The issue of whether we are suspending too many students in Maryland schools has hit a chord with readers. Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about how to discipline children and what misbehavior should be grounds for a suspension.

Yesterday, The Sun ran two stories I wrote about the subject. I report that the state's public schools are now suspending one in 11 students every year, and blacks and boys are twice as likely to be suspended as their peers. A number of readers responded to the story on the paper's Web site, saying that they believe too few students are being suspended.  

"I get the feeling you want us to feel sorry for these kids. We need more detention centers, bring back the draft, keep them seperated from good kids. We all know if you play in dirt, you will get dirty," one person wrote.

Another comment: "That that the headline on the story was wrong. It should read:'Thousands of Md. students are suspended each year, often those who should be on death row....'"

Those comments come from people who clearly believe in harsh punishment. Many others expressed the view that it is better to sacrifice the education of misbehaving students for the good of all the students in a classroom who want to learn.

So what should schools do if they have large numbers of students who are talking back or disrespectful of authority?

It is up to parents to teach their children to respect authority and to behave correctly, but what do you do if a child doesn't have a parent who is capable of doing that? What if the parent is on drugs or abdicating his or her responsiblity? Do you throw away the child? What is the responsibility of the community in those cases?

Several school systems are using old-fashioned, common-sense approaches, and others have tried new tactics. Carroll County schools don't send students home for poor behavior; they make you come to school on Saturday. Now there is an incentive to be good! And Anne Arundel County officials are trying in several schools to focus on the students with the worst behavior, figuring that if they can help them get under control, classroom teachers will be able to teach.

It is interesting to note that the KIPP middle school in Baltimore has very strict discipline. No student is allowed to be disrespectful or to act out without a consequence, but the school suspends very few students every year. Its solution is to require students to stay late after school -- sometimes as late as 9 p.m. -- until they have written enough letters to other students or their teachers about their misbehavior.

Two years ago, I spent about five days in the school. I never saw a classroom that was out of control or students who weren't engaged in their courses.

Several administrators made the point that good instruction will keep discipline problems to a minimum. If students are interested in what they are learning and the curriculum is good, discipline is much easier.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

With all of the recent posts about teacher awards, it's only fit to announce Carroll's teacher of the year: Mary Catherine "Cathy" Stephens.

Stephens teaches fifth grade at Winfield Elementary School in Westminster, and was nominated by a former student. She's been teaching 18 years, and specializes in math, science and social studies. Before working in Carroll, she operated her own preschool for a decade, and has also worked for Howard County schools.

Turns out Stephens had very early practice for her career: The fourth of 11 children, her first students were her seven younger siblings.

"I would practice my teaching skills on them daily," Stephens wrote, describing her background. "Even though times were financially and emotionally difficult, I always had a chalkboard, writing materials and a makeshift classroom."

Stephens was awarded a $1,000 check from the Carroll County Public Schools Education Foundation during a recent employee recognition ceremony.

Congrats to Cathy Stephens!

Posted by Arin Gencer at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

The Baltimore Teachers Union typically only sees about 10 percent of its 8,000 members vote in its leadership elections, the next of which is to take place on Wednesday. Judging from a random sampling of teachers I talked to in the past few weeks, it doesn't sound like people are much more engaged this time around.

It's too bad, because there are some pretty interesting elements to the four-way race for president of the union's teacher chapter:

1) The revived rivalry between Marietta English and Sharon Blake, who seems ready to go to court (again) if the union doesn't keep a paper trail of ballots cast. She has a high-profile lawyer representing her: former city solicitor Neal Janey Sr.
2) The debate over the leadership of Dr. Alonso, who is praised by all the candidates but English.
3) The inclusion on both the English and Blake slates of Filipino teachers, whose arrival in 2005 was not welcomed by the union.
4) The candidacy of Bill Krehnbrink, a former Republican candidate for both chambers of Congress, who used to run a business repairing tractors and other machinery before he became a teacher.
5) The allegations by another candidate, Joseph Gwin (that's "win" with a "g" in front, he tells me), that schools are allowing the distribution of English and Blake fliers in teachers' mailboxes, but not his.

Think you know what the outcome will be? Gwin begs to differ. "Everybody thinks I’m gonna lose because I’m not part of a slate," he told me. "But I have a theory. David defeated Goliath because God wanted him to. If God wants me to be preseident of this union, I’m gonna be president of this union. If not, guess what? I love teaching math."

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

First there was the call for 500 volunteers. Now there's a collaboration with the health department to show that missing school doesn't just lead to academic failure, it can be deadly.

Dr. Alonso is pulling out all the stops to try to get the community engaged in Baltimore's schools. He's convinced that the schools can't get better until the community rallies around them. The purpose of the joint report with the health department (detailed in my story today) is to show that what are commonly viewed as school problems -- truancy, suspensions, expulsions -- are really the problems of the whole community. Want the city to have fewer homicides? Start by fixing the schools. 

Some are more receptive to the message than others. There are around 500 people who have signed up to volunteer. There are also residents in Canton who called children names and yelled at them while they stood outside for a fire drill this week.

Every day, the situation feels more dire. As if things weren't already miserable enough at poor Calverton, yesterday a mother walked into a classroom and picked a fight with a teacher.

Now that's a community problem.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

It appears the global food shortage and the resulting spike in wheat and milk costs is hitting Maryland school lunchroom budgets hard. Area schools reported spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more for food this year than last, even as reimbursement they get from the USDA rose just about 3 percent. For more detail, read my story today on meal prices rising and some creative penny pinching in cash-strapped Maryland school systems.

But there's a whole angle to this I wasn't able to fully delve into: How does this crunch undermine schools' efforts to provide healthier meals and address childhood obesity? Since 2006, there have been increasingly strict federal standards on upping the nutritional value of food served in school cafeterias. These standards call for lower-fat, lower-sodium options, more whole grains and more fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet when I spoke to a USDA spokeswoman yesterday, she talked about how they're encouraging schools to start buying and offering canned veggies -- which are cheaper but aren't as healthy as the fresh version. The canned stuff contains lots of preservatives and is often higher in sodium. 

I wonder if the pressure to save money amid this spike in food prices will turn back the clock on the few, but precious, gains public schools have made in making meals healthier. What do you think?

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

Disturbing reports from the two schools that have been in the news the past week: 

1) Calverton Elementary/Middle held a staff meeting after school yesterday. I'm told by multiple sources that it was the first time teachers were officially informed of what happened there on Sunday. I'm also told that the response by the school's administration was to blame the media for overblowing the situation. Meanwhile, teachers reported hearing a gunshot outside the building again yesterday morning, though police questioned whether the noise was something else, like a car backfiring or construction. Either way, staff, students and parents are scared, particularly the parents of the school's youngest children, whose classrooms are on the ground floor of the building and must be vacated when the school goes into lockdown mode.

2) Canton Middle had a regularly scheduled fire drill on Tuesday. Kim Kramer-Zamenski, the mother of two children at the school, says neighbors called the students standing outside "monkeys" and other inappropriate names, yelled at them to go back inside and moved their cars to get away from them. The mother wrote in an e-mail to me that, while she understands that a group of Canton students have caused problems for neighbors, "these are grown adults (and) they are asking for a problem when they act this way.  I think they are trying to get the kids to do something bad so they have something to complain about." 

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

It was clear from the 10 minutes I spent in Kristin Covaleskie's classroom yesterday that she is a great teacher, and her students and colleagues adore her. I don't think anyone would dispute that she is worthy of being Baltimore's Teacher of the Year.

But I must say, I was stunned to learn that out of more than 6,000 teachers in the city, there were only seven applications for the award, and two of them were disqualified. (One teacher didn't meet the requirement of having five years of experience, and another is moving into an administrative position next year.) Teachers can be nominated by principals, colleagues, community members or themselves, but their applications must be submitted with three letters of recommendation. Apparently, people just aren't taking the time.

It seems to be no coincidence that two of Baltimore's past three Teachers of the Year come from Northwood Elementary, where Covaleskie teaches fourth-grade. And the principal, Edward English, says he has more teachers on his staff who are deserving of the recognition. English is obviously someone who attracts and recognizes talent, and he lets his great teachers know he appreciates them by nominating them for this award.

Dr. Alonso often says that in every school, there is at least one great teacher. The system has 190 schools and, I'd venture to bet, several hundred teachers who would qualify as great. So why aren't principals promoting them?

On an even more discouraging note... I came back to the office after the Teacher of the Year announcement and learned that two 13-year-old boys are charged with breaking into Calverton Elementary/Middle on Sunday afternoon and attempting to rape a staff member who was there working extra hours. Both Calverton students, they showed up to school on Monday, and that's when they were arrested.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

The sky-is-falling scenarios are emerging again in Anne Arundel, as school officials battle the county executive for more money for the district. The district asked the county for $77.5 million. It got $26 million.

Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell is considering this week options for paring back his central office staff by 200 positions. He's talking about making school hotter in the summer and cooler in the winter to save on utility costs. He's considering leaving 200 teaching positions vacant, which threatens to double class sizes in some of the district's smaller schools. The local union leaders are also on edge about the possibility of the district not honoring negotiated raises -- which could cause a credibility crisis for the 74,000-student school system that's struggling to retain and recruit qualified staff.

So, as all these scenarios emerge, you'd think the superintendent and County Executive John R. Leopold would be meeting and talking about a compromise -- how to live within the county's strained budget, but still not force the schools to make draconian cuts. But no. There's no talk. In the coming weeks, both sides simply plan to lob salvos at each other through dueling columns in local newspapers. It promises to be a feisty budget battle, but I'm afraid, not a particularly productive one.

Alicia Toloczko, a parent from Riviera Beach Elementary, who's been ping-ponged around as she tried to lobby the schools and county government to deal with the budget more reasonably, summed up the cost of this protracted, petty battle like this: "In the end, it's the children who lose out. They're the ones that pay so that these two people (Maxwell and Leopold) can each try to get their own way."

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

Baltimore County schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston is scheduled tomorrow to award the system's second annual round of scholarship loans to three graduating seniors who are aspiring teachers.

The program, which I wrote about last year, is based on a "grow your own" concept. The hope is that these students, who must earn a degree from an approved Maryland teacher education program, will return to the county to teach. The students must pledge one year of service in a priority or Title I school for each year they receive the scholarship loan, worth $4,000 each year.

This year's recipients, according to a school system press release, are:

-- Ryan Goff, an honor student at Eastern Technical High School. He is taking Advanced Placement classes in psychology, English literature, and calculus and is a varsity track and cross-country team member. He is a member of the SAT 1300 Club (with an SAT score of 1360). (Last year, Ryan’s sister Meghan received this scholarship.) Ryan plans to teach secondary math.

-- Brittany McNeal, an honor student at Dundalk High School, where she is treasurer of the Future Educators Association and a varsity field hockey player. She takes courses at the Community College of Baltimore County in Dundalk. She is a member of her school’s Class of 2008 Steering Committee and Calculus Club, and volunteers with the Berkshire Area Community Association and Dundalk Renaissance Corp. Brittany plans to teach secondary math.

-- Malcolm Rowe, who plans to pursue technology education, has taken Advanced Placement psychology and environmental science courses and participated last year in Pikesville High School’s jazz and gospel choir. He volunteers with the Community Outreach Food Pantry.

Posted by Gina Davis at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                    

This is National Charter Schools Week (as well as National Teacher Appreciation Week). Charter advocates are going to meet with politicians, and think tanks are releasing studies about the effectiveness of these independently run public schools of choice.

While it may be a good time to spread awareness in most of Maryland, it seems like every week is charter school week in Baltimore. (I don't know that we could say the same about teacher appreciation.) Technically, the city has about 25 charter schools, more than the rest of the state combined. There are also several "charter-like" schools, which operate independently but are not technically charters. And now, the principles of charters are spreading to the whole city. Dr. Alonso has said he wants to see every city school have a community governing board and an outside partnership, just as charter schools do. The cornerstone of his reform this year is allowing principals to craft their own budgets, just as charter principals do. The city's charter school leaders are helping to train principals at regular city schools in how to handle their new responsibilities.

Increasingly, the lines between charter and non-charter are blurring in Baltimore. The city's six new middle/high schools are not technically charter schools. Except for Baltimore Freedom Academy, which is a charter high school already but may not be considered a charter in its new middle school wing. The new school that's caused all the fuss in Canton will be run by the Friendship Public Charter School company, but it is not a charter (a point that required a correction in The Sun last week).

The differences lie in how funding is distributed, in the contract with the outside organization running the school, and in whether or not the system is required to provide the school with a facility. (Charters are often on their own to find a building.) But to parents and students who see their school choices growing, there is no difference. And to the city's charter advocates, that's a big victory.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)