My story today about a new character education initiative at Baltimore County's Kenwood High School is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this field.

I came across a lot of interesting information about a variety of models used throughout the state, and thought I'd share some of those additional details here.

Several people I spoke with emphasized the importance of data in using these programs. Tom Zirpoli, a McDaniel College education professor, mentioned how tricky it can be to link behavioral changes directly back to school or classroom discussions about honesty or other principles. Nancy Hanlin, one of the Kenwood teachers who also happens to be the attendance and tardiness monitor, mentioned trying to figure out a way to do just that.   

Continue reading "Character education in schools" »

Posted by Arin Gencer at 11:59 AM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Region, Baltimore County | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

The following schools were selected as National Blue Ribbon Schools today, according to the state department of education:

• Cresaptown Elementary, Allegany County
• Broadneck Elementary, Anne Arundel County
• Cecil Elementary, Baltimore City
• Piney Ridge Elementary, Carroll County
• Hickory Elementary, Harford County
• Hickory Elementary, Washington County

The six schools were the only nominees from Maryland, and are among 320 schools nationwide that were named winners.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 1:23 PM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Region, Baltimore City, Carroll County | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

A good bet is Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Alonso led a team of eight people from Baltimore to participate in Harvard's Public Education Leadership Project. A joint initiative of the Harvard School of Business and the Harvard School of Education, the project works with teams from school districts across the country on reform.

Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties also sent teams to this week's conference, as did school districts in Boston, Minneapolis, Charleston and Calgary. 

The Baltimore school system paid for half the cost for its participants to attend: $17,000, plus travel costs of approximately $300 per person. Harvard paid another $17,000.

There's been some debate on this blog the past few days about whether the trip was appropriate given the system's recent ban on travel. For whatever it's worth: One of the participants reports that they've been in classes for 13 hours a day and have hours of homework to do each night.

Keep reading for a list of the city's participants.

Continue reading "Where were your administrators this week?" »

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:05 AM in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

It appears the global food shortage and the resulting spike in wheat and milk costs is hitting Maryland school lunchroom budgets hard. Area schools reported spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more for food this year than last, even as reimbursement they get from the USDA rose just about 3 percent. For more detail, read my story today on meal prices rising and some creative penny pinching in cash-strapped Maryland school systems.

But there's a whole angle to this I wasn't able to fully delve into: How does this crunch undermine schools' efforts to provide healthier meals and address childhood obesity? Since 2006, there have been increasingly strict federal standards on upping the nutritional value of food served in school cafeterias. These standards call for lower-fat, lower-sodium options, more whole grains and more fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet when I spoke to a USDA spokeswoman yesterday, she talked about how they're encouraging schools to start buying and offering canned veggies -- which are cheaper but aren't as healthy as the fresh version. The canned stuff contains lots of preservatives and is often higher in sodium. 

I wonder if the pressure to save money amid this spike in food prices will turn back the clock on the few, but precious, gains public schools have made in making meals healthier. What do you think?

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 11:28 AM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

The sky-is-falling scenarios are emerging again in Anne Arundel, as school officials battle the county executive for more money for the district. The district asked the county for $77.5 million. It got $26 million.

Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell is considering this week options for paring back his central office staff by 200 positions. He's talking about making school hotter in the summer and cooler in the winter to save on utility costs. He's considering leaving 200 teaching positions vacant, which threatens to double class sizes in some of the district's smaller schools. The local union leaders are also on edge about the possibility of the district not honoring negotiated raises -- which could cause a credibility crisis for the 74,000-student school system that's struggling to retain and recruit qualified staff.

So, as all these scenarios emerge, you'd think the superintendent and County Executive John R. Leopold would be meeting and talking about a compromise -- how to live within the county's strained budget, but still not force the schools to make draconian cuts. But no. There's no talk. In the coming weeks, both sides simply plan to lob salvos at each other through dueling columns in local newspapers. It promises to be a feisty budget battle, but I'm afraid, not a particularly productive one.

Alicia Toloczko, a parent from Riviera Beach Elementary, who's been ping-ponged around as she tried to lobby the schools and county government to deal with the budget more reasonably, summed up the cost of this protracted, petty battle like this: "In the end, it's the children who lose out. They're the ones that pay so that these two people (Maxwell and Leopold) can each try to get their own way."

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 2:40 PM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

The letters have been coming in a steady stream for three weeks. Hundreds of them. To local media outlets, the school board, the county council -- anyone who will listen. "Fund the schools budget immediately," they demand.

Parents are protesting a controversial proposal in Anne Arundel County to leave 200 teaching positions vacant to help the school system save $12 million and weather a particularly austere budget year. It's Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell's proposal, but county council members here are miffed that they've received the brunt of the criticism. The council's chairwoman blasted district officials yesterday for running "one hell of a PR scam" and accused them of using dirty tactics (i.e. rueful parent and student letters) to manipulate and pressure the county government to fully fund the district's request for a $100 million increase.

Check out my story in today's Anne Arundel section to see more of the sharp exchange. Also, this list shows how many teaching positions some schools would lose if Maxwell's proposal becomes reality. Parents are most worried that the empty teaching vacancies would lead to larger class sizes. The schools that would lose staff have the number in parentheses.

Post a comment and tell me what you think of the bureaucratic bickering and of the possibility of lost teachers in Arundel schools.

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 6:58 AM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Two recent studies raise doubts, but -- as I report in my story today -- the strategy has emerged as the option of choice for Maryland schools that are required to restructure under No Child Left Behind.

This report by the Center on Education Policy looked at 10 restructuring schools in Maryland. While much of the report deals with restructuring by hiring a "turnaround specialist," an option the state no longer allows because it was not effective, it also discusses the disruption on instruction when a school is "zero-based," or the entire staff is required to reapply for their jobs. This month, Education Sector released a report on a successful school reform initiative in Chattanooga. The most successful teachers were veterans who went through extensive professional development.

In reporting my story yesterday, it was interesting to compare the difference in the staff replacement plans in Baltimore and Prince George's County. Both are long-troubled districts with (relatively) new superintendents instituting a lot of changes. In Baltimore, the schools are zero-basing. This was the option selected by school improvement teams, and city school officials believe it's only fair for everyone on a staff to be on equal footing. It seems Baltimore County has the same rationale. 

But in Prince George's, the staff replacement is selective, with the only given being that teachers in restructuring schools who are not "highly qualified" and aren't close to getting there will be moved elsewhere. Superintendent John Deasy said he's worked with the state to develop an instrument to evaluate a school's capacity. In schools where only one subgroup isn't making AYP, there will be less intervention than in schools where every subgroup is falling short. In some cases, Deasy explained, the principal won't be asked to reapply; the principal will simply be replaced. This approach leaves more room for subjective evaluations, but Prince George's County officials believe it will also be less disruptive than zero-basing.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:05 AM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Nation, Around the Region, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, NCLB, Teaching, Trends | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Yesterday, after an hourlong discussion where Raymond Simon, deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, met with 19 of Maryland's high-ranking educators and fielded their questions and concerns about the No Child Left Behind Act, several superintendents were left dissatisfied.

While some said they were pleased with the opportunity to dialogue about some of the problems associated with the act, they also said that they were not pleased with some of Simon's responses.

During the discussion, the educators spoke about the shortage of qualified teachers, financial hardships caused by trying to meet the act's goals, and the challenge of closing the achievement gap for foreign-born students and special education students.

Sydney L. Cousin, superintendent of Howard County Schools, asked Simon about providing more testing flexibility for foreign-born students who are learning English.

Cousin explained that research shows that it takes five to seven years for foreign-born students to become fluent enough to take tests in English, yet No Child Left Behind gives them a one-year waiver before applying their test scores as part of a local school's achievement.

Simon launched into a spiel about holding accountable students who have grown up in this country.

Anne Arundel's Superintendent Dr. Kevin Maxwell immediately clarified that Cousin was talking about immigrant students.

“That is an issue that many of us are grappling with,” Maxwell said.

Simon responded that the one-year waiver was the result of a compromise between the federal government, local school systems, and advocates for foreign-born students. He also said that some schools have been able to offer assessment tests in the student’s native language. (Most of the superintendents appeared to be unaware of this option.)

Maxwell later said that Simon did not address the issue.

“I was a little disappointed by the response,” he said.

Cousin also wasn’t pleased with the response, but he said he did not have high expectations for the discussion.

"Given the limited amount of time, there really wasn't an opportunity to go into depth," Cousin said. "I don't know if that was the right forum."

Cousin was impressed by the fact that Simon wanted to meet with local superintendents.

"At least they said they want to hear what we have to say," Cousin said. "The follow-up is the critical question."

If you had the opportunity to talk to Simon about No Child Left Behind, what would you say? One reader e-mailed this morning and said he would have questioned Simon about the achievement gap among African-American students.

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 12:10 PM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Region, Howard County, NCLB | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Remember that planning time dispute between the Baltimore Teachers Union and Andres Alonso? No, it hasn't gone away, and rumor has it that a decision from the arbitrator will be out sometime soon.

Meanwhile, the Fordham Foundation -- a conservative think tank -- releases a new report today in which researchers analyzed the union contracts in the nation's 50 largest school districts to see how much freedom the contracts give principals to run their schools with autonomy. The report finds that most of the nation's largest districts have ambiguous agreements, giving principals and school leaders more autonomy than they actually use.

In Baltimore, giving principals autonomy in exchange for accountability is at the heart of Dr. Alonso's plans for school reform. In a meeting with The Sun's editorial board yesterday, Alonso talked about the need to give principals training in how to use their autonomy once they get it. Next year, principals are expected to have considerably more authority in deciding how to spend their school budgets. The dispute with the BTU centers on whether principals should have the discretion to be able to require teachers to spend 45 minutes a week on collaborative planning.

Fordham's report includes analysis on Maryland's five biggest districts: Montgomery, Prince George's, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties, plus Baltimore City. Since this is a conservative foundation, it naturally views autonomy and flexibility as good things and rates the districts as such. Each district is given a "GPA" rating its labor agreement and its compensation package, rewarding such factors as pay for performance and increased pay for working in needy schools. Guilford County schools in Greensboro, N.C., ranked highest. Fresno Unified School District in California ranked last.

The results in Maryland are surprising. Read on to find out what they are ... and for a copy of the full report, "The Leadership Limbo," go to Fordham's homepage.

Continue reading "Fordham grades school districts on their labor agreements" »

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 9:01 AM in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Study, study! | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

I'm not sure when or how this happened, but it seems that Anne Arundel is the place to come if you want to close charter schools. 

Last summer, KIPP Harbor Academy closed. The charter school in Edgewater was part of a highly touted national network for raising scores among minority and low-income students. It has survived (and succeeded) in some of the toughest urban environments -- Philadelphia, Houston, the Bronx, not to mention Baltimore. But not here in Anne Arundel County. The school, which was beginning to register gains among its troubled student population, closed because it could not get the district's help finding a larger space to house its growing enrollment.

And this week, I've learned that another charter school, Chesapeake Science Point in Hanover, has scrapped its plans to add high school grades. The move has sent families of about 60 students scrambling to find other schools for next fall. Officials at the school said they abandoned plans for an expansion after continued probation of the school derailed negotiations with the landlord of a new space. Without a new space, the school won't be able to get a lease and budget documents related to the move in the district's hands by Feb. 23, a strict deadline set by Supt. Kevin M. Maxwell. Without those documents, Maxwell has been clear he would consider closing the school. Rather than risk closure, Chesapeake Science Point has chosen to remain a grades 6-8 school, much to the chagrin of the rising ninth and tenth graders at the school who thought they would finish their high school careers there. The school has some of the top state test scores in the district. The middle schoolers work two and three years ahead of their peers in other public and private schools. They have a 100 percent pass rate on the state algebra test. And yet, Chesapeake Science Point is struggling to stay alive.

I continue to be perplexed by the struggles faced by Anne Arundel charter schools. School district officials say KIPP and now Chesapeake Science Point are troubled because they're run by inexperienced educators who are often unaware of the academic and financial expertise it takes to run a school. Others have pointed to a weak state law that confines charter schools' autonomy. But the officials at KIPP and now at the one remaining charter school here, say they have been victims of a district that sees them as competition and is looking for ways to keep them from succeeding. What do you think is going on here?

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 1:13 PM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Last week, I followed the story of a teacher and principal of an Anne Arundel County charter school being investigated for asking misbehaving students to do push-ups and sit-ups. The county's Child Protective Services is investigating the complaints. The principal and teacher have been temporarily reassigned to central office desk jobs, pending results of the investigation and their absence has parents and students reeling. The teacher was in-charge of a number of afterschool programs and the school's International Baccalaureate effort, both of which have stalled. And the principal was to have been the key spokesman for the school at a Jan. 23 school board meeting where the school will learn whether it will stay on probation for past problems with finances and poor student recordkeeping. Now, parents say they don't know who will lobby on their behalf at that critical meeting. 

I want to know how rare it is for such unconventional methods of discipline to be used. Have your children attended a school where the teachers/principal use physical exercise as discipline as opposed to the more traditional in-school detention or suspension? I'm just trying to see how on the fringe this school was for employing such techniques and whether these techniques warrant the kind of investigation and temporary reassignments by the Anne Arundel school district. Please write and let me know what you've seen at schools around the region.   

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 10:55 AM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

After abruptly booting out the principal of Anne Arundel's lone charter school (see my story today), school officials held a meeting last night to allay concerns of parents who were rattled by the sudden decision. The officials told Chesapeake Science Point Charter School parents the move was temporary, pending an investigation into a complaint filed Dec. 21. But they said no more than that. What was the complaint about? Did it involve students? Teachers? How long will the investigation take?

"They told us hopefully it won't be long, but we can't hang on hopes, we need fact," said Al Aksakalli, one of the founders of Chesapeake Science Point.

The lack of detail, Aksakalli said, is dividing the parents in two camps. One group is staunchly supportive and feels suspicious that the reassignment of Principal Fatih Kandil is just another way the district is trying to derail the school's progress. Without Kandil as their spokesman, the school will have a tough time lobbying for itself before the school board Jan. 23, when the board is expected to consider the findings of its latest audit of the school and decide whether to keep the school on probation. The school has wrestled with two years of critical audits and shaky finances but has begun to make marked progress in the last six months.  

The other camp of parents that's emerging in the light of this latest controversy, Aksakalli said, is a group so worried about the implications of this scandal that they're wondering whether it's safe to keep their children in the school. With few details of Kandil's behavior available, they're imagining the worst, Aksakalli said.

"It's like if your doctor tells you the results of a test are abnormal, you start thinking the worst, 'oh my God, do I have cancer?'" Aksakalli said. "If no one gives you information, then, your mind kind of takes off."

I'm keeping close tabs on the story as it develops -- including the progress of the investigation. But I'd love to get your thoughts on what's happening here. Do you have children in charter schools? Do you think this latest controversy illustrates the pitfalls of running a charter school -- or does it reveal the hostility of a public school district trying to make it hard for a charter school to survive?     

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 1:30 PM in Anne Arundel County, School Choice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 12:18 PM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Anne Arundel County schools are holding a reception today at 4 p.m. to honor the 34 educators who have been named National Board Certified teachers. The honor -- born out of a grueling process that subjects teachers to an intensive review of their classroom teaching techniques and students' performance -- places them in the top 2 percent of teachers nationally. It's a record number of National Board Certified teachers for the district, which this year came only second to the number of honorees in Montgomery County schools. "It's exciting for us because we've doubled the number of National Board Certified teachers from last year," schools spokesman Bob Mosier said, referring to last year's 17 honorees. The county now has a total of 124 National Board Certified teachers. In all, 70 Anne Arundel County teachers sought the certification this year.

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 1:43 PM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 1:23 PM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Click here to get a detailed map of the schools labeled "dropout factories" by Johns Hopkins University for the Associated Press. Hopkins applied the label to schools where no more than 60 percent of the students who start out as freshmen make it to their senior year. The Sun ran this story today.

Maryland is home to 13 "dropout factories" including Meade High in Anne Arundel County and five schools in Baltimore: Edmondson-Westside High (a vocational school), Frederick Douglass High, Northwestern High, Patterson High and the now-closed Southwestern High. For whatever it's worth, Douglass, Northwestern and Patterson are the only large neighborhood high schools remaining in Baltimore. All the rest have been broken up into smaller schools within the big campuses. And many of those small schools are too new to have data measuring seniors who started as freshmen.

For the sake of the students at these schools, I hope the dropout factory label doesn't stick as other labels in education do. Which would you rather attend: A dropout factory or a persistently dangerous school? (Fortunately, no school in Maryland has the distinction of being both.)

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:38 AM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Nation, Around the Region, Baltimore City, Trends | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

I informed you about the recent slew of staph outbreaks last week. Here’s an update. A 17-year-old Virginia high school student died after being hospitalized with the infection last week. As a result, officials shut down 21 schools for cleaning to keep the illness from spreading. Read more in this article.

Last week, Ruma reported that four local high schools - Severna Park, Glen Burnie, Old Mill and Chesapeake - had received reports of 28 staphylococcus infections over the past three weeks.

On Friday, Wilde Lake High School in Columbia informed parents that one student had been infected with the staph. The school shared the following safety tips to protect against the infection:

1. Keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

2. Keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage until healed.

3. Avoid contact with other people’s wounds or bandages.

4. Avoid sharing personal items such as towels or razors.

5. Use a barrier between your skin and shared equipment.

5:20 p.m. UPDATE: Read this article about a disturbing CDC report. One official believes that deaths tied to the drug-resistant staph "superbug" could exceed those caused by AIDS.

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Forget about school violence for a moment. American schools now have to worry about a lack of safety because of unsanitary conditions.

Four local high schools - Severna Park, Glen Burnie, Old Mill and Chesapeake - have received reports of 28 staphylococcus infections over the past three weeks. Read Ruma’s story for more details.

I also stumbled upon this story from Troy, Ohio detailing similar conditions.

What is going on here?

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 11:20 AM in Anne Arundel County, School Safety (Or Lack Thereof) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Barely a day goes by when I don't get a new education book in the mail, and -- truth be told -- most of those books go straight to The Sun's giveaway pile. But I held onto one that came a few weeks ago, called Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade.

The book was written by Linda Perlstein, whose work I greatly admired when she covered education for The Washington Post. For Tested, Perlstein spent a year at Tyler Heights Elementary in Annapolis, a school where the student population is largely poor and minority. She began her time at Tyler Heights when the principal and her staff were reveling in the news that their students had earned sky-high scores on the Maryland School Assessments, the tests mandated by No Child Left Behind. Immediately, they felt the heat to replicate that success the following year.

We often hear that No Child Left Behind is turning schools that serve impoverished kids into test-prep factories, at the expense of everything else. Tested goes inside one of those schools and shows us how that happens. It's particularly interesting in light of Eric Smith's appointment as Florida education commissioner this week. The story of Tyler Heights is part of the legacy he left behind in Anne Arundel County.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 9:44 AM in Anne Arundel County, NCLB, Testing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

I spent a good part of yesterday tracking down statistics on teen drivers after getting word about a car crash Monday night in Anne Arundel County that involved a 16-year-old driver.

Police say the teen driver had three teen-age passengers and a 22-year-old. According to county police, the driver struck a pedestrian, blew through a stop sign, hit some shrubs and finally a tree. Amazingly, no one died in the crash. Alcohol wasn't believed to be a factor, but speed was a "major factor," police said. (Read Nicole Fuller's and my article in today's paper for more details).

Not surprisingly, I came across study after study that said the same thing -- teen drivers pose considerable risks on the road. Drivers 16 to 19 remain four times more likely than older drivers to be involved in a crash and, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Web site, the risk is highest for 16-year-olds.

Teens have long been considered among the highest-risk drivers, prompting many states, including Maryland, to come up with ways to curb crash rates.

But I was intrigued by a national survey that recently credited programs that grant driver privileges in stages with reducing teen-related car crashes. These so-called “graduated driver licensing” programs typically limit the number of non-family passengers that young drivers are allowed to carry and include nighttime driving restrictions. Maryland’s youngest drivers must pass through three stages -- learner’s permit, provisional license and full driver’s license.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s study, released in June, found that between 1996 and 2005, fatal and police-reported crashes fell 40 percent among 16-year-olds, 25 percent among 17-year-olds and about 15 percent to 19 percent for 18-year-olds.

Fairley Mahlum, a spokeswoman for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said that group likewise has found a connection between graduated driver licensing programs and reduced crash risks. She said restrictions such as limiting passengers for young drivers are proving to be effective.

“When young drivers are driving, we found that it’s extremely dangerous to have young passengers in the car,” she said.

The foundation’s study revealed that states with more restrictions on young drivers saw the sharpest declines in teen crash rates.

The AAA foundation also found motor vehicle crashes are the primary cause of death among teens, with about 1,000 16-year-old drivers killed each year. The group concluded that 30 percent of fatal crashes involving a 16- or 17-year-old driver happened between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Teens, parents, teachers -- what do you make of Maryland's graduated driver licensing program? Does your experience match with what these driver safety groups have found? What more, if anything, needs to be done to help keep teens -- and the rest of us -- safe on the road??

Posted by Gina Davis at 7:35 AM in Anne Arundel County, Around the Region | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Eric J. Smith was named yesterday to the position.

The State Board of Education voted unanimously to select Smith, who was was one of three finalist.

Smith took over the Arundel system in 2002. All elementary schools met state targets on
standardized tests in his final year; the scores of black high school students ranked among
the top 10 in the state. He also conflicted with the teachers union. In fact, the union was poised to vote on a no-confidence motion when Smith resigned in 2005.

Smith has been senior vice president for college readiness with the College Board since last year. 

Like him or not, Smith made an impact on Maryland. Is his new job Maryland’s loss and Florida’s gain?

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 6:52 AM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Posted by Ruma Kumar at 7:13 AM in Anne Arundel County | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
                       

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 3:32 PM in Anne Arundel County, Charter Schools, School Choice | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)