ahhh, if you had the list of exactly what schools you would notice it's the toughest, historically troubled schools getting cut due to the changes in the formulas. They are killing those schools with funding cuts, then will ask why they aren't successful.

The last two years the city's toughest schools lost money per student because they reduced the funding for basic students and reallocated to the entire system.

Locked funding is going up because of the number of school increasing. They lock principals and other spots. I have no more restrictions than last year, but the system has more locked funds allocated because of their increased overhead at the school level.

Erica, they are gaming you because you don't have a complete picture.

@ BS Paper article on Macro ED (=) More city schools (LOSE) more than they gain funding next year.

This type of reporting style access/ information is putting it where all the general public, parents, stakeholders, elected officials can understand. The very troubled BCPSS Marco-Education (=) operations education jargon reorganization model plans and formulas actual effects and declined outcomes have on the BCPSS classroom base line/bottom line. For base line/bottom line Micro-Education (=) the classroom level students/classroom teachers more increased suffering. "Power to Inside Ed "PRINCIPAL" keep coming back with teachable feedback contributions."

The AVERAGE decrease is $231,302? While this doesn't split schools in half (the median would - maybe you could find that out), it roughly tells us that there are many school that have an increase much more than that. And even if it were only $231,302, that's an incredible amount of money. Several teaching positions, at least.

Can you find out why some schools are getting the increases? I can't imagine their enrollments are up enough to get an extra almost $400K? That would mean a school needed to have 80 extra kids - possible, but it seems unlikely?

@ Erica

The numbers you've posted are absolutely meaningless outside of the context of Fair Student Funding. No one can make meaning of these numbers without also seeing how student populations have grown or shrunk at each of these schools. If the money has left schools with falling enrollment and moved to schools with more students, then these decisions are a strategic use of resources. But if not, THEN we'd have something significant to talk about.

Without the full picture, you're only inviting people to draw uninformed conclusions.

@Simon

The numbers I posted are exactly what I received from the school system in asking for details school budget information--no omissions, and there were no explanations.

Maybe I can add an asterisk to remind people that Fair Student Funding is based, primarily on enrollments, but I think that's pretty common knowledge.

Also, to tie this funding is solely to enrollments is not something that I can say definitively until the school system does. They have not (which is why I explained in the post what I asked for vs. what I received.)

Covering this budget has been incredibly complex, mostly due to lack of explanations from school officials, so in the blog I am getting out as much information as I can.

The fact of the matter is--for this posts' purposes--that's how the school funding shook out this year.

My coverage in the newspaper is always within context, and will continue to be as more details are provided.

Thanks for the feedback.

Erica and Liz:

It's time to stop accepting what is "given to" you and start asking some harder questions. For example:

1) What were the actual formulas used in the past two years to calculate the add on's to FSF? Anyone inside a school knows that the finance office cannot tell you -0 they made it up.

2) in the 2009 - 2010 and 2010 - 2011 school years schools were told that they were getting base FSF funding and then add ones for students in basic or advanced. One might wonder how those classifications were arrived at - again, anyone in a school knows full well that there isn't an answer. Schools with high numbers of basic students could not ever get a straight answer on who was included in that category or even how many of their kids were counted. The numbers simply were made up by CFO's office.

3) For this coming year - let's refer to it as the year of hell or YOH - what is being included in the base FSF number? Where are title 1 funds? Where are drop out prevention numbers? Where are special education dollars (and what is up with the formula that has been used to calculate these given the budget woes?)? Where were these pots of money in years past? What is the REAL impact on schools?

4) Are all schools finally going to the same amount per pupil or are some schools going to continue to be "more fair" than others? For example - take the total number of kids in school A, divide by the total number of dollars they get (let's keep SPED funding out of it) and you get a number. This is the same number that ALL schools should be getting if in fact the weights for basic/advanced are being done away with. When in fact you look (and this is where Baltimore Sun needs to do actual digging, not simply asking and accepting what is given) you will see there are those with and those without. This is crap. If one school is getting say, 3 million on top of FSF because they are a STEM school, or a vo tech school and yet they are being compared to other schools that are doing without these funds because the second set of schools have missions that aren't supported that's crap. Again, under FSF all schools should be getting the same, not different amounts.

5) How much are costs going up and the same time as funding is dropping? For a school to be told you are getting 10 percent less than last year is only half the story when the costs are going up by another 10 percent. The real impact (do the math with me here people) is a 20 percent difference in real dollars a school can use. 20 percent - let's think about that. If my school has 45 teachers and we lose 20 percent of our funding that's 9 teaching positions. Now we are down to being able to afford only 36 teachers, same number of kids mind you, or maybe even more.

6) Finally. what is AAA going to do with those surplus teachers? They get paid from somewhere if they don't get fired. That money still comes from the system. Again, BS Paper needs to dig and find out how many people we can carry "off the radar". Dig baby dig.

Finally to all - where is the outrage and protesting? Why aren't kids and family's and teachers and administrators at the school board meetings? It's time to say NO MORE to being asked to do without for our kids. I am sick of being asked to screw our kids and families (and yes, my kids go to City Schools) and so should you. Time to organize and call those politicians including AAA and the Board out on their stuff.

@ Calling Out: Inside Ed Posters regarding the Baltimore City School District's Reorganization Model & Fair Student Funding Model Formats

Perhaps consider expressing your major concerns orally for 3 min @ Baltimore City Public Schools Public Board Business Meetings during public comments the transcribed meeting transcripts reflect your critical absence. Calling you out Inside Ed Posters: (None of you are present and have attended on public transcript record for standing up for anything for/against school district operations/governance or models/policy.) If-The-Shoe-Fits-Wear-It. To whom this does not apply thank you for showing up.

Most of you Inside Ed posters over the recent 3 SY have never contributed or participated at a open public board meeting on the agenda for speaking on the record at oral (Public Comments) during the Baltimore City Public Schools Public Board Business Meeting. “Afraid-Don’t-Be”.

Grown Cry Babies to the BS Paper @ Inside Ed. Do your own shoe leather research and then contribute something to this format to show for it.

"First, we are increasing the capacity of the school support networks currently charged with supporting schools ... Second, we are creating new positions to evaluate and coach school leaders"

Translation: That idea of just cutting schools loose didn't pan out so good. It was a big mistake to dismantle the area offices.

To I&EP: I am not sure why you believe name calling is appropriate - given the nature of this discussion, no one can be sure how the posters here have acted. Calling us adult cry babies does nothing to move the conversation forward. You don't know which of us are teachers, administrators, central office workers, bus drivers or non-system folk. I am disappointed whenever passion for the issues turns to insults and name calling.

As for what we might be doing to help change the dreadful situation schools are facing, again, no one can be sure given that most folks including yourself don't use their names. Maybe some of us helped organize the protests at School for the Arts, some might have written letters to elected officials, some might simply be taxpaying community members. There are lots of different ways to serve.

@ BS Paper article on Macro ED (=) More city schools classrooms (LOSE) more than they gain funding next year 2012.

Open School Board Meeting Participation at Public Comments “Afraid-Don’t-Be”. @ Keep Guessing: Don't care about any professional or career titles it means nothing.

@ Quote by Keep Guessing: ("Maybe some of us helped organize the protests at School for the Arts, some might have written letters to elected officials, some might simply be taxpaying community members.") Tally it (+/-) effective/non-effective actions (=) Missed Opportunities if it's not noted on the open public business school board meeting agenda on a public transcribed document for record and orally recorded By-Way-Of-Public-Comment any thing else is less than it's a Missed Opportunity. “Afraid-Don’t-Be”. If-The-Shoe-Fits-Wear-It. To whom this does not apply thank you for showing up.

“Yes, I said it and I stand by it’s a fact.” I know at every 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 monthly school board meeting you folks are afraid to show-up, speak-up, and to be put on open and oral transcribed public access record being for/against real critical major education concerns and issues in front of a public citizens audience and school board commissioners. Read the transcribed board meeting records, on-line @ Open Access/Board Docs it’s in a searchable document format.

@Interested & Engaged--I am glad that you are able to attend school board meetings on a regular basis. I find it difficult to do so as I work a second job and have made contacts and spoken up only to be told that I would be "fired" if I didn't shut up. You may have a job that allows you freedom of speech. Education in BCPSS is not one of those jobs. Now we have a multitude of good, quality teachers that have been excessed from various schools. Where are they going to go? They will be shuffled from one school to another or layed off all together. Then the system will wonder where the institutional memory is and will have to hire "experts" to recover lost knowledge. Yes, I am mad but I know from past history what this system does to dissenters. Maybe you should go to work for the school system and see what happens.

I&EP: Shoes sometimes fit and sometimes not. That doesn't mean calling names is appropriate.

As for your "facts", while yes it is a fact that I have not been on the board agenda about budgets (that's a matter of record) it is not a fact that I am afraid. That is an assumption of how I feel. There's a difference. It IS a fact however, that there are other ways to get change to happen.

Having said that (and the other, and the other for that matter) I am in full agreement that more protest by all needs to happen. One reason that there hasn’t been more is that the numbers that the system gave out:

1) Came out very late
2) Are constantly changing on the Dashboard and elsewhere
3) Are not consistent from school to school
4) Are never final - when some schools complain their numbers change, when other do so, not so much.

What I am asking Erica to do is DIG and investigate.

Interesting that AAA (we believe) posted to the blog. Maybe others can comment, but that's the first time I remember him doing so. Also interesting that the post was simply a letter he sent out to all about the budget.

I do wonder about the 43% of schools who are seeing increases. Which schools are these? Where are their increases coming from? What is the cause for the increase? Are they charter schools, traditional schools, transformation schools? Again, time for Sun Paper to dig and not simply print (although appropriate here) what the system hands out.

@Keep guessing,
I meant to take down that post from "AAA." I checked, and it wasn't him. But it was the e-blast he sent out.

Because the numbers can lie, oh yes they lie. You need to look at the per pupil allocation after all funding is done. Only that will tell you the true cuts to each school reguardless of enrollment.

Yes, enrollment adjustments can hurt or help a school but there are a segment of schools who are also getting their per pupil reduced as well. Interestingly enough they tend to be the same schools.

Tough schools are losing enrollment to the newly established and/or better rated schools, making their student body even more difficult. Sadly most of the new schools minus a small segment are doing the same or worse than the traditional zone schools.

In addition to the reduction in enrollment the tougher schools are getting a reduction in their per pupil allocation. For the past three years most of the traditional neigborhood schools middle and high lost between $150 and $350 per child as AAA continued to change the weights.

I will tell you that I don't think it's an issue of them trying to make this happen. It comes down to a lack of understanding of our schools and the issues within them. You have a ton of Harvard folks and really smart dedicated folks who just don't understand. The worse part is they don't listen to those trying to tell them.

We are in a toxic system that is not able to learn or grow. We cut and replace as our method of improvement. In the short term that may show marginal improvement but over the longer haul it's suicide.

Compounding this is the inability of the media to sift through the mountains of information that is misleading. For me it's not about crushing this admin as much as it is stoping the horrible abuse of students and teachers in the toughest schools who are being used as pawns.

Erica, request the "school allocation worksheets" for each school and start reading. The per pupil spending increase or reduction for each school is right there.

Parents and Stakeholders have no "Juice" @ More city schools lose than gain funding next year

@ Post by: Keep Guessing & Post by: Veteran Teacher. Thank you for taking the time to write. Quotes by both expose the reason why parents/stakeholders by not using and not understanding how the established process of using the Public Comments at school board public business meetings that is available and are the most effective method for bringing Results-Outcomes are not being engaged as should be. That school board commissioners meeting opportunity features a self-contained audience in front of the school system major governance/policy decision makers the school board commissioners.

We don't blame either of you Inside Ed posters for not recognizing or understanding that it’s a must that you/we learn how to use the most effective process even if you don't like the process option provided for you/us. Understand how to use the established processes don’t’ spend time wasted on missed opportunity activities.

I&EP: I understand that there is a public comment time and that this goes on the record - a public record at that. I also understand that this is a powerful way to communicate with Board members and with the Sr. staff. However it is not the only way nor do I think it's very effective. Most of the votes are already counted once the Board sits. I also get that there are public comment meetings held for the budget. There are also work sessions where the public can engage. Having said all of that, AAA walks in with a plan and I don't think it makes one wit of difference what is said that those meetings - the budget for schools, well, most schools, drops, the chosen schools seem to still find money to carry on, those that sit and don't complain get shafted and the kids loose in the end. I have worked for City Schools for a long time and have seen how little caring there is about kids and families. It's frustrating and tiring. And as others have said, where is the outrage?

Parents and Stakeholders sideline attitudes/mentality have no "Juice" @ More city schools lose than gain.

Again, thank you for taking the time to write. Board voting tally and Alonso’s influence on outcomes have little to nothing to do with the citizens, parents, and stakeholders not accessing or not participating/engaging in the public open comments board meeting process before the governance body of school board commissioners. And as for you mentioning in addition, attending open public Work Sessions it’s a fact most are Not Being Held At Reasonable Times by the school board commissioners for working citizens, parents, stakeholders to participate and have input in the meetings as has been confirmed by BS Paper Erica Green, she has been quoted several times saying “school board work session meetings are mostly aimed at the school system staff and paid staff external education advocates only being in attendance.” The school board commissioners work session meetings are not a reasonable alternative option for engaging critical public input and participation!

"Those who have a self empowering attitude/mentality that (a person) can change; influence the outcome of something will not be satisfied with being on the sidelines or being second string players." Remember every one the Citizens are at the top of the BCPSS organizational flow chart not Alonso/School Board Commissioners!