If you thought it was bad this year, look at this policy and hold on. The kids will be going wild by Oct and there is no getting it back. What happened to principal autonomy? I Guess principals are good enough to work through budget cuts, but not smart enough to give suspensions. Go into next year with less staff, and less ability to remove your 10% of really disruptive kids.

The Sun has done a great job of taking everything said by Alonzo at face value. You can't make up for a 50 million shortfall by cutting 300 people at North ave. The cuts had to come from somewhere.

Sad, really sad.

Chris & "A Teacher," it seems like this 19-pager goes to your concerns about generalities. Of course, the document certainly does use general language, but I'm sure that's an intentional choice. Just like when the judiciary creates rules for courts, the job is to make a rule that is applicable to as many situations as possible while maintaining structural integrity.

For instance, to capture the concept of "relevance" generally, courts use this rule to measure inappropriate evidence in trial (along with other rules, this being the umbrella): "Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence." MD Rules, Rule 5-403. Generally, the language is broad and indefinite. The limits must be defined by individual courts and individual judges - just like as likely will occur at individual schools.

I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

As a side note, the first thing that jumped out at me (looking at it from a teacher's perspective) was the phrase "(8) Provide make-up work for students with lawful absences..." (pg. 4). This seems like a particularly intentional word choice, and I'm curious whether this was the policy in the past - certainly was not as practiced by my school last year. Anyways, I have to keep reading it in detail to find more.

Isn't Level 2 kind of worthless since nearly all schools in the city do not provide in-school suspension services to their students?

All I think this does is muddy the waters further. If Dr. Alonso wants to de-centralize the system and give the principals more autonomy, why is he given a centralized bureaucratic mandate about what type of suspension falls into what category?

If we (he) are assuming that we can trust principals to make budgetary recommendations, why can we not trust them and the AP's on the ground floor to make individualized recommendations for punishment based upon the specific facts of the specific situation.

Unbelievable people! First people complain about the the administrators who are NOT providing appropriate consequences to the disruptive students and now, when the district tries to move forward with a plan that will hopefully give teachers ammunition against the most impotent administrators in the district, they complain that they are taking away autonomy!

To answer the question above about why we can't trust the judgment of local APs: because many (and I stress, NOT ALL), but MANY have proved themselves incompetent and unwilling to support their teachers. I was blessed when I worked at a tough middle school in BCPSS to have the only AP in the building who supported his teachers 110% on every disciplinary action. As such, we had the most behaved floor with the most learning going on. On the other hand, the other APs in the building would routinely send students back to the classroom after they had cussed out a teacher or worse, sending the message to the class that the kids were in charge and making the teacher's efforts absolutely futile.

Point is: some folks seem to want to complain either way! I find this step to centralize and codify rules and consequences a welcome step forward in trying to bring order. Is it perfect? NO! And as Bill points out, it is intentionally general in some areas to allow more interpretation by local school communities. This is a solid first step and should be supported - it will require tweaking once we figure out its weaknesses in practice, but it is better than allowing a rogue AP to dismantle all the efforts of a teacher in the classroom when they refuse to support the teacher, which unfortunately happen too often.

The Code of Conduct as it appears in the 2007-2008 Parent handbook is clear and concide. If you read it carefully it does not really leave a lot of room for interpretation. The new code put too much emphasis on teacher and school intervention for certain infractions. If Alonzo truly wanted to improve the Code of Conduct he should have used the existing one and firmed up the consequences.

This is not directly on the topic of this new document, but is related.

There are parts of the union contract that refer to classroom discipline (the copy I have has it in section 17.3) and are not enforced. This section clearly states that when a student has been sent to the office, "The student will not be returned to the referring teacher’s classroom until the principal or his designee has discussed the student’s misbehavior with the teacher at the earliest mutually agreed upon time."

In my experience, this is rarely done, and most teachers don't know that it is within their protected rights to not accept a student back until an administrator (or designee) has talked with them about the situation. If this conversation were to happen, it would make it clear what the office actually did and might hold the office more accountable, versus a student just showing back up in class, and it seeming like nothing was done.

There is a big difference between a decentralized organization and a common code of conduct for all.

Let's not confuse the two.

The Code of Conduct has never been the issue; its application has. Until all APs and principals deal with the same students in the same manner, I don't care what kind of code is in place--it won't work. In-school suspensions have budgetary consequences. What school has the additional monies for them in this coming tight budget year?

Artie,
I think you missed the point. The problem with this whole decentralization scheme is that Alonzo & crew want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they want to give principals flexibility & autonomy, & on the other they blame principals (& APs) for everything that is wrong. Can't have it both ways. If people who run the schools are good & responsible, then it makes sense to give them control & autonomy. But if you think that many are incompetent (as you seem to think), why the f are you handing over control over the $?

On another note, tamedshrew has a good point. What you see in the 19 pages is lots of blah blah blah words on paper (or electrons in this case). Just another dog & pony show. How it rolls out is another story. Ain't nothing much wrong with current written policy. Action on the ground is a different story.

central_office: you are right - I didn't look at it the way you said it and now I see your point. I was talking strictly from the perspective of codifying conduct rules in a concise way across the District and enforcing rules and consequences in a uniform way. I admit I missed the point that it doesn't make sense to entrust a whole budget but then remove autonomy over consequences from the hands of the principal. Sorry guys! Apparently I'm a bit slow on the uptake today :) But ya, you are right, I see your point.

On another note: thanks Michelle for pointing out contract language that we should all probably be aware of. Perhaps the BCPSS union should do a better job of informing teachers of their rights - I actually never saw a copy of our contract whilst I was a BCPSS educator. Probably something I should have demanded to see!

And PT brings up a good point - there already is a Code of Conduct that is pretty specific. But I don't know that I would agree it is concise - I recall it being several pages. We need to come up with a clear, concise, and SHORT set of positively stated rules that our students can follow; and a concise but fair set of consequences every teacher can implement uniformly in each school so that Dante knows that if he misbehaves, it will result in similar consequences in every teacher's room - not just the teachers who know what they are doing.

I think it's "central_office" that missed the point. Decentralizing control doesn't mean you think all the current principals are stellar, it means you want them to be. I think the idea is that they'll either grow into this roll or they won't be principals any more. They are being provided power and guidance and hopefully clear measurements for judging them as successful or not. My take is that this is the idea in both the budget and the safety/code of conduct policy decisions.

"central_office":

What does "Alonzo & crew" mean? This is one of those semi-pointed attacks directed at an ambiguous party or cohort of people. Are you referring to every single person associated with a BCPSS policy? Do you mean the school board? The Mayor? The taxpayers who pay his salary? I'm curious what "crew" means.

Dr. Alonso has stated that he will be here for 10 years if permitted. Those above who examine simply the immediate effect of reforms are ignoring the the long-run purpose of such measures.

Please name 1 school district that does not set general standards for student discipline? Unless you're discussing Connecticut and/or Minnesota and/or Utah, pretty much every state is required to present a "persistently dangerous" plan that informs reporting standards and disciplinary measures. Further, I hope before commenting that individuals took time to really read the document. It's incredibly general and suggests steps for handling discipline issues in a tiered fashion. Further, it's open for PUBLIC COMMENT. If you don't like it, say why, send it to the BCPSS as Sara mentioned above. Don't just proclaim generalized criticisms to see your writing in print. Take action and demand the reforms that you mention.

Additionally, the phrases "How it rolls out is another story" and "Action on the ground is a different story" mean essentially nothing. What's the story? What causes the supposed "different story?" What data backs up these assertions? How can a proposed policy have a different "rolled out" story? The fact that it's proposed inherently undermines the idea that action on the ground is different. Furthermore, data-driven and peer reviewed research from various education thinktanks and centers disagrees with the premise that policies have no effect on practical application.

I really hope you take time, "central_office," to read and send your detailed critiques to the central office. Ultimately, the concepts are based on the same premise - more autonomy, more accountibility. However, standards are and always will be necessary.

Can someone named "central office" really be expected to offer an objective opinion on the decentralization of North Avenue?

The point of giving principals freedom and autonomy is that they can be held accountable for their school's results. If principals are incompetent it will become obvious quickly because there are no more scapegoats. We can identify the failures and replace them with someone who can do the job.

If I may, as I said in my repost, I think some of us missed the main gist of what central_office was trying to say - that autonomy should be available in every category if we are to hold principals accountable over all the results. So I can see her/his point. Bill you are the lawyer so correct me if I'm wrong - I want to say that federal judges get sentencing "guidelines" for various infractions, right? Similarly, I don't think the central office should place maximums (ie. 1 day suspension MAX for certain offenses) and tie a local administrator's hands to do more. MINIMUM requirements are a good idea to protect teachers from some of the administrators who would do nothing - but maximum requirements just tie administrator's hands when dealing with disruptive students. I THINK this was the point central_office was trying to make.

Preface this by saying it is a very unqualified opinion - my legal knowledge is metaphorically the size of a thimble. In any case, it's an interesting point you make, Artie.

The mandatory minimums were considered, debated, and semi-implemented in federal court after great debate a bit more than 20 years ago. However, they are now strictly guildelines and are not mandatory - the Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory minimums were in violation of the 6th amendment (aka unconstitutional). Now, federal court judges use the sentencing guidelines as a reference, but the federal judges have discretion to alter the penalties - review of the judges' sentencing decisions on appeal requires a very high level of defence to the trial court's decision (basically, what the trial court says goes regardless of what the sentencing guidelines say). Now, some state courts do have partial, mandatory sentencing, but often sentencing in these states leads to absurdly outrageous results (for the most part). Sure, it's judically more efficient, but there's a serious fairness argument associated with mandatory prison terms.

Interestingly, this is why I support the code of conduct produced by the BCPSS. I think it gives enough leeway for individual schools to make individual decisions. However, it helps to eliminate disparity across schools by providing basic standards. There are enough exceptions permitted in the document that allow principals to take student-specific action so long as they provide good cause for doing so. The whole concept of school-based choice necessitates some level of guidance. Even though schools are choosing how to educate and making school-level decisions, there has to be a bucket of standards from which they are choosing. Were the system to just say, "Here you go, have fun," I'd put lots of money on the bet that come October there would be SERIOUS issues of disparity and inappropriate decision-making stemming from inexperience.

Further, for the first year of implementation, it makes sense to ease into the process. As school leadership teams become more adept at creating and implementing their budgets, one could expect the central office to loosen the reigns in the future.

In New York, they started with 3 tiers - (1) full autonomy, (2) partial autonomy, (3) limited autonomy. Schools exist in one of the three buckets. In Baltimore, we're really starting in bucket 3 and trying to get to bucket 1 collectively. I think it's up for debate whether that's the best way to go about it, but I think it makes sense intellectually.

A parent and Corey: I know the idea is give 'em enough rope & let 'em hang themselves. Not sure I agree with it tho. I think you can figger out who the bad ones are pretty quick without handing over the budget to them and letting them reek havoc.

Bill: "Alonzo & crew" is Alonzo and the small group of trusty servants he brought on board. Everybody else in the system pretty much thinks he's botching things up big time and praying for a fair wind to take him away soon.

Also, Bill, interesting point about giving the reforms time to work. So how many years are you going to give before you would pull the plug? See, I don't think Dr A has that long. If test scores drop next year because of all the changes he's putting folks through, I'm not sure people are going to accept that with a lot of patience and understanding.

My main point, though, was about the incredible disrespect shown to principals while at the same time expecting them do so much. The large majority of them are very hard working and decent. Their main problem is that they are entangled in this crazy dysfunctional system. And Alonzo is not helping. The way all this new stuff is being shoved on them along with threats to hold them "accountable" but not telling them yet exactly how that will be done or giving them a seat at the table is just really shabby. It's kind of like how they train learned helplessness in dogs by giving them random shocks. After a while, the dogs just give up and don't even make any effort to avoid them.

Central_Office - I think the idea that you can "figger out who the bad ones are pretty quick" is optimistic. I the last 9 years, over 5 schools (3 kids involved) I think I've gone through around 10 principals. From a parents perspective I've felt that several of them have been pretty poor. Yet you say that the "large majority of them are very hard working and decent." Either I've had bad luck or it's not so easy to agree on who the poor principals are.

"Everybody else in the system pretty much thinks he's botching things up"...

Really? Based on what? The limited sample of conversations you have with friends and colleagues? Independent sample surveys indicate differently - particularly from philanthropic organizations (take a look at OSI-Baltimore's recent award to Dr. Alonso present by George Soros because of his efforts in Baltimore). Plus, it's natural that those sustaining under a failing system would be unwilling to make reforms. I don't know how much I trust the opinions of "everybody else" when "everybody else" has contributed to the current state of affairs - 34% graduation rates in Baltimore City (I include myself in that grouping of those contributing - though, my kids went from a 44% average gov't HSA passage rate to 63% - still not good enough). Yes, institutional knowledge is critical; doing things the same because "that's how things were done" is the wrong answer. Shaking the boat is necessary because change, real change, is hard. If it were easy, anyone could do it. I trust someone who comes from a proven position of leadership in a district that has demonstrated ability of reform over the opinions of "those who have been here." Like normal, I'm sure there is a LARGE contingency just "waiting it out." Likely as they have "waited out" other CEO's since their friends put them in positions of power based on relationships rather than results. I guess only time will tell who's right, though.

"Let them hang themselves"? You really think that's the idea? Inherently, you show a misunderstanding of the concept of empowerment. If you really think that people in "central office" want to see principals fail, you don't understand the nature of the work. Everyone thinks that principals are essential for reform, hence the reason so much decision-making power has been delegated to them. Your argument of "let them hang themselves" conflicts with your own assertion two paragraphs later. I know you're mad about something; that's clear. Whether your level of anger justifies inaction and "keeping things the way they have been" is something I would contest.

a parent - if you cant figure it how pretty quick, I don't see how decentralization of funding makes it a whole lot easier. I spose you could say that it is easier to hold principals accountable for results because they can't complain about their hands being tied by North Ave any more. Problem there is it would probably be at least 2 or 3 years before you could make that stick. Year 1 principals could say "this was a transition year where I'm trying to figgure out how to deal with all the new responsibility that you pushed on me." Year 2, they could say "we're trying all these new innovative programs, you got to give them a little time to work". So maybe you're looking at year 3 till you can really clamp down and say "ok by now you've had your chance and we need to be seeing results."

As a parent, I would also be pretty worried about exactly how principals are going to be rated. There is already way too much focus on the MSAs because of the frickin NCLB. Now if test results are also going to factor into whether a principal gets to keep his job or maybe gets a bonus, that's going to add a whole new level of test mania. Our kids are going to be nothing but test taking robots.

June 13, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

As we end this school year, thank you!

Spring is leading into summer, and I know it’s been an extremely busy time for you. The changes we’re making at the central office and in the schools have added new responsibilities and uncertainties. Some of you find yourselves contemplating new roles. These changes will greatly enhance the impact of your excellent work and leadership. You are leading our schools, where our students’ futures are being charted. I am grateful for your efforts, and I look forward to supporting you in every way possible as we endeavor together to build an entire system of great schools.

This means that we must ensure that from now on there is an effective teacher in every classroom, by treating you as the professionals you are, and giving you the tools and training you need to succeed. We must empower parents by giving them a meaningful voice in the running of our schools. We must all be accountable for educational success at every level – at the central office level, the school level, the classroom level, but also at the family and student level.

Most importantly, it means that we must hold to the principle I’ve tried very hard to assert this year: every decision about whom to employ, how money is spent, and where resources are deployed must be made with a single-minded focus –what will best serve our students, regardless of how it affects other interests.

I have enormous faith in all of us as we continue to try to make ours a system of great schools for our kids.

Sincerely,

Andrés A. Alonso, Ed.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Baltimore City Public School System

Such a nice letter. Just one thing, Bill. Now I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm having a little trouble comprihending just how it is relevant to the issues we have been discussing. I'm wondering if you could do me a little favor and maybbe (after you have calmed down a little) explain to me exactly what you had in mind -- I mean, assuming you weren't just swept up in a huge fit of passion by the words of the Great Man Himself.

central_office -
I am very concerned about how principals will be judged, but I'm not sure why you would think that all the evaluation of the principals will be based on MSA scores - there's a lot more listed as "indicators" in the one document that has to do with judging principals that I found http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/School_Board/Budget/PDF/041508EssentialsIndicators.pdf

I can see the difficulty in measuring some of these things, but looking at parental involvement, school safety, professional development for teachers, functioning student government... all these things sound good to me. Currently the only way schools are judged are MSAs and attendance. Seems like this should mean less MSA focus rather than more.

Just passing along information.

OK, Bill, well then let me just address a couple of points you raised earlier.

"doing things the same because "that's how things were done" is the wrong answer."

Couldn't agree with you more. I think you misunderstood what I said tho. The way I look at it, there are not just 2 choices, Alonzo's way or nothing. I am completely in favor of change, and I think Alonzo has done a few things right, but the big bulldozer approach scares the heck out of me. Now I think any reasonable person would have to agree that when you try to do too much too fast, you run the risk of things going pretty bad. And of course some people will say "so what, can't get any worse than it already is." But there I just disagree. I think it can get a lot worse. I'm pretty worried that if you take a fragile beaten down system like we got and push it too hard, it could crack wide open. Now I know you may not agree, but I think you'll admit that it's a reasonable proposition.

"I don't know how much I trust the opinions of "everybody else" when "everybody else" has contributed to the current state of affairs"

Well, see this is what I mean about the demonization of everybody associated with the system. Lots of finger pointing going on If its not the principals, its the teachers. If its not the teachers, its North Ave. If its not North Ave, its the parents. So everybody's to blame, and apparently you seem to think it's the people at North Ave especially. Well, what I said earlier about the principals mostly being decent and hard working applies pretty much as far as I can tell to the people at North Ave and the teachers as well. The good majority are working their butts off under extremely difficult circumstance trying the best they can to make things better. So I am sorry, but I feel like this kind of comment is most disrespectful. My own opinion is that probably the best thing we can do for our kids is to start acting like adults and professionals and treating each other with respect. We can re-organize this and re-allocate that and re-structure the other, but until we start treating each other with dignity -- especially the teachers -- we are not going to get very far.

a parent - Thanks for digging this up! If we had more parents as pro-active as you, I believe all our problems would be pretty much solved. Yes, I would agree, this does look very well rounded and balanced. I gotta wonder though, whose gonna pull all that together for 190+ schools? Looks to me like we're gonna need a small army of consultants or something.

Respect is earned, not bestowed and "North Ave." as a system (as opposed to individuals), seems to have done a poor job of earning respect from any of the teachers I've dealt with in the last nine years. Maybe a big shake-up will let all parties (except us parents...) start with a clean slate.

On the other hand, politeness is something we can all strive for. Less sarcasm and more constructive dialog sounds good to me.

I like what I read. It reminded me of the idea of "sentencing guidelines" in courts. While there are prescribed punishments, there is still leeway for judges to apply what they believe are appropriate punishments per situation.

I'm thinking that this document is in the spirit of that. For level 1 offenses, there are prescribed punishments, yes, but those don't all appear to be things that principals need to spend their time worrying about. For worse offenses, ones that are say, levels 1 and 2 or higher, there seems to be leeway built in for principals to step in and remedy the problems.

If that's indeed the spirit in which this document is written, I think it's good. It certainly gives responsibility to students (and parents) as well as spelling out the fact that teachers do have rights other than the right to be compelled to parent somebody else's child.

One thing that is important is what somebody mentioned, that we can't give principals all of the responsibility to turn the schools around, while taking away the power to mete out discipline. As we know, in many BCPSS schools, discipline has been a problem. I think there's certainly room to have uniform rules as well as specific incident remedies that fall within those rules.

And if the rules don't reflect situations that pop up more frequently, then principals, administrators and teachers need to be able to go to North Ave./Dr. Alonso, have these issues aired, and the rules revisited to reflect the realities in the classrooms. I think this should be a living document, evolving as the system hopefully evolves upward toward more positive outcomes.