Wow.

Are all the teachers who read this blog wondering whether it will take students a long time to settle into the routine of school again or do you believe that they will have been cooped up inside for so long that they will be dying to get back to school?

What about students in AP classes or students preparing to take the MSAs in about a month? Have any teachers tried to be in contact with their students to give them a few extra assignments? Are you posting notes on your websites to students to ask them to work ahead or are you just hoping they will have taken this time to relax, read a good book and get in some serious shoveling and sledding time with friends?

The topic generated more than an hour of debate, impassioned pleas and even a song.

Only one school -- Dr. Rayner Browne -- would not be issued a renewal under schools CEO Andres Alonso’s recommendation. Six schools -- City Springs, Collington Square, Coppin Academy, Baltimore International Academy, Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy, and Inner Harbor East Academy For Young Scholars -- would be given two-year extensions.

Three schools -- Wolfe Street Academy, Southwest Baltimore Charter School, and Independence -- received the highest recommendation of a five-year contract.

Rayner Browne did not receive a recommendation for renewal because the school saw test scores in all student subgroups decrease for mathematics the last two years. In reading, three of the four student subgroups experienced drops in test scores.

If the board follows Alonso’s recommendation and votes not to renew its contract, Rayner Browne will be in danger of closing or returning to a traditional or city school status.

Schools were judged on success of students, fiscal soundness and governess, compliance, being an effective, viable organization, and a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. 

While Lorion said last night that AIM has great potential, the committee recommendations he read are more nuanced.

Edwards immediately apologized. She said she was well versed enough with the material to explain the missing information.

After Edwards finished, school board member Robert Heck launched into a speech where he said that the presentation was “unacceptable.” He also said he was offended by the fact that the public’s first look at the proposal was incomplete.

“We really sell ourselves short when we can’t make a simple presentation,” said Heck, who initially called the mistake a “minor point.”

Heck’s comments appeared to infuriate city schools CEO Andrés Alonso, who said that the meeting had been filled with several instances of disrespect. After calling the omission in the Power Point presentation “an embarrassment,” Alonso said that his staff works tirelessly and did not deserve the blame.

“They work too hard,” Alonso said. “We owe each other a bit more [respect.]”

The tension was cut when board member Anirban Basu joked that more people were likely watching Conan O’Brien than the marathon meeting after 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Alonso laughed and quickly reminded Basu that people were probably watching Jay Leno.

Today, the department announced that it would set up a fund that school systems can contribute to until Feb. 12.  For more information go to the website...www.MarylandPublicSchools.org.

Are teachers out there trying to include something about Haiti in their lesson plans to help children deal with the many sad pictures they are seeing?

The speech comes just as states are about to apply for federal stimulus funds called Race to the Top funds. The competitive $4 billion in federal funding will go to a dozen or so states that demonstrate they have serious collaboration between teachers unions and management and have no rules that prevent test scores from being used as part of a teacher evaluation process. The feds, in other words, have made it clear that a new day is coming when school systems will use a variety of factors to evaluate teachers.

So Weingarten, whose union usually represents urban school teachers, has taken the first step toward making teachers a partner in the national debate over this sensitive issue.

She lays out four steps that school systems should take. Every state should adopt standards spelling out what teachers should know and be able to do, she said. And states should write standards for evaluating teachers that include student test scores on assessments that show growth during the year, classroom observations, portfolios and student work. The entire speech as well as a lot of additional information is available on the AFT Web site or at www.futurestogether.org.

One of the things Hairston said was that the county was going to find a way to marry the assessTrax system with AIM. He suggested that a computer program would be available in the spring to integrate the two. "Teachers aren't asked to do anything that teachers don't already do," he said.

Hairston's reversal on AIM was clear, but what will come next wasn't.

"What superintendent in America gets into this much detail?" he said in discussing how he has now set up a committee to look into streamlining the system.

Under AIM, teachers must judge whether each of their students has mastered more than 100 specific skills. In an Advanced Placement World History class, a teacher must indicate whether each student can “evaluate the consequences of global pandemics” or “analyze the role of Islam as a unifying cultural and economic force in Eurasia,” two examples among pages of items. One AP course contains an 11-page list of knowledge or skills that must be checked off. To see other examples, go to the Baltimore County schools Web site.

Among the concerns being raised by teachers in posts to our blog is that they will need to set aside hours to complete AIM, which could take away from planning and instruction time.

Schools spokesman Charles Herndon told reporter Liz Bowie that he believes that the teachers who have complained are in the minority. “We feel our teachers are up to the task. We think very highly of the teachers; we think they are capable,” he said. 

Here's Liz's full article about AIM, which ran Sunday.

Just a few years ago, Baltimore City was suspending about 12 percent of its students. They have reduced that to just over 9 percent.  The reductions follow years of work by school systems to put programs in place that will reward good behavior. In addition, school superintendents, such as Andres Alonso in the city, have simply ordered principals to lower suspensions for certain offenses.

School systems have stopped suspending students for being truant, for instance.

The only system to buck the statewide trend is Baltimore County, where the suspension rate is still at 11.2 percent, according to ACY.