Since this is the first, detailed by school information parents are getting it shouldn't be a surprise that there hasn't been an uproar. If the schools were complaining to the parents I'm sure the parents would complain to someone, but at the schools we're at there has been no notice. Maybe it's related to the fact that they had budgets that went up a lot, and so being cut a little isn't that painful.

I'd like to point out that principals did not, in fact, submit their enrollment projections, but that they were determined by North Ave personnel who answered to nobody and followed no formula as far as I could tell. They under-projected us (a neighborhood high school) by over 100 students, and ignored multiple e-mails and reports from us informing them of the error, and now we have significant budget bump to spend, further disrupting the school. Principals aren't to blame for this one.

Joseph: The school system says that principals were all given the opportunity to submit enrollment projections. At the schools where the principals did not submit anything, they used central office projections. Was your principal unaware of the opportunity to submit a projection? Or did he/she submit a projection that was not used?

Sara is exactly right. The principals were given the opportunity to submit projected enrollment numbers. If nothing was submitted, central office projections were used. With all of the communications to principals throughout the initial budget process, I find it hard to believe that some were unaware of the opportunity to project their own enrollment.

I was one of the people working on those reports, and our numbers were simply ignored. Despite the fact that the projected enrollment was over 100 students below what our school had ever had before (at least in the past decade), nothing was changed. Maybe some people were listened to while others were ignored?

What about the schools where principals were changed...multiple times?

I taught at Booker T. We had a different principal for each of the two years I was there and the poor school has gone through another 4-5 principals since I have left. I find it absolutely unfair and an injustice to the students to further disrupt the school this school year by moving teachers and changing the whole class line-up mid-year.

Booker T was/is an excellent school. They should be awarded for their steadfast results in the face of adversity, not further disrupted.

The budget process wasn't quite that nice for all schools. In fact in some it was a farce. The enrollment numbers given by some were in fact ignored. Not all the principal's should take heat on this one. The whole system is flying blind, we just have a good PR team now.... it's all lipstick....

Artie:

On what planet are you thinking that BTW is a "excellent" school? I was there in the mid 90's and it was awful - the same principal for years, no discussion about good instruction, high mobility of teachers (around 40 - 50 percent left each year), tons of suspensions and poor performance. In checking the data from Mdk12,org I see that 63.4% of students failed to pass Reading MSA this past year and over 85% of special education students failed to move out of the Basic score. In math the scores are even more embarrassing - with 87.1% of students scoring basic. Where on Earth (actually I know the answer - only in BCPSS) is that type of performance considered "excellent"? Add to that the constant (as you state) change in "leadership" and I cannot see how anyone would call that excellent.

I know that there are some great kids and a few great teachers there, but come on, to consider that excellent is silly.

As to your point about the budgets I can see how there are questions about how the system dealt with projections and how those things impacted school budgets especially when there has been change in school leadership, but the system did a "snapshot" to take those changes into account on Nov. 1 and has now given principals the new numbers. All school leaders had some idea of the impact (or should have if they had paid attention at all to what was going on) that the difference in projected numbers vs. actual numbers would mean to budgets and should have been thinking about how those changes (either positive or negative) would impact the school. Maybe it's just that some principals didn't really believe that these changes were really going to happen so they used hope to guide their decisions. Not a good plan. I know first hand that "fair student funding" isn't always enough, especially when schools have such great needs, but to say that no one knew anything isn't accurate.

As for multiple requests to change projections early on, that is something that Sara should look into and get answers to. I am interested to know if what you and your group asked for is closer to the actual numbers and if so is your budget getting cut or is it being increased. It seems to me that if you knew that the actual numbers were going to be smaller than projections you and your leadership team should have considered that when they did their budget and not spent/staffed as high. If you thought that there were going to be more kids then I actually see that as a good thing - you get more money now. I am not sure why it needs to be a disruption and schedule change - the money could be spent on paraprofessionals, additional counselors, or other support staff who could help teachers do a better job and help kids. It doesn't need to be spent on extra teachers where scheduling changes would need to take place if things are working well. And frankly, if the extra money is a problem for any school, I'll take it at my school.

Sara -
Since your original post mentioned Roland Park, here's the response from that school's listserve as to the effect of a budget reduction of $273,626:

As the school's business manager, I can assure everyone that the recent
budget change that occurred last month will NOT have any impact
whatsoever on instruction. Most importantly, there were no staffing
changes or teaching positions that were lost, and there is ample
funding in place presently for instructional supplies and textbooks.

Interesting Observations -

The planet I live on is where I haven't drank the Kool-Aid that the only way to judge a school is by test scores and percentages that don't take any account of the situation being faced by the educators in the buildings. While you were there in the 90s, I was there in the 2000s and saw amazing instructors working their hearts out, myself included (sorry for the shameless plug). There was amazing instruction going on - I concede that not every instructor is qualified or effective, but the majority of us were employing top-notch, research based strategies to help move our children forward. We had a leadership team my first year that was built by the principal (probably the same lady you speak of) who supported their teachers where it mattered - in disciplinary issues - so that we could focus on teaching instead of disciplining.

I admit there were problems, exacerbated now by the absolute lack of consistency in leadership. But I also believe that the educators in that building deserve high praise for their excellence and for doing their best to create an excellent school. I also admit that I use the term "excellent" in comparison to other BCPSS middle schools and you are right, that is not a very high standard. But until society steps up and tries to tackle the problem from multiple arenas, it would be an injustice to judge the educators of BTW by any other standard.

They are excellent and I will never ever back down from that assertion. And while I agree that incompetence and ineffective teaching should be called out and either improved or excised, I also believe that as a fellow educator we should be praising our colleagues rather than judging them solely on test scores. Dare I say you would not be willing to support test scores determining tenure in BCPSS - so please, don't take away the term "excellent" from your colleagues at a school doing its best for the population it serves.

In every school in the city there are a core group of educators who are working hard, smart and in the best interest of kids. Even back in the 90's while I was at BTW there were great teachers employing high quality instruction, but they were doing it in isolation and having little impact on the majority of kids. I have not as you state drunk the AYP kool aid and more (I hope) than you don't believe our kids can only come to school but not perform on assessments, any assessment for that matter. To deny that our students can do well on any assessment seems patronizing at best and smacks of other things at worst. One needs only to look at AYP scores from some of the k - 8 schools and to some of the Charter middle schools to see that in fact it can be done - high quality instruction, caring communities and high test scores, which does mean high quality student performance at least at some level.

As for giving credit to teachers who work hard, I do and always will. What I will not do is say that 87% failure rate is excellent. I wouldn't say that for my doctor and I darn sure won't say that for educators. Think about the goal for schools - to educate students. Does 87% failure speak to achieving that goal let alone doing an "excellent" job? No, not when it comes to my 3 kids and not when it comes to the 156 kids at my current school. I am glad you worked with supportive teachers and know that just to show up every day and engage the kids takes a lot of energy. Just because we work hard doesn't mean we are working smart or efficiently. And as you state, that's a failure of leadership.

I remember when I became an academic coach and we met with others at PDC. When test scores were announced (and they were at about the level of 87% failing) people cheered, I mean clapped and hooted. I was shocked that this was the reaction. If my kid got a 13% grade in math I darn sure wouldn't cheer.

I do celebrate gains. I do recognize that we have to start somewhere. I also set goals for kids, hold them to achievable standards, move those standards with each new assignment, read about instruction, reflect on practice, discuss instruction all the time and push my teachers to do better each day. I will never cheer for a 13% passing rate. unless that passing rate unless the starting point was 0. And after years of failure, to be at 13% isn't acceptable. the kids I knew (and still stay in touch with) from my days at the Booker were wonderful and deserved better - better than the administration gave and frankly better than I gave. And better than celebrating 13% passing rates.

As for test scores determining tenure, actually I do support that as part of the picture, and a major part at that. Yes, I know the issues that would come along with that, but what's the flip side, that we don't take performance into account when we evaluate? Again, would you send your kid to a doctor that didn't get judged at least partly on their ability to make people health? If they just worked hard, put in a lot of house, wrote a lot of prescriptions, saw a lot of patients but only 13% of their patients got better would you still send your kid? Lots of patients don't take their meds, don't follow directions, don't come in until it's far past the point of needing to come in, cannot afford to pay, and on and on.It's not a perfect analogy but it's not bad since I woke up at 4:30 this morning:-)

It can be done better, it is being done better right here in Baltimore, with "our kids". Let's not excuse away failure.

Interesting Observations -

I think we agree on quite a bit, actually. I still feel from your arguments, however, that you are basically only using test scores and percentages to determine what is "successful" - the premise of your argument seems to be almost entirely based on test score analysis. But what test scores fail to acknowledge, especially by the time you get to middle school, is that giving a child with a 4th grade reading level an 8th grade exam will undoubtedly lead to failure. The great thing about the Booker was that we had an overall culture among the majority of educators there that valued progress and we not only worked hard, but we did work smart, also. But within the current model of education, that simply is not enough.

The examples you cite of success, especially charter schools, are what I was arguing in my first entry - that we must make decisions as a society to do things differently. The current model of education, from 8am to 230pm doesn't work when some of our children arrive far behind their peers. We need longer school days, improved teacher pay, extracurricular activities, after-school programs of substance that attract the majority of our students. Essentially, I'm arguing that we need to turn our school buildings into community centers - we should offer government services out of the building, health services, community enrichment programs, etc to attract the whole community and make the school be seen as a very relevant and helpful part of the community.

Then, even despite the educators being amazing or subpar, we will see gains in our students achievement.

Artie:

I am not "only using test scores" but believe that these HAVE GOT TO BE one measure of a school success. As for the premise of my argument being what's listed on the schools report card, actually it's that along with my own experience at BTW. Having said that, your argument seems predicated on a feeling of what a great job some of the teachers are doing - where is any data to support your argument of BTW being an excellent school? By what measure are you making that assessment? What is one thing besides how hard working some of the teachers are that you can point to as signs of success? I believe that we should make a fuller measure of success than just test scores for all schools. Here's what I think should be included:

1) Attendance
2) Parental involvement and satisfaction
3) Teacher retention
4) teacher climate survey results
5) true teacher to student ratios (not simply staff to student

But I also believe that we should not ignore literacy rates and math scores. To do so insults our students.

I also think that we could begin to measure some of those services that you mention as a measure of success. Not sure how to quantify those things, but they are a good start.

And by the way, most people eventually agree with me, it just takes some people longer. :-)

And when do you send me a resume?