, 'I am a constituent and I need help. And you didn't answer my call, and I was desperate,'" Shirley Supik recalled of the encounter about five years ago. "And Councilman Oliver said, 'You are right.

June 20, 2007 - Orioles announce his hiring as president of baseball operations. The son of former Orioles general manager and Hall of Fame executive Lee MacPhail, Andy returns to the city where he lived as a boy from 1958 to 1965. Aug. 22, 2007 - Decides to remove interim tag from manager Dave Trembley, MacPhail's first noteworthy personnel move. After the news conference, the Orioles promptly lose the first game of a doubleheader, 30-3, to the Texas Rangers, the most lopsided defeat in club history.

Imagine if your employer of 35 years called you in to let you know that your job was being "eliminated" and that your work would be shifted to another, slightly different position. But don't worry, they reassure you; you can apply for one of the new positions — that is, if you can pass a few tests, one of which is a "behavioral test" that includes questions like, "If you lost your job, would you consider suicide?" The behavioral test will help them, your employer explains, to decide if you are the right kind of person for the position with the fancy new corporate title.

The inability of the Orioles' rotation to go deep into games claimed its first victim of 2011: left-handed reliever Clay Rapada . The lefty specialist who was 0-0 with a 7.30 ERA in 22 appearances this season was designated for assignment Wednesday when the Orioles activated Alfredo Simon from the 15-day disabled list. Although efficient against left-handed hitters, Rapada became expendable because the Orioles need to keep several long relievers around because of a rotation that has pitched seven full innings just once in 23 June games.

Placido Domingo, as usual, is in full multitask mode as he wraps up his 15-year tenure as general director of Washington National Opera. The famed Spanish tenor has seven more performances to sing as Oreste in the company's first-ever production of Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride," which opened last Friday. He'll also switch gears to conduct five performances of Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," which opens this Friday. At 70, Domingo could be pursuing an enviable, pampered life of leisure, but that's a thoroughly alien concept to him. Besides, he gives every indication of thriving on packed schedules like the one he has this month in Washington.

A state appeals court reversed yesterday an $822,000 judgment awarded by a Baltimore Circuit Court jury to two professors who sued after they were fired by Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1994.The Court of Special Appeals ruled that Drs. Samuel B. Ritter and A. Rebecca Snider were never offered tenure when they were recruited in 1993 and were owed no explanations when they were fired.Dr. Frank Oski, the hospital's director of pediatrics, clearly was in no position to offer tenure when he recruited Ritter from Cornell and Snider from Duke University, the court ruled.

A national report on teacher quality gave Maryland a barely passing grade yesterday, saying teachers are tenured too easily and dismissed with great difficulty. Maryland is one of seven states that give tenure to teachers after two years of teaching, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality. The nonprofit, nonpartisan, Washington-based group is headed by Kate Walsh, who was appointed to the Maryland state Board of Education by Gov. Martin O'Malley in July. "Tenure is effectively automatic," Walsh said.

T. Rowe Price portfolio manager David R. Giroux has spent more than a quarter of his life working at the Baltimore company and plans to spend many more years there. Giroux joined Price as an associate analyst after graduating from college in 1998. Now 35, he still doesn't see himself anywhere else. "Everyone says the grass is greener on the other side, but I don't think that's true here," said Giroux, who manages the company's $11 billion Capital Appreciation Fund, a mutual fund known for its conservative approach.

No one knows how many bull-and-oyster roasts they've held at the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Company in Severna Park. After 92 years, it can be tough to keep track. Even Bill Weitzell scratches his head at the question, and he knows as much about this kind of thing as anybody. "To be honest, I'm not sure," says Weitzell, a Severna Park resident who joined the company when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, gas cost 10 cents a gallon and a fireman was lucky if his rescue ladder reached the roof of a two-story house.