Go Alonso!

Although I'm wondering since you attended the meeting if anyone brought up exactly how principal performance will be measured. Solely test scores? % passing or % improvement from past years? Both? Other factors like teacher and student satisfaction? Is it ultimately up to Alonso so that he can make individual decisions based on the school or is there some set criteria?

Thanks!

Where are the curriculum support people? How will funding follow things like guidance counselors? Librarians? Social Workers?

These are things that need to be addressed.

There is so much more I want to know, too. Does teacher salary come out of the principal's budget, thus making it more desireable for principals to have younger, cheaper teachers in their schools? How about other building workers, Assistant Principals, etc?

The link doesn't appear to be working.

As I understand it, most (but not all) salaries will come from the principals' budgets. Thus, if you want more experienced teachers, you do indeed have to spend more of your funds in that direction.

The part that worries me is that principals will also be "buying" their IEP Team Associates, which will suggest a sense of both ownership and of supervision. ITAs are traditionally supervised from outside the school to ensure that Special Ed students aren't being inappropriately placed based on administrative conveniences. So I'm hoping that this doesn't signal a change that could conceivably unravel a lot of the progress that we've made toward getting out of the Consent Decree.

Try this link instead: http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/News/Fair_student_funding.asp

A "few" questions to ask when you attend one of the upcoming community forums on the new budget!

Salary reality check: there can be a significant dollar difference between a new teacher salary for someone with a Bachelor's degree (around $35,000) and someone who has 12 years' experience and +30 graduate hours beyond the Master's degree (close to $60,000). The difference can be almost the equivalent of one salary position!

The school system has been using an average salary in computing the number of faculty positions per school -- to not do so would clearly advocate staffing decisions based primarily on dollar amounts and not on teacher experience, education, quality, etc. That's the cold, hard reality of accounting. A teacher's salary should NOT enter into the question of whether that teacher is the best person for the job -- otherwise, how are we ever to keep experienced, valuable teachers in schools? We have enough problems with teacher turnover and with people leaving the teaching profession because of all the inherent problems in teaching nowadays. Are we going to further discourage principals from placing more experienced educators in their schools based on salary?

As it stands, a principal can administratively transfer a teacher for any reason, up to 10 days before school starts in August. Yes, that teacher will still have a job, but they can be be transferred to another school and another position without their agreement, to fill a vacancy at another school (much like a worker-bee or a pawn in a chess game, not a career-minded professional). So, if actual salaries are used in the principal-based staffing process, a principal could (in theory) transfer a teacher in order to save money, and another principal would have to take that teacher in order to fill a vacancy. I am not sure how principals would then adjust their budgets right before school begins in such a circumstance -- these are only a few of the messy questions that remain unanswered about this new model.

For example, I am currently earning a PhD in Educational Leadership, with 11 years' experience in the BCPSS, and my salary costs much more than a brand new teacher's -- at least $30,000 more! I have sought that level of education (with 50% of it paid for by the BCPSS, by the way) in order to attain excellence in my field, and now I discover that my education and experience could actually jeopardize my chosen career path if a principal has to choose between paying my actual salary and being able to afford two "cheaper" teachers instead?!?! For example, English class sizes are a major concern here at my school, primarily because the quantity and quality of grading extensive writing assignments is significantly affected by class size. Being able to reduce class sizes by purchasing 2 teaching positions for the price of 1 is of significant value to a principal if teachers' salaries become a staffing consideration, no matter how good we are at our jobs...

Another detail that hasn't yet been addressed: the exact funding chain for support positions (i.e. librarians, social workers, etc.) was previously provided via North Ave. How will that funding follow those positions to the schools if those positions are now school-based? For example, librarians have been assigned, funded and managed out of North Ave for about a decade. Where has that money come from? How will that specific money make its way to schools, connected to funding librarians and nothing else? Does the funding source have strings attached that need to be met? Will that funding stream follow librarians and not be pooled and averaged out into a per-pupil dollar amount? And what about funding for materials? Up to now, schools with a certain poverty level (computed according to the percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch) received government funding for things like library books. Will that funding formula be changed, or will all that funding be pooled as a part of this new per-pupil amount, making funds available for more schools, or will that funding still be limited to the schools with the highest poverty levels?

All unanswered at this point...

The bottom line is that if leaders such as Dr Alonso are sincerely interested in retaining quality teachers, a factor which has been shown to raise student achievement, then he needs to ensure that principals will be making staffing decisions based on teacher quality, not on their pricetag.

Dr Alonso seems like he truly cares about students, and is willing to take risks by making bold choices in students' favor. I just hope that he remembers that teachers are the closest, most direct links to student achievement that the school system can control, and that he enlists our help in crafting new policies that will support us and all of our efforts in helping students.

A SUGGESTION for the accountability & evaluation of principals? If we want other measures than test scores for accountability, Dr Alonso would do well to involve the School Improvement Teams (SIT) in creating and implementing at least some of those accountability measures -- each school already has a SIT in place, and their members are the grassroots stakeholders in our schools: teachers, parents, and community members, in addition to administrators. If Dr Alonso wants to walk his talk and build stakeholder trust, he would imediately involve the SIT members at each school in grassroots decision-making and oversight of the new principal autonomy measures. This would give the SIT its first real power to engage in school change and reform, something many of us involved in the SIT process have been waiting a long time for!

I only hope Dr Alonso stays long enough to provide real follow-through for these change initiatives -- we haven't had a CEO remain on the job for more than 3 years in more than a decade, and the resultant chaos that follows the constant CEO turnover has been more detrimental to this system than any other factor. It has caused teachers to be extremely wary of even sincere efforts at change, and a leader like Dr alonso needs trust from teachers to support his bold moves. There is only so much we can take of this rollercoaster of hope we have to face every 2 or 3 years...

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