Ever heard of being afraid to buck your new leader for fear of retaliation or maybe he will know who disgreed with his process.

Hmmm. There are "overfunded" Baltimore City Public Schools? And the principals that have to make cuts are just whiners who want to protect their cronies?

From the parent perspective, as my son's school wrestles with trying to figure out how to make $190,000 in cuts (cut the full-time social worker to half-time? the librarian? the music teacher? the art teacher? the P.E. teacher?), I think the feedback from North Avenue from the cuts is pretty insulting. Our school has comparable offerings to County elementary schools. Is that "overfunded"? I understand that there isn't enough money in the school system this year, but I think North Avenue should be honest that the solution to get money to underfunded middle and high schools is to cut some of the successful small elementary schools, where there just aren't the economies of scale that are possible in a larger school. It makes me sad that a school that has been very successful is going to have to gut the programs that have attracted families to the school. The families who can afford to will start leaving for private and parochial schools, there will be even less money coming in because there are fewer students, then more cuts, then fewer students, and a great school will end up being another casualty of the Baltimore City Public School bureaucracy.

How about some REAL transparancy from North Avenue: what are the schools that have to make cuts, how much do they have to cut, and what is their actual current staffing?

I'd also love to know how the "basic" and "advanced" numbers were figured -- the actual data behind the projected amounts.

The school budgets for BCPSS are significantly lower, regardless of what is said by central administration. The statement about the small school with 4 Assistant Principals is made without looking at recent history. Schools were given extra Assistant Principal positions because the position of department head was eliminated, and Instructional Supporty Teachers are not qualified observers. That left only assistant principals and principals to complete formal observations and work with teachers who need assistance. Although IST's could coach, they could not be part of the evaluative process. Some principals allow IST's to complete formal evaluations which is against the union contract. My concern is when will the BCPSS school board realise that importing people from New York doesn't work. This is the 3rd person from New York and each one has been worse than the previous one. Also, the BCPSS school board answers to no one. The city must regain control of it's schools. The future of the city rests in a good school system. With the board answering to no one there are no checks or balances to insure that the decisions made are what is best for the city and the students

While it is true that schools don't have everything, it is true that many schools don't have principals who understand the process.
Principals are not just lead instructors anymore. They have to have some business sense. Most of them don't. As a result they are not always thinking creatively about how to fund projects and programs. It is also true that many are trying to keep people in place whose positions may not be necessary or the people are not the best fit for the job.
It is not an easy job and the system did not give principals the necessary training to really understand operational management. BCPSS is, like many places, full of friends who help friends. The difference is that they never had to answer about the bottomline. Now that principals control everything, they can't just blame everyone else if their schools fail.

The principals are scared. A survey that asks for identifying information will not get truthful responses from most of them. What I'm hearing is that they don't have enough money to run their schools effectively and/or they don't understand the process well enough.

I am losing my patience -- why even consider a survey where respondents have to sign their names? We learn in "educational research 101" that surveys like those, especially in dysfunctional systems such as ours, are simply NOT VALID! How surprising that 90% of principals said that they had enough resources when they had to sign their names to the document.

The BCPSS should be ASHAMED, nothing less, for asking principals to sign their names to such a survey -- it's insulting to anyone who knows anything about research... or anyone who has been a part of this punitive, inconsistent, illogical school system...

Yes, principals do have to cut positions and some of them are uncomfortable (or unwilling) to get rid of positions that they consider "essential." In response to Disgusted, some ISTs are allowed to do formal observations as they were "qualified observers" when they were department heads before they were demoted. There are some positions that are excess and should be eliminated--read assistants who plan social events and do paperwork the principal doesn't want to bother with--but some of the positions that must be adjusted are things that are proven to assist with student improvement. What a quandry?! I feel sorry for principals who are placed once again in the untenable position of having to choose between keeping needed staff and trying to please North Avenue.

Although a signed survey will prejudice the results I've got to wonder if some of the negative anonymous responses are more about sabotaging Dr. Alonso's attempts to change the system. There are some really poor principals in the BCPSS (not to say there aren't some excellent ones as well). Poor principals have a lot to fear from these changes. Their work as managers of money and people will be publicly judged. Anything they can do to stall or derail the process is worth doing (as long as they don't have to sign their names and risk being held accountable for what they've said).

I would like to echo Baltomommie's concerns. Bravo Baltomommie! This new funding scheme is touted to be "fair and transparent." If it's so transparent, where are the numbers??

How incredibly insulting the comments coming from North Ave are to the principals trying to carry this recklessly enacted reform on the ground.

And Alonso's comment about being "comfortable with a little messiness" is totally outrageous. These are our children he's messing with!!!

The comments here seem to be assigning blame in the wrong places. Schools are underfunded because there was a 50 million dollar budget shortfall, with an added 25 million in additional expenses on top of an already underfunded system.

Tough choices have to be made so the question is do you want somebody at North Ave to make uniform decisions about your budget or would YOU like to make those tough decisions yourself?

I can't believe there is outrage about asking principals to be honest on a survey. What a ridiculous request! The entire movement Alonso's trying to bring along is accountability, if you can't honestly report about your school then you are not accountable. Have you ever thought that by asking for their names North Ave could better identify the individual schools in the most need of help so that North Ave can supply it?

The new system finally allows us to see how money is spent because there are no more scapegoats and shared responsibility over many levels in regards to funding and results. Now it's true that principals don't have enough money to execute their dream, but that's a problem with funding not the new system.

The problem of not being honest: here's a grant offered by the US Department of Labor that provides $50 million to schools labeled "persistently dangerous" by state authorities. Those schools in the system that were honest about numbers and reports have access to that extra money. Those principals who juked the stats to appear better than reality lose out. According to the numbers, there are only 2 "per dan" schools in the system that will have access - DuBois and one of the schools on the Walbrook campus. There's a phrase I learned early in life that really rings true: honesty is always best.
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=true&oppId=17689

Additionally, $50 million dollars in cuts is a product of STATE action. I know there are the uber-conservatives out there that say this isn't actually a cut because it's a decrease in the increase, but that's just not true (especially considering rising costs these days and the credit crunch). Ultimately, if people are as upset as they seem, please, please, please write your state senator and House of Delegate representatives. The cut came from the state, and someone had to feel it. North Ave did (read: the jobs reallocated from central office). Furthermore, now that principals are accountable for their budgets they'll feel a bit more urgency to see those budgets put to use effectively and efficiently. Maybe some of the better principals will hire a grant writer or give a stipend to one of their English teachers to go after grants from public and private sources for their specific schools.

Last comment to "concerned parent." Please don't take one-liners that you read and extrapolate an entire philosophical understanding of a person. Dr. Alonso has said over-and-over that children are his primary concern above all other concerns. The urgency he has brought to the CEO's office is particularly focused on improving STUDENT outcomes, not ADULT outcomes (i.e. those principals in the BCPSS who may not be able now to pay their favorite staff member extra stipends to plan outings on Friday evenings out of the "professional development" budget reserves). I'm pretty sure that he hasn't been "messing with your kids" in detrimental way. In fact, I think he's been incredibly successful at trying to fix the problems of others in the past who truly were "messing with your kids." Either way, though, stay involved, stay engaged, and please continue to demand better. Active parents are critical to school success.

I really am concerned at the wholesale swallowing of the tale that the only cuts are for cronies. My son's school has one principal and one assistant principal, which is the suggested number of positions. The cuts are going to have to come from staff positions. The nurse (paid by the Health Department) and the Special Education staff are locked, so it has to come form other staff. $190,000 isn't going to cronies: it is going for staff positions, which will have to be cut. These are not the principal's pie-in-the-sky "dreams" - these are positions in art, music, PE, library, and social work that are valued by the parents of this school.

The concempt for the principals, and the assumptions that these cuts can be made without harming the children's educational environment, are very distressing to me, because I know that at least once school that is not the case. If the CEO would release the actual figures of what schools need to make cuts, how much those cuts are, and the staff at those schools, we would all have a better idea of what is going on.

Baltomommie,

You've put false words into Alonso's mouth and then attacked the subsequent position.

Cuts aren't for cronies, cuts are for everyone regardless of who is CEO. BCPSS's needs far outweigh the current funding being allocated. The question is given the reality of the budget shortfall, who do you want to make the cuts? North Ave or the individual principals who actually know their school intimately?

No one has pushed the concept that budget cuts do not hurt the students so your breath is wasted on the topic.

I completely agree with your call for transparency though!

I don't understand this business about a budget shortfall. Documents on the BCPSS website show the budget increasing from about $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion. That's a $100 million increase. My understanding is that the $50 million refers to an increase that Baltimore expected to get under Thornton but didn't get. That's a bummer for sure, but there's still a lot more money this year than last year, so it's not clear why any schools were cut.

The issue of who gets to make the cuts, principals or North Ave, is also a red herring. More to the point, North Ave increased some schools budgets and reduced others. Why? On what basis? I know the Alonso supporters will all say it was done to make things fair and equitable. But we can't judge that until we see the actual numbers and a transparent explanation.

Although actual numbers per school haven't been published the basis for the funding has been. Look at http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/News/PDF/FY09_Budget_Draft.pdf for a presentation on the budget. The funding per school is based on the number of students in the school and how a sample is doing on standardized tests (extra money for both poor performers and advanced performers). The only other factor is how much a school was given last year so that the decrease or increase dictated by the formula is capped at 15% reduction and 10% increases. Seems pretty transparent to me.

RE: Irresponsible principal (administrator) spending. I am sure that it happens because I watched it happen. I'm also sure that it happens in other schools because through Teach for America - Baltimore City, I've discussed the issue informally with roughly 200 other teachers in the BCPSS. I'm very glad it doesn't happen at your school; it shouldn't happen at any school. Often, principals don't do it intentionally. However, when they're not accountable for their budget allocations, inefficient and ineffective allocations result.

An decrease in an increase is an incredible red herring (if we're jumping into that type of language). The school budget includes payments for retirement, health care costs, facilities, real estate, et al. Inflation plays a huge role. When rising health care costs increase at a rate higher than inflation - school funding takes a cut - a real one, less dollars in schools. Incremental funding increases take this into an account and money is allocated over a set number of years. When the intended increase (%) is no longer provided, it's actually a cut. When you're talking about a billion dollars, things are a bit different than the standard household budget.

"A parent" gives a solid reference for the budget overview.

Again, keep up the critical analysis. Schools are your (and my) dollars at work, so we should certainly demand the best.

I saw the information referenced by A Parent, but I just can't figure out how the extrapolation worked...the percentages don't seem to bear any resemblance to the figures on Maryland Report Card for the school. I'd like to know how the extrapolation was done, and I'd really like to see a list of schools, whether they are getting an increase, same, or decrease, and their current staffing model. Without the real data behind the "extrapolation", it just feel very transparent.

Overview document:
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/School_Board/Budget/PDF/FSF042108GuideSupportingDocs.pdf

On that document go to page 2. Each blue link gives another PDF document (you have to hold down the "ctrl" button and click the link to download it and allow adobe to take you there). I want to point you specifically to #2, 4 and 5. Look through each of those documents. Post again if those aren't sufficient. I'll keep looking for more.

Here's what I've been told about the extrapolation (I think the slides were clear, but I've asked questions just to make sure). Let's take a theoretical middle school. The 5th grade MSA scores of the current 6th graders are evaluated to figure out how many got basic (on both reading and math) or advanced (on either reading or math). These percentages are used to estimate the percentages in 7th and 8th grade that will get the suplemental funding. The same thing is done for high school using the 8th grade MSA scores of the current 9th graders. In elementary school the Stanford Tests are used. It is my understanding that the extrapolation is a pure formula.

Baltomommie: Look at #15 too for information about student-weights & #17 for information for parents.

I think the only thing that's transparent here is that we've got a couple of shills working for the system. "Bill" is the more polished of the two, and "a parent" is the incompetent newbie (kind of obvious, like what real parent has the time to log onto this blog and present intricate information at 8 in the morning?).

Courtesy of wikipedia:
"A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group's ideological claims. Shills are often employed by confidence artists. ... Shilling is illegal in many circumstances and in many jurisdictions because of the frequently fraudulent and damaging character of their actions."

These guys are so lame. I wonder if the boss knows about it or if they are doing it on their own initiative.

And one more thing, a question, for Bill since you rolled out the business of the $50 mil cut by the state but then when confronted by the info on the school website explained that it's all complicated by health care costs and inflation etc. (not "et al", Einstein): pray tell what's the cut in REAL terms? Any of your cronies got a handle on that??

(Jeezus, I can't believe I'm even talking to these guys.)

To the supposedly "concerned parent" -

In fact I have 3 kids in the BCPSS - 2 at one school and the 3rd at a different school. What do you want for proof? I've got a PTA membership card. I come to work around 10 of 8 at which time I can get on the computer for a while, plus since I'm doing computer work most of the day I can usually check the blog periodically. And beyond that I even have a computer at home.

I have been following the new budget with interest and being that's the way my mind works I tried to read and figure it out. The link that I posted came from links that Sara had on this blog probably a month ago. My kids' school had (as all schools are supposed to) a budget meeting where I asked a few questions. I'm posting what I figured out. There was a comment about plugging numbers into a spreadsheet to see how they work, that's why I figure it's a formula. I had a question answered on Marc Steiner's show on WEAA last Monday by Dr. Alonso.

I'm no shill of BCPSS! Do you want me to tell you details of the IEPs I've sat through and lies I've been told to prove it? Sorry, not sharing that kind of information on a public forum. And until I know you're not an BCPSS adminstrator (perhaps from one of the "over-funded" schools that you want to defend so badly?) in a position to harm one of my kids I'm not telling you any details.

Concerned Parent:

I'm sorry you feel the way you do. I've been pretty transparent the entire time about my part-time association with the school system; my experience as a Teach for America Corps Member (Baltimore City - '05 CM); my M.A.T. degree from Hopkins School of Education; my current status as a full-time law student at the Univ of MD School of Law; my experience working on political campaigns in Baltimore; and my desire to see real urban reform in Baltimore. Everything I write on this blog is fully and completely my own opinion. Yes, my experience on these various fronts informs my opinions, but in no way have I intended to come off as hiding anything whatsoever. If I have, then I take full responsibility and apologize to you for any misunderstanding I may have caused. In fact, if you'd like to discuss in further detail on a less public forum, feel free to email me at biferguson05@gmail.com or wferg001@umaryland.edu. I'd be more than willing to discuss any of the issues you've mentioned, but, again, I can only speak from my own experiences and my own independent research. On a personal note, I just completed my year-long report for law school about reducing youth violence in Baltimore by decreasing student dropout rates in the City and/or changing MD statutes to increase the age of compulsory school attendance. I feel as though that's the topic of which I have the most qualifications, but I'd be willing to discuss anything related to the city and/or school system. I know that you think I'm lame, but maybe we honestly could learn from one another.

Also, I'm sorry about the "et al." business. I've been petitioning to earn a spot on the Maryland Law Review staff, and "et al," "in re," and "ex parte" among other phrases have been too quick to come to mind when typing. I apologize for the grammatical error.

My thoughts about the decrease in an increase do not come from this year or considerations of the school budgeting process. The thoughts come from discussions stemming from my political science classes back at Davidson College. I originally learned about the decreased increase concept when studying federal appropriations processes where 12% increases were guaranteed until reduced for different priorities. This whole decreased increased business is one of the major talking points for the Newt Gingrich camp - especially during the Republic Revolution in 1994. However, the principles embedded on the federal level ring true for state and municipal appropriations as well (as far as I can tell).

Again, sorry for any confusion, but I'll probably continue to post on the blog. Hopefully my comments will inform the discussion, but if not, please feel free to ignore them (I know plenty of people who do - including my parents!).

Well, this is getting a little heated, and I'm sorry. But I just can't comprehend what the motivations of some of the people posting here are.

Some folks raised a very legitimate concern: the information that North Ave had made available regarding this massive budget reform is not adequate. This administration has promised transparency. Fine. So where is it? Where are the numbers underlying the funding allocations? Where is the list showing which schools are gaining which are losing and by how much? This is a perfectly legitimate thing to ask for. Everybody who is concernd about Baltimore public schools should be asking for it. Alonso wants accountability? Fine, let's start at the top. Show us the numbers, not just a few smoke-and-mirrors powerpoint presentations. Explain the thinking behind these whacky formulas (like why are you "extrapolating" from a fifth grade test for middle schools?) Why on earth would anybody who cares about the school system -- especially a parent -- try to subvert and misdirect somebody who is asking for that?

And to specifically address "a parent," there are no "overfunded" schools in the Baltimore public school system, and it is incredible to me that any genuine parent would think that there are. I am not seeking to protect any particular school, but do I trust everything Alonso says without verification? No, I do not. There's no question that he is a committed, energetic, and creative leader, but he can still make mistakes. As parents, I believe it our DUTY to ask the hard questions -- especially since the board and the press (let's see if Sara allows that snippet past) have clearly abdicated that role.

At any rate, thanks to both of you for a most entertaining and informative exchange. We should do this more often. ;-)