No Child Left Behind leaves it to the states to define what it means to be a "persistently dangerous" school.   In Maryland in general and Baltimore in particular (where all of Maryland's persistently dangerous schools are located), people complain a lot that the state makes it easier than most for a school to earn the dubious label. There are several downsides to that: Schools have an incentive not to suspend students for violent offenses (here, it's the suspension numbers that count against you). If violent schools do report their numbers accurately, they are rewarded with public humiliation.

In this case, though, it paid to be persistently dangerous. While many schools could use a grant for mentoring and internships, only persistently dangerous schools were eligible to apply.

I've also been enjoying the new parent blog Surviving the System lately. And I was sorry for the student blog News From Room 123 to end this spring when the student authors graduated.

If anybody has any other education blogs, local or national, to recommend as we update our blogroll this summer, drop me a line.

KIPP administers the Stanford 9 standardized test to students as they enter fifth grade. In 2003, the incoming fifth-graders scored at the 30th percentile in reading, the 38th percentile in math and the 32nd percentile in language. In 2007, when the incoming fifth-grade class was tested, those scores had declined to the 16th percentile in reading, the 19th percentile in math and the 15th percentile in language. Every year, the students have come less prepared than the class before.

I asked Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore, why he thinks that is. He doesn't know for sure, but he has two theories. One is that elementary schools are spending so much time and emphasis preparing students for the Maryland School Assessments that they aren't teaching them other basic skills that would be measured on a test like the Stanford 9. A second theory is that parents of needier students are choosing to send their kids to a charter school because the traditional public schools aren't working for them.

In any case, KIPP believes it needs to get students younger so there's less ground to make up when they arrive in middle school.

A 12-year-old seventh-grader in the Chicago public school system has won a Dodge Caliber for good attendance, four years before she's old enough to drive. (In the meantime, her parents are excited to use it.) Chicago students who had perfect attendance for any one of three three-month periods were eligible to win the car, which was donated to the school system, according to the Chicago Tribune. The girl, Ashley Martinez, won from a pool of 189,115 students eligible.

In the past, according to the Tribune article, the Chicago schools have offered attendance awards including "vacations to Wisconsin resorts, laptops, iPods and even paying a family's rent or mortgage for a month."

Kate Walsh, president of the council, said in a statement: "As a nation, our dislike and discomfort with math is so endemic that we do not even find it troubling when elementary teachers admit to their own weakness in basic mathematics. Not only are our education schools not tackling these weaknesses, they accommodate them with low expectations and insufficient content."

But there's good news for Maryland: The University of Maryland at College Park is among the 10 schools where the council determined the math preparation was adequate. Towson University is one of five that the report said would pass muster with improved focus and textbooks. That's better than the 37 schools, among them American University, that were found to fail on all measures. Some schools, including Hampton University and University of Richmond, don't require prospective elementary teachers to take any math classes at all.

Think you're qualified to teach elementary school math? See how you do on this test that the council says all elementary math teachers should be able to pass. 

UPDATE, 6/30: See the comments for a rebuttal from the dean of Amerian University's education school, who says the report was not compiled responsibly.

The Baltimore Truancy Assessment Center, designed to provide social services to truant kids and their families to get the kids back in school, has been the subject of much political bickering and restructuring since its founding in 2003. Originally, truancy officers who picked up students on the street during the school day dropped them off at the center in East Baltimore. Then, to target assistance to the worst offenders, officers instead began making house calls to students who had been out of school for prolonged periods. The building where the center operates had no heat and other basic necessities this year, and the executive director got fed up and retired a few months ago. The money that was used to run BTAC will instead be used toward the system's new alternative schools and programs, which serve truant kids.

Meanwhile, the fate of another program -- Blum Mentoring -- remains up in the air. Established nine years ago, the Blum program grew over time to 40 full-time mentors, who were placed in schools with a high percentage of new teachers. Under the reorganization, mentoring will still be required in schools where 20 percent or more of the teachers have three years of experience or less. But principals will be in charge of hiring the mentors, and many are saying they don't have the money in their budgets. Assuming North Avenue follows through and mandates their hiring, the question is whether the mentors will report to the principals or to a central mentorship coordinator. That's an important distinction. As one of the mentors wrote in an e-mail to me: "One of the strengths of our program was that, because we were not under the principal's control, we were able to maintain a confidential relationship with our mentees....  In addition, principals could not pull us to be substitute teachers, cafeteria monitors or test coordinators, thus taking us away from our main focus -- new teachers." There's talk that a grant might pay for a person to oversee the mentors centrally so the Blum program can continue. For now, the mentors don't know what their role will be when school resumes Aug. 25.

Keep reading to see a profile I wrote of the Baltimore Truancy Assessment Center last year.

In Maryland, the report found that the percentage of students passing the standardized tests grew at a "moderate to large rate" in reading and math in nearly every grade level analyzed. The exception was high school math, where -- the report says -- too few years of data were available to determine a trend. 

The gap between the performance of Maryland's African-American and white students narrowed in every grade analyzed in reading. In math, that gap narrowed in elementary school but widened in middle school.

A variety of interest groups quickly issued statements reacting to the study's findings. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, criticized the study for not taking into account the results of the international tests known as PISA and PIRLS, which show the performance of American students declining in every grade and subject since the passage of No Child Left Behind. Meanwhile, the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, said the study was proof that American educators are making an impact in spite of NCLB.

In two hours, the documentary covers virtually every challenge facing an urban school. The boy repeating ninth grade who refused to go to his remedial reading class. The statistics on how many ninth-graders need remedial reading -- all but three or four of more than 300 tested, and most come in at a third-, fourth- or fifth-grade level. The virtually empty classrooms on back-to-school night. The tardiness, the hall wandering and truancy (200-300 absent daily in a school of 1,100). The girl who just had a baby and was feeling overwhelmed to be back at school. The frustrated, overwhelmed teacher who quit in the middle of the year. The fights. The fact that only half of the school's 500 freshmen would return for sophomore year. The fact that 66 percent of the school's teachers were not certified. The boy who told his teacher to pass him for doing "nothin'."  The dismal SAT scores (one student scored a 440 out of 1,600, and you get 200 points for writing your name; only one student in the school scored above 1,000). The students who sat for the High School Assessments but didn't write anything (this was before the tests counted for graduation, but they still counted for a school's AYP). The pressure at the end of the year for teachers to pass failing seniors: Within a few days, the school went from having 138 eligible graduates to 200. The triumph of graduation for students from unspeakably awful home lives: One boy didn't need any graduation tickets because he didn't have anyone to come.

The film also touches on the triumphs of the school, though there are fewer. It takes you inside the classroom of an excellent teacher. It features the school's award-winning music program. It follows a student on the debate team who's determined to make something of his life.

Of all the schools in America to feature in a film like this, Frederick Douglass was a symbolic choice. It is the alma mater of Thurgood Marshall, and more than a half-century after Marshall won the Brown vs. Board of Ed case, Douglass is still a school that's separate and unequal. No Child Left Behind provides the backdrop for "Hard Times," but the film could just as easily stand as a profile of the school without that context. Coincidentally (or not), after filming was completed -- the documentary was shot during the 2004-2005 school year -- Douglass became one of 11 Baltimore schools that the state tried to take over as a result of repeated years of failure on standardized tests. It was the first time a state attempted such drastic action under NCLB. The move was blocked by the General Assembly, and the school system restructured Douglass on its own, replacing the administration and implementing the Talent Development school model. I was surprised, though, that the film made it sound as though Isabelle Grant, the principal during the year the documentary was shot, was the one who was replaced. Grant was forced to resign during the 2005-2006 school year in connection with an academically ineligible student being allowed to play football and the school football team having to forfeit its first winning season since 1998. Students who looked to her like a mother were heartbroken when she left. The principal who replaced her was the one to be removed when the school was restructured.

Oscar-winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond clearly spent a lot of time at the school to get students comfortable being around them and the camera. None of the scenes seemed like it would have played out any differently if the subjects weren't being videotaped. In an article in The Sun on Sunday, the Raymonds said the students were initially afraid the film would make them look dumb, and they had to spend time focusing on their successes as a result. But the overall picture is pretty bleak. I'd be interested to know (if anyone associated with Douglass is reading) the school's reaction to "Hard Times."

"Produced and directed by Oscar-winners Alan and Susan Raymond, Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card reveals troubles and triumphs in the classrooms, hallways and offices of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, MD – from the celebrations of drum lines and debate teams to the worries of faculty who know that 50% of their freshman will not return for their sophomore year."

A clip from the documentary is here. The Sun's review is here, and a story about how the film was made is here.

I'll be tuning in tonight and will post thoughts on the documentary tomorrow. In the meantime, keep reading to see a story I wrote two years ago about the challenges Douglass faced during the 2005-2006 school year.

Despite individual schedule changes, all county schools and offices will be open from the usual 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week.

The pilot program, which is voluntary, started this week and runs through Aug. 8, according to a memo from Superintendent Charles I. Ecker. Employees can either opt for working extended hours Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday, a schedule that also accommodates three-day weekend getaways.

The PTA council is one of the organizations allotted a five-minute slot during the public comment portion of each board meeting. In recent months, the president of the council, Eric White, has voiced opposition to a number of system projects. As I said in my story, he called into a local radio show recently to give Dr. Alonso a poor midterm progress report. (On the air, he was identified by host Marc Steiner as "Amos;" White said later that Steiner made a mistake. But he also didn't do anything to correct it.) 

What's unclear is whether White is presenting the views of anyone other than himself when he speaks in public. The PTA council's charter requires him to speak for the organization.

One unlikely fight involves BoardDocs, the Web site where school board agendas and exhibits are posted. White is upset that the site was developed without parental input and is demanding a public forum on the issue. But before BoardDocs, it was like pulling teeth for the public to get any school board documents at all (as I know all too well from firsthand experience). Now the system is doing what every other district in the area does, posting the documents online.

Last week, White rallied against the system's new parent engagement initiative. Charging that the board was abdicating its own responsibility by contracting with a third party to engage parents, White demanded that board members on a parent and community subcommittee raise their hands. He also insisted that the time it took to get the BoardDocs site projected on a screen in the board room not be deducted from his five minutes for public comment, and he asked that the meeting minutes note that a system employee was “blocking my access” when the screen was changed to say his time was almost up. (He wanted to highlight the procurement item on the agenda.)

As White asked Alonso to respond to his progress report on the radio, he asked the board members to respond to his presentation at the board meeting.

"The bait that you've thrown out there is not gonna be taken," said the board chairman, Brian Morris.

"This is not bait," White replied. "This is information for the public. We don’t put out bait. We put out information."

The report also has some fascinating data about what teachers think about their high-achieving students. For instance, teachers say that their schools do not make high-achieving students a top priority. And that apparently happens much more frequently at urban schools where there are high numbers of students in poverty. So that means that if you a high-achieving, minority student in an urban school, you are much less likely to have a chance to be challenged than if you go to a suburban school. That may not be particularly surprising, but it documents what has been believed for years.

In addition, teachers told the researchers that they feel guilty about the fact that their most gifted students don't get challenged enough. "I feel like sometimes we are cheating them ... cheating them out of their own personal glory.... They could be so much more magnificent in their own right and happier, because I think they feel a level of frustration that they have to sit by while we are babysitting," said one teacher who was quoted in the report by researchers Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett.

Interesting, too, is that while most teachers say the low achievers are getting more attention than others, they also don't think that is right. About half of teachers reported they thought every student should get equal attention.

In the same study, about half of high school teachers surveyed said they believe the advanced-level classes at their school are truly rigorous and challenging. Another 40 percent said they are watered down.

Teachers also said that too often parents push their children into the advanced classes they are unprepared for or don't want to be in.

1) There may be students going to school alonside administrators in 2008-2009, if the plans to put a new alternative middle school inside the central office materialize. But eventually (i.e., after another round of downsizing next year), Dr. Alonso wants to move the administration out of North Avenue entirely. The New York City school system did this in 2002 as both a symbolic and cost-saving move, abandoning the old board of education building in Brooklyn in favor of a beautiful office space in the restored Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan.

2) Reginald Lewis High, the school that got all the media attention when its art teacher was assaulted on cell phone camera, is getting a new principal. The job opening was just posted on the system's Web site.

Click here for my article from last week about the school board's decision to nix the expansion plan at Loch Raven High School. And here for my article on County Executive James T. Smith Jr.'s response to the board's action.

Joseph -- who remarks that even the doctors want to know his secret to long life -- offered this gem of wisdom: Keep busy.

"You have to continue using the brain and the body for the circulation of the blood," he said.