It's a nice idea on paper, but there's an element that never is considered: transportation. I work in a high school that pulls from its zone but also allows students from anywhere in the city (not a city wide, not a charter.. we're strange that way).

Students attend my school by choice who live on the opposite end of the city. These students are 45 to 90 minutes late every day, and habitually fail 1st period. BCPSS needs to provide more reliable (and faster) transportation for this to work.

Brandon: The Expanding Great Options committee considered transportation issues as a centerpiece to the discussion. In fact, it's one of the primary drivers of the strategy. We've historically had neighborhood schools without nearby, viable options. The entire point of the effort is to allow all families, not just middle class families and families of means, to make a choice about their childrens' schools.

More to the point, staffers mapped out every single affected child's address of record and distance between likely transfer schools. How far a child may travel was an extremely important consideration. Ultimately, many determined that this transportation issue is family choice - some families feel comfortable sending a child across the City for a particular program, other families do not feel so comfortable. By expanding choice, the decision is in fact a decision, not an implicit mandate.

Of course, everyone wishes transportation for students were more ideal. Avon Mackel, director of transportation, has been doing great things to improve transportation options for students. However, this is a complex issue, and we know for sure that we don't have the funds to run a central bus program. Thus, it's working with what we've got to make it better.

Your general point, though, Brandon, is well received. Getting kids to school on time is absolutely critical to any initiative's actual success.

I agree with Brandon. The kids who come from across the city are never on time. ANd what is worse is that the parents support this? They always say that their kids are late because of the busses, because they live across town, etc. I love the idea of choice, it actually holds administrators accountable for their schools. The problem is that until this is ironed out, it will always be a problem.

I think this is a step in the right direction. For most students, study and work habits are developed in middle school (6th grade especially). By the time some of these children make it to high school (either by being promoted due to exceeding the age limit or by getting a 60 they didn't deserve) it is often too late to turn it around. I have taught some of the students that went to the middle schools in question as 9th graders and they were not even close to being prepared for high school both academically and behavior wise. "I actually have to do work to pass"? I understand that in the urban school setting you are going to have those students regardless of the schools themselves, however the students who are on the bubble and have to attend these failing middle schools without a choice or parent advocate are now being pushed backwards instead of being pulled forward. At least this is giving them a chance.

I am a little confused. There was a middle school fair last year where parents had the chance to choose a middle school. There were charters, transformations as well as others there if memory serves, although at this point, it's not serving well. How is this different?

One concern is that a few years back there was a major push to go away from traditional middle schools towards k - 8's. How many families are realistically going to go to the "devil they don't know" in when they can keep the one they do know? It seems that with the plan to create 6 - 12 schools through the "transformation" movement, the system has placed those newly created schools at quite a disadvantage. How can you fill up 6th grade classrooms when most 5th graders stay where they are? We humans are creatures of habit, even when those habits aren't the best choices.

Also, I have wondered over the past two years, how the system can support adding new 6th grade classrooms through charters and transformations when they aren't closing any of the current (charter or traditional) schools that serve 6th grade. Now that we are all about FSF and each kid comes to us with a price tag on their head, schools are living and dying by their ability to keep or attract kids. Has anyone done the math here?

Finally I want to echo the shout out to Mr. Mackel - he and his staff are as responsive as any at N Ave. Their willingness to assist is great.

@ Bill - There was a committee? Who was on this committee? Was there anyone representing the parents?

I have read the plan and it seems to dicate the options for these "poor" parents so is there really this freedom of choice? And what parent worth a grain of salt is going to put their 10 year old on a public bus to travel across town.

And the last time I checked Northeast Baltimore is not considered "poor" so parents who are paying attention have already chosen to leave the system. This will not bring them back.

Apparently the Sun had no one at the board meeting last night???

@IO - I think the big issue is 100% of MS kids will be making a choice as opposed to 10% of the kids taking advantage of the fact that they can make a choice. That's not an official statement, just my read as the parent of an elementary school kid.

Oh, speaking as a parent of an elementary school kid who was looking for options - this seems great to me, although the pseudo-zoning (quadrants?) sort of limits some of the options I thought we had.

Still chewing through all the data...

By trying to keep the kids in their quadrants I guess they would have less transportation issues than highschool kids who can be going totally across town.

@OTT: Yes, in the joys of bureaucratic work, there was a committee of central staff that worked to develop recommendations. Generally, that's the process for moving policy forward unless there's some emergency need for "rapid" action (within 2-3 days I mean). Are there specific parent groups on the committee? Not directly, but probably over 50% of staffers on the committee have children enrolled in City Schools. Again, this is a staff/CEO recommendation for consideration. Ultimately, the school board approves policy as is, with revisions, or denies.

There are evening public comment and work sessions scheduled during the next 4 weeks at every school affected by Expanding Great Options II. It would be physically impossible to have representative parent groups at every meeting for every policy. At some point, there's got to be staff recommendations that parents can then comment on after distribution.

"Choice" is also an incredibly complex issue. You're right that the options are limited in some cases. Reason being that there simply aren't enough seats at some schools. Another commenter mentioned the issue of FSF affecting enrollment. This adds another layer of complexity. The system can maneuver through all of it through recommendations, but of course it would much easier were this a blank slate from which to start. While choice is limited for this next year, as the transformation schools develop, then the "choice" process becomes more robust. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be the case, but as is often the case, we can't let the ideal be the downfall of system reform.

OTT, I'm somewhat confused by the last sentence. Because a constituency has historically chosen to place children in non-public schools, it's bad to try to draw them back by providing better schools throughout the City? I'm confused as to why trying to draw City residents' children into public schools is a bad or useless effort? It has worked in many other cities. Furthermore, the "choice" premise rests on the foundation is that the choice is to place a student in the best school, not just to move students out of bad schools.

The choice process leverages the power of demand to increase the pressure to improve. Take Holabird ES/MS as a prime example. School had low enrollment and was somewhat fledgling. The principal recognized this and started a campaign to draw students to the school. There have been massive improvements, and enrollment has spiked upwards in connection to the programmatic improvements. That's a tangible, real example - not a hypothetical.

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What about the kids whose parents fail to choose? Yes, Alonso, some of the parents are very smart and advocate for their children. There are others who don't care or are absent and these fifth graders are just left to the fates as to where they end up. It's already a sad state that a student's future is determined by 9th grade (and based on 7th grade test scored and grades), now it's going to be 6th grade?

Elizabeth, I work at one of those failing middle schools. The kids that are here the entire three years and come to school on a regular basis DO learn work and study habits.
Unfortunately, those kids are a minority. We get the kids who have been cycled through all the other middle schools, who have showed up for less than 10% of the school year (who the teachers fail on the report card and who still magically get passed on), who will spend one quarter in jail and then another in my classroom, and the kids whose parents have heard we're low performing and want their kid to go here so that they won't be bothered by phone calls because of their bad behavior (we have too many problems, so we're not going to worry about this one kid, right?)
It's a lot easier to blame the school than to blame the system that ruined in the school.

Can someone confirm that the middle school choice will be within quadrants? I know I saw this info in one of the original sets of documents, but now what I see on Board Docs does not reference this part of the plan.

Go to pg 34: http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/acrobat/2010-01/51845468.pdf
-- Jen

@OTT -
I just reread the last paragraph of your comment. "And the last time I checked Northeast Baltimore is not considered "poor" so parents who are paying attention have already chosen to leave the system. This will not bring them back."

So I'm a parent who has not chosen to leave the system. Does that mean I'm not "paying attention"? That seems a little harsh. Or do you just mean any parent who has a kid going to Northeast doesn't care about their child. I know kids who go to Northeast and whose parents do care. If they had felt they had a choice I'm not sure they would have picked Northeast, because they were paying attention. They just couldn't find any options.

On you're second sentance - many things have brought parents back into City Schools. Charter schools, a bad economy, improved test scores have been reasons that I have heard. I've seen parents leave City Schools after attending an elementary school because the middle school that they would have been going to was unacceptable. For those parents I think that middle school choice could bring them back.

@Steph -
High School is now 100% choice. How many kids never turn in a form? If it's not a problem for that group, it shouldn't be a problem for middle schoolers either. I have heard kids talk about not wanting to go to their zoned school. They care and can make decisions even if their parents are absent.

@ a parent:

I respect a lot of what you say on this blog, but I'm finding a hard time understanding your point. You think fifth graders can decide the best school for them to go to without parent input? They'll know all their options and choose a school based on academic rigor? I would never say my kids don't care. I would definitely say they have trouble thinking about their future and the ability to make the decisions that will impact it in a positive way.

As for the 8th graders who don't turn in forms, I would refer that to our school guidance counselor who no longer counsels because she spends her days chasing after 8th graders begging them to fill out forms.

@Steph

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. Because there are some parents out there who will fail to choose, we should not allow choice for those who DO want to participate? Not allowing choice doesn't help students whose families wouldn't choose, it only hurts the students whose families would. (Sorry for the triple negative.) Aren't students already being "left to the fates" under the current system, only now "the fates" are just code for "ZIP code?" Ultimately, the goal of course is to make all schools acceptable choices for students and parents, but in the meantime, we need ways to identify failing schools and hold them accountable for improvement.

I think also there's a misconception about what these "quadrants" mean. As I understand it, students won't be confined to a certain quadrant; it just means that students who live within a certain quadrant will be given priority placement over a student who applies from across the city. This makes a lot of sense and addresses Brandon's concerns above -- students are more likely to have good attendance if they live close to their school. The only higher priority is if a student's sibling attends the school, which of course makes it easier for parents to be involved and arrange transportation. The entire plan and preference priority can be found on page 35 of the EGO powerpoint posted online on the Sun's website: http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/acrobat/2010-01/51845468.pdf

@Steph -
Sorry, I was too rushed to be clear. I was asking if 8th graders have a hard time getting the school choice form turned in. From your comment, I guess they do, which means it will also be a problem for 5th graders.

I won't say 5th graders make great choices, but as far as what schools are really like (especially safety-wise), I think they often have a better handle on it than parents do. If they have friends that they talk to go to that school, no amount of administrative white-washing will cover that communication. If they don't have friends, it's harder.

But I guess my question to you is how do you think assignments should be made if not by a family (weak or strong) making them? Should there be 100% assignments based on what a test says is right for you, or worse, how well you can politic with the selection committee? Should it all be a random lottery regardless of your desires? I'm not being sarcastic, I just have a hard time thinking of a better approach.

I think most families will take at least a little time to look through a catalog of choices and somehow pick a school. If a kid has no parent involvement at all some sort of mentor should be able to help. No mentor? Guidance counselor, maybe?

The idea of benevolent administrators (at a school or on North Ave) being able to make a better choice for the majority of kids seems unlikely to me. Neat little boxes and flowcharts to make decisions don't work for special kids. And every parent knows their kids are special.