I'd like to see an article about public vs. private school in Maryland. If MD is #1 in the nation then why are parents still paying for their children to attend these schools?

I also think it would be neat to see an srticle on the social phenomenon in Baltimore of asking what HS you went to? Why is that?

PTO at new charter school Tunbridge making a difference. The power of parents getting involved.

As is my habit in talking about elementary and secondary education, I'd like to see more about the importance of parent engagement in schools and its effect on school and student successes. I feel strongly that the lack of parental involvement is the main obstacle to academic success, much more so than funding, class size, etc.

I agree with Scott. Parent involvement is crucial in education. Education has been compared to a triangle involving parents, the student, and teacher. We as teachers can motivate in our lessons, involve students,and make the lessons relevant, but if parents do not teach their child to value education and respect teachers and schools,then the results are dismal. Please report on parent and student responsibility. Also, what about responsibility of principals. Who evaluates them, other administrators and supervisors? You cancreateanevaluation tool for teachers, but who are evaluating those on the higher rungs in education? aren't principals supposed to know what is going onion their schools? How about the role of various offices? Each school system has an office of mathematics, English, Science, etc. In the old days, sorry, 25+ years ago, when teachers were observed and evaluated, you had their department chAir, administrator, and a supervisor from their office to watch them teach. No more.as. How about articles about what these offices are doing? Each school system is filled with more than just teachers. Delve deeper please.

I would like to see in-depth reporting on the relationship between teacher workload, quality instruction and student achievement. The demands on teachers today are so great that many of us feel as though we could work 24+ hours a day and still not accomplish all that needs to be done. Some research has been done on this topic, but I never see it mentioned in news reports about education. The perception among the general public is that we 'work' just 61/2 -7 hours a day!

I’d like to see some of the numbers behind the decisions being made by administrators so we can see if they make sense. If there are no numbers behind the decisions I’d like to know that too.
I learned from friends and family, who are teachers, that Baltimore County on Friday announced they were ending their retire/rehire program. As I understand it, teachers retired from one county could be rehired in Baltimore County at reduced pay and without the burden of benefits. This sounds like a relatively low marginal cost for, presumably, good, experienced teachers. With enrollments rising in the Baltimore County School system I’d like to know if this decision actually saves taxpayers money both now and in the near term (say 1-3 years).
With a “no new hire” decision there is not a question whether these teachers are a “better buy” than new full time teachers this year. But this question must soon come up in an expanding school system.
If the courses taught by these people are being cancelled and replaced by larger classes in the remaining course, I’d like to know how that may affect teacher morale and the need for more “mental health” days and higher costs for substitute teachers.
In other words, I’d like to know if our schools systems are making financially prudent decisions with a long enough time frame in mind. This decision lops some money out of the budget but it does so on the backs of remaining teachers. The lost teachers must be replaced at some point in a growing system, so is this rational in the long term.
(For transparency, a good friend of mine was affected by this decision. I have a personal interest in this decision in that sense but I have a longer standing interest in seeing more of the economic reasoning behind the strategic and operating decisions made by local government. I am a professor of economics at a local college.)

I would like to see more work on system budgets. For example, there is a large descrepency between what the City system gets per kid and what schools get per kid. Charter schools get far more per kid. I know that charters pay for some tings that non-charters get free, but even taking into account these added cost there is a large difference. I would like to know where the extra money goes since it isn't being spent on kids.

Also, I would like to see follow up to the statements made at board meetings and through public statements by City School folk. I believe there is a lot of BS being tossed around and being taken as fact.

Did you see Sara N?

I've posted a similar thought before, but now seems a relevant time to rehash...

I'd love to see an 'expose' on teacher hiring practices throughout the state. In some ways the issue goes hand-in-hand with the union politics playing out around the country, but it's more than that.

My trip into the world of trying to become a teacher taught me just how screwy the system is. Teachers don't announce retirement, county's don't hold to deadlines, schools aren't allowed to make hires ... it all leads to an awful system and awful process. In the end, I know more quality teachers who decided to stop trying than who wound up taking jobs eventually.

Add in the anecdotes about jobs being "reserved" by principals, department chairs or even HR specialists, and it gets extra spicy.

I remember contacting Nancy Grasmick's office years ago just to let them know why I and many other quality teachers wouldn't be in schools that year. Her response was a simple line about how counties are responsible for their own practices and she could care less, really.

1. What about a story about the arts in Public Schools? They were eliminated completely in Baltimore City for a while, then came back-- I think each school is now required to have an art teacher, but are facing cuts again as the new budget cuts come down the pike and schools face difficult choices and tested subjects that cannot be eliminated.

2. Related story-- is there a Baltimore Youth Symphony Orchestra? If not, was there ever one? Most cities had one when I was growing up (I grew up in the Denver YSO in the 80s and knew musicians who participated in YSO in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles) but it seems that most schools here don't even host a music teacher, so producing students who could play in one would be impossible. What is the future of music if we are not training our musicians?

2.a. Related story-- what about the rise in contracted arts-and electives teachers in the city? People who teach non-tested subjects are being hired more and more as hourly wage earners not eligible for benefits and not eligible to be in the union. This means a teacher cannot make a living teaching these highly skilled subjects (like music, art, drama, etc.)

3. Is there currently a hiring freeze in Baltimore City? Last year, there was a hiring freeze while Teach For America was expanded by 100 spots. This meant that experienced teachers (often with impressive resumes) were turned away in favor of new ones without a day of teaching experience. I would think in these times of unemployment that this could be an explosive issue if it is happening again this year, especially with the buyout. (this is not a teacher vs. teacher story, but a college-grad-who-can-stay-with-mom vs. mom-of-two-kids-and-caretaker-of-grandma story.)

4. How is it possible for any school to have a 100% graduation rate? This sounds wonderful, but wouldn't a lower rate show that a diploma is actually sort of hard to obtain? Why are we bragging about the 100% graduation rates of several schools? I am very suspicious of the many schools in Baltimore that boast percentage rates of over 90% even as test-scores in these same schools are in the basement. Alonso has bragged that graduation rates have gone up substantially since he was hired, and I wonder if this is because schools are afraid of lowered NCLB ratings, or retribution from AAA and so graduate more students than they otherwise would have.

What does a diploma mean if it comes from a school where 100% of the students graduate? Either-- the school is doing amazing work with these students (which should be detailed in a story so we can all learn from it) or there is some juking of stats going on. I've heard that only 30% of Poly and City grads make it through college. If grads are not prepared, why are they grads?

5. There was a very interesting article a while back about an effort in New Hampshire to have every high school institute a GED program for overage students, and to allow anyone who passed all their High School Tests to graduate in the 10th grade. 11th and 12th grade were to be reserved for career-track courses, or college prep courses such as AP. The idea was that this would save money and serve students better because it meant students were not held back. Would there be interest in this type of thing here?

The 6-12 model Transformation schools do a little of this goal-oriented education rather than seat-sitting, by allowing middle schoolers who are too old for middle school to fast-track to high school by taking extra intense classes. As a ninth grade teacher, I think this is wonderful: it allows a huge amount of anger out of the balloon as angry 16 year olds have a way to work back to the grade their peers are in-- former mistakes are rectifyable (sp?). How is the fast-track from middle to high school working in the various 6-12 schools? Is it worth expanding? Would a NH-style model work here?

6. Leaders of the Beautiful Struggle advocates for a community-led curriculum movement in which Baltimore City decides what is best for Baltimore, and how to educate its students to achieve what is best for Baltimore. Class requirements as I understand them, (and I'm only vaguely familiar with the organization) include carpentry and a full-scale effort to rehab vacant homes for homeless students and their families. A profile piece on this group might be very interesting.

7. I love the articles about Baltimore County's push for a community-elected school board. Is there a similar push in Baltimore City? What do parents want in this regard?

8. An article on how TIFs in Baltimore effect our public schools. What businesses are receiving TIFs, and is there an effort to get these businesses to contribute to our schools in other ways, since they are not contributing any funds?

9. A deep article about efforts to get first and second graders to read in Baltimore, and what strategies have been instituted on a system-wide basis in the last 3 years, or even an article about one particular school doing a great job and what that school is doing. This article should be done about high schools and middle schools too.

We all know what happens to a kid who is behind. Baltimore City teachers know what happens at a school where 70% of kids are behind. In my experience (and this is why I'd like to see an article about an outstanding school in this regard) high school does very little to help that kid who is behind in reading.

Instead, the effort seems to be in teaching kids how to take a test because the school is judged immediately and not over the long-term, and so short-term gains are actually more important for a school's survival than long-term gains. I have been at schools whose basement test-scores and lack of resources meant we did 'triage' in order to focus our 'extra help' efforts 'where it counts.'

Students were divided into three groups-- passers, failers, and those who would pass with an extra push. The 'extra push' kids were the only ones who received any extra help, and this was all straight 'teach-to-the-test' style help designed purely to boost the school's test scores.

The problem of which teacher should stay or leave can not be fairly determined at this time. Only teachers who have been founded guilty of indisputable charges should be fired. Let them appeal, without the benefit of a full pay check.

The equitable way of solving this problem is get tough with teachers now. Set a time period in which teachers have to improve. Bad teachers will know that they only have X years to improve or move--to a new vocation. Under the current system it is too time consuming to spend the effort to retrain resistant teachers who know, no matter what they have a job.

Thanks, Liz, for inviting ideas. I think it's interesting that the school system has its own police. This is partly the cause for the public's knowing less than it should about what is going on in the city schools. Why is it, for instance, that this other police force has such a slow response time, sometimes no response at all? Is this deliberate on North Avenue's part? Or are these officers that much in demand? I think if people know just how hard it is for an emotionally prepared young person to learn from her teacher, the public would stop letting Dr. Alonso make the situation sound like that of an above-average professional baseball team.

I know the post stated that you were looking for input from teachers and principals, but given how much of my blood, sweat and genetic matter is invested in schools I'll give you my suggestion as a parent.

Since the almost constant refrain on this blog to any findings that show education problems is a barrage of generalizations about how City School parents suck big time, how about a story looking at parental involvement across different school systems and income levels. Maybe you could talk to parents at different schools and ask them about what makes them want to be involved or keeps them from doing so. Maybe you could figure out some sort of metric to compare schools in terms of parental involvement and see if the "common knowledge" that says without parental involvement kids will never do well holds true. I can think of one school with high scores and no PTA.

Maybe the attitude that pervades so many of the posts on this blog is the same one at schools that makes parents feel unwelcome. Personally, I'm a little tired of being the sole parents' spokesperson (I don't count I&EP since I'm pretty sure he doesn't currently have kids in the school system). Whatever...

I know you didn't ask, but there's my two cents worth.

From Liz: We are so happy to have parent comments. I didn't mean to exclude anyone, anywhere who has a thought.

A new CITO in Baltimore? - Where did the old one go? Another Harvard lackey being brought in - hmmm - so much for institutional history - Has this person been veted - remember Brian Morris - that was the last person Alonso tried to hire.

Since 2002, social studies instruction in Maryland has been greatly diminished, yet many parents, citizens and political leaders are completely unaware of these circumstances.

Upon the inception of the Maryland School Assessment program, which does not include social studies, many Maryland elementary schools began to limit social studies instruction. The discipline became the first area from which students are pulled for remedial assistance. At the middle school level, it is the subject most often taught by a teacher without content background. Finally, a look at the budgets of many Maryland school systems will reveal that social studies is by far the most poorly funded of the academic disciplines.

1.)In February 2011 the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) announced the termination of the Maryland High School Assessment (HSA) for Government. MSDE cited budgetary constraints, yet maintained fifteen administrations of the other three HSA assessments.

2.)With the termination of the Government HSA, at no time over the course of a students’ academic career from grades K – 12 does Maryland assess a student’s historical, civic, economic or geographic knowledge; however, reading, math and science are assessed by the state no fewer than twenty-three times.