The downside to the waivers is that large numbers of our students will believe that they will get waivers, no matter what we tell them, and will stop working on their projects or won't put any effort into retaking the tests. Changing the rules at this point in the game sends a message to students that we aren't serious about these requirements (I'm not against the waivers, just the fact that these graduation requirements have been a moving target for kids all year).

I agree completely with Joe. While these projects are logistical nightmares and masses of Baltimore City high schools kids will not receive their diplomas because of failing scores, we CANNOT CANNOT keep making excuses for their academic deficiencies. We must hold them academically accountable in a quantitative and definitive way.

When the State Board of Education met last month to discuss the waiver issues, Dr. Alonso went down to testify and advocated for the test requirements to stay in place. He spoke of a "two-tiered" system that continually exempts predominantly poor, urban and minority students from rigorous instruction based on external factors. I can infer that he meant to say that we cannot keep pushing our students along while they are not academically accountable. While not perfect, the HSA requirements require a needed measure of accountability.

To be successful and move beyond the constrains of poverty, our students have to be on par with their peers state-wide who will ultimately be competing with them for seats in colleges/universities and for jobs beyond that. To deny them that, we are perpetuating the injustices of the system.

I hope that principals, administrators and North Ave. are going to use this waiver with extreme prudence. It should not be given to ANYONE who has anything other than a profoundly compelling rationale.

Sadly, I think it will become another tool in the already full bag of excuses for our students to be passed along without the requisite knowledge to succeed in this life....

David, I get your theoretical arguments. Doctrinally, I agree with you 100%. However, the practicalities of your opinion do not recognize the scope of the challenge.

(1) Where do we get the money to "hold these students accountable?" We're talking about 100s of kids who will have sufficient credits to graduate but who have not passed the HSA tests. I get that it appears to be lowering expectations, but what's the other option?

(2) Where do we get the teachers & facilities to handle these 100s of students who are denied a diploma b/c of their HSA test scores? Again, the moral hazard problem here is immense, but I find it hard to believe that students should be the ones who suffer for the mistakes and failures of others within the system.

(3) Baltimore City has the most stringent promotion policy in the State, particularly with regard to 9th/10th/11th/12th graders. Unfortunately, I think some of the policies that we hold up as "having high expectations" actually serve to further disadvantage students for reasons that may make conceptual sense but fail in the realm of practicality.

Again, I see where you're coming from, but I think you need to recognize the realities of the system. For the 1st year of the HSA requirement implementation, we have to be more flexible than we would be had this been an existing and long-standing policy.

Also, I recommend that you come out and grade this weekend at Edmondson. If not this month, then January or February. Grading these projects has re-opened my eyes to the realities of the scale of the graduation requirement problem that's looming over the City Schools.

Bill,

You wrote that "Baltimore City has the most stringent promotion policy in the State, particularly with regard to 9th/10th/11th/12th graders. Unfortunately, I think some of the policies that we hold up as "having high expectations" actually serve to further disadvantage students for reasons that may make conceptual sense but fail in the realm of practicality."

I'm blown away by this comment. I taught 12th grade English IV last year and several of my seniors failed the course (a graduation requirement) and were still allowed to walk across the stage with a diploma in hand. Roughly 30% of my 9th grade English class that failed last year are in my 10th grade English class this year (acting exactly the same) with no summer school or novel credit to their name. I've seen nothing but social promotion in my 4 years here.

As for the monumental problem of HSA failing students, it's a ridiculous problem. Either we pass them with "waivers" or "projects" or some roundabout way, or we actually hold them responsible and make them pass the test. Perhaps it's time to be rigorous and have all the seniors that can't graduate with HSA failures take a summer HSA class and re-take the test at the end of the summer. All we would need is to add another testing date. Sure they wouldn't walk the stage (parents would rebel), but at least they'd actually EARN the diploma.

Bill-

Its rather strange to be the theoretician as opposed to the pragmatist. Im usually wailing on the theory folks. Giving them the whole "come here for a day" kind of argument, but I guess the roles reversed.

Tangentially, your whole thrust is why urban education policy is always chasing its tail. You, me, and nearly everyone else can be in agreement as to why these tests are essential to our students. But yet somehow (and in perpetuity), we can make pragmatic, theoretical or just plain lazy excuses why we cannot ever fundamentally restructure the failing paradigms.

Here are my rebuttals to you:

1. It is lowering expectations and my feeling is the other option, as Dr. Alonso has stated his willingness to do before, is to bring them all back into their building for a another year. It will create a staffing nightmare in many schools-including my own. But then that is incentive, under a fair-student funding model, for principals to hire staff or re-direct resources in their respective schools to working doggedly to get those students to pass. I know my school has plenty of wasted teacher dollars. It will force principals to take a second hard look at their staffing needs and make even more prudent decisions.

2. I guess I dont think the students are the victims here. I teach an HSA class and work constantly to get my students to get the material in a variety of different ways. I use all kinds of different methods and they still fail in overwhelmingly disheartening numbers. Not that I am Teacher of the Year, but the day-to-day intellectual challenge alone is immense. That aside, the FSF model can be used to figure it out. Dr. Alonso is charging principals to get results with limited resources. This is simply another challenge. More students will mean more money which can be used to hire more staff.

I do recognize the realities of the system. I have nearly 100 kids in 3 HSA classes at a neighborhood (zoned in the former nomenclature) school. My kids are not prepared for success-in the classroom OR in the real world.

Telling them, us, and the future taxpayers that we couldn't do something because of what I perceive to be workable realities under a FSF model once again highlights NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's comment: “Are we making good on the moral vision — and the clear social obligation — set forth in the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education when we tolerate poorly performing public schools?”

As for Saturday.....I have to work a second job nights and weekends. Ironic.

I understand where all of you are coming from and have a few other points to throw out there. I totally agree that we need to set standards and keep them in place. Moving standards from year to year has gotten us into this mess. This mainly applies however to the "regular" students who are capable of doing passing work and refuse to or are too lazy. At my school (neighborhood; zoned; whatever), most of the students who are having to do projects are not the "regular" kids. Instead they are special education students who in past years would have been in self-contained or non-diploma track classrooms and they are trying. They come to pullouts, Saturday schools, after school and work hard. They still can't get these projects on their own without massive teacher input. What lesson are these students learning? Certainly not that we expect them to do the same as their peers--we are expecting way more in time and content. These are the students who should receive waivers or altered standards in some form. The MOD HSA doesn't do it; most of the kids did worse on it than on the regular test. The larger question is "When will BCPSS become an academic founded system again?" Not until a teacher/administrator can spend more of their time during the day dealing with instruction and curriculum than dealing with misbehavior and criminal behavior. Until that question is addressed, the rest of this process is moot.

Just to follow up on my earlier comment, a number of students in my school have already expressed their belief that they will be granted waivers to justify stopping their project work, despite the fact that our principal and teachers are all telling them that waivers will be few and hard to come by. They simply don't believe we're serious. I honestly believe that we'll need to accept a year or two with seriously diminished graduation numbers to convince underclassmen that we aren't going to socially promote them into a diploma. It's a bad solution, but our kids have seen their older peers graduate after not passing courses they need and expect to do the same themselves. The worst part, to me, is that current administrators and teachers would take heat for those diminished numbers, no matter how diligently they worked to help the kids succeed.