Baltimore’s Magnet Schools in Question; Implications for BCPSS Reputation

One of the greatest stigmas against Baltimore’s educational system (or any urban system, for that matter) is the “zip code effect”: the notion that students are confined to the educational institutes in close proximity to their residences, for better or for worse.

Today, Baltimore’s three most prestigious high schools – City, Poly, and Western – are defying that stigma, proudly accepting students based on academic merit rather than domestic location.

Might that change, though? If recent media reports are correct, Alonso and BCPSS might not have so much boasting power that students actually are capable of an excellent education via a magnet setting. A recent Sun article explored the recent declining SAT test scores of these three schools, and exposed their startlingly low college graduation rates (39% and 46% for City and Poly, respectively). The article continues,“The quality of those schools… is a drawing card that attracts families to Baltimore.” I’d argue that these schools not only represent a hope for potential new residents, but they also represent a hope for Baltimore natives who would otherwise be forced to attend a zoned school within the proximity of their residence.

If City, Western, and Poly can no longer boast impressive college graduation rates, SAT scores, or (at the very least) an HSA passing rate competitive with the state of Maryland, Baltimore City Schools might receive even more criticism from those who claim that BCPSS can no longer boast a way for students to reach academic heights by their merit and determination. Some might argue that, for the sake of students in the district, it’s imperative that these schools remain enduring, educational strongholds.

BTU Contract Under Review, Merit Pay?

Earlier this week Baltimore City Public Schools announced that negotiations for a new contract between BTU and the school district are ongoing; for the time being, the city will use the contract from the 2009-2010 school year until the details of the current contract are fleshed out. Many changes that Dr. Alonso is pushing for arose from a third party evaluation/consultation of the school district performed in June. The evaluation suggested that teachers’ pay be increased; however, it also criticized the current contract for its emphasis on tenure over performance as well as the city’s tendency to circulate unwanted yet tenured teachers rather than cutting ties with them. One of the most provocative reforms under scrutiny involves teacher pay. Dr. Alonso has suggested that the new contract will imbue a “remarkable re-conception of how teachers get paid." The city schools’ CEO has attempted to allay fears from critics by stating that teacher pay will reflect student growth rather than raw scores on a standardized test. How he plans to measure student growth was not mentioned.

Most of me likes the idea of merit based pay, at least in theory. I agree that basing pay solely on the number of years you have served a school district appears to give teachers no incentive to continually evaluate and improve upon their effectiveness. From the same standpoint, the current pay system does not reward the best teachers for their amazing efforts. In other words, to the best of my knowledge, I do not know of any incentive based bonuses that Baltimore City currently offers. Some critics to the possible change in the pay scale cite reasons that usually shift responsibility. Others cite the idea that not every subject is evaluated with a standardized test. And part of me does seriously question the degree to which human nature will be involved, especially pertaining to teacher evaluations for those educators who teach non-tested subjects. Suppose an amazing art teacher butts heads with her principal and severs their relationship. I guess you could set up some system for appeal and encourage teachers to preserve both student created and teacher created artifacts that can be used as evidence for their effectiveness. An extremely convoluted situation remains, nonetheless.

Was Maryland's Selection as a Finalist to Obama's Race to the Top Initiative Unfair?

As Maryland has recently qualified as a finalist for the Obama administration’s Race to the Top stimulus grant competition, many aspersions have been levied against the state for the previous failures in a number of school systems. In particular, critics point to the fact that Maryland was ranked 35th in data quality and 40th in the promotion of charter schools (by the Department of Education). Additionally, it is noted that while Maryland has increased education spending by $1.3 billion over the last decade, the increase of spending has “done nothing for students” in Prince George’s County and Baltimore.
In particular, an editorial in the Washington Examiner suggests that the criteria for selecting the winners of the Race to the Top competition should have rewarded school districts who have made progress in terms of educational innovation. The writer points specifically to New Orleans’ Recovery School District’s status as the “top ‘reform friendly’ school district in the nation” as well as Colorado for its implementation of innovative school reform.
Others have also argued that due to the current economic hardships plaguing our country, stimulus money spent in the form of a competition is irresponsible and unfair. Proponents of this position have espoused that each state has an equal right to claim their share of the money.
I am not very well versed in the progress that Louisiana and Colorado has had educationally in the past few years. I understand that Maryland as a whole has a very good reputation in terms of its educations systems, particularly regarding graduation rates. Further, while the editorial vaguely points to the idea that the extra money spent on Maryland education over the past ten years has “done nothing for students” in Baltimore, I have heard from other sources that Baltimore’s graduation rate as of last year is at a fifty year high. I just wonder how much of the author’s claims are based on real data and how much of the claim is based on second hand generalizations.

Should the Ability to Reconcile Be a Requirement of Rhee's Position?

With the DC primary election looming three days away, DC journalists, officials, and educators continue to voice their concerns in desperation for their cause: it's assumed that a win for mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty will guarantee that Michelle Rhee will stay in office, while a win for Vince Gray would precede the end of her leadership of DCPS.

Three days before the election is arguably the most important time for both sides to make their final case, so such arguments merit our attention now more than ever. The Washington Post's Colbert I. King makes an especially interesting point, citing Rhee's inability to reconcile racial tension. He laments, "Rhee's poll numbers… are in the pits among black residents." After Rhee campaigned in predominantly white districts this weekend, King continued, "How can black parents now trust her to be fair? Regardless of Tuesday's outcome at the polls, Michelle Rhee should clean out her desk."

Although Colbert uses no data on students, schools, achievement, or even financial efficiency, some, like Colbert, argue that Rhee’s support among racial lines has become increasingly polarized. Should Rhee’s ability to “extend the olive branch" to all people be a prerequisite for Rhee's right to retain her position? To what extent does this factor matter amidst the greater goal of getting our students to succeed in the classroom?

Although specifics are not as heated at the moment, this topic also could apply to Baltimore city. Like Rhee, BCPSS superintendent Andres Alonso is not of the same race as the majority of the students he serves, but yet, he has not received the same scrutiny. Why is Rhee the subject of such criticism while Alonso is not?

Are Maryland teacher's unions being too resistant to change?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-maryland-schools-number-one-20100422,0,758859.story

In her recent Baltimore Sun article, Liz Bowie calls into question Maryland’s number one ranking by Education Week, wondering if Maryland is doing all it can to advance with school reform. Among the questions are that of whether or not the poor relationship between the governor and the state superintendent has prevented them from presenting “a united front,” and also the degree to which strong unions in Maryland are responsible for resisting reform.

The more I look, the more I see pay for performance measures advancing. Charter schools and merit-pay programs have apparently been typically supported by politicians to the political right, but, as we all know, the Obama administration also supports these pursuits and the result is that they’re happening all over. We are all also familiar with the argument that teacher’s unions often thwart change and with it, progress by maintaining positions that protect teachers and not students. In my personal opinion, though a strong union may resist change, that is not the same as opposing change. It is clear that strong unions in Maryland have not prevented an increasing number of jurisdictions (and the Maryland state legislature) from beginning to tie student achievement to teacher evaluation. As these experiments are conducted and good practices are explored and established, the teacher’s unions will respond, slowly, with greater openness. It may be a lofty challenge to sway the collective will of the teachers toward adopting reforms such as pay for performance, but it is a worthy one because winning the support of the unions will entail advancement to the transition stage mentioned by Beverly Anderson in her 1993 article on the stages of systemic change in schools, where the school policies as a whole begin to tip toward the new vision. It may well be that teacher’s unions will protect teachers and students by tempering the process of transition in such as way as to ensure it’s sustainability.

Q-Comp

In 2004, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota made a series of education proposals, which included elements like performance pay for teachers and changes to teacher quality evaluation meant to help weed out ineffective teachers. Apparently, Pawlenty was disappointed to have only gotten through performance pay, in the form of Q-Comp, which is in operation in forty-four Minnesota school districts.

This is of great interest to me because I think that performance pay represents a necessary paradigm-shift. I think schools have already given themselves a chance in the last decade by rising to pay teachers a salary they can at least live off of, on which a family could conceivably survive. Schools are perhaps going to be able to exploit some of the momentum our generation is seeing built up (by us, in part) and could progress further, paying teachers fairly, rewarding those who are effective, identifying those who are not. In this way schools can invest in effective teachers and effective practices. It’s a myth that performance pay must be enslaved to standardized test scores. In Minnessota, schools have to propose a plan which satisfies about five different criteria, including job-embedded professional development and a stipulation that performance pay for teachers line up with a minimum of 60% of increases across the system. It didn’t offer too many detail, because it would seem those details are up to the schools or jurisdictions that are proposing to implement them. When these criteria are met, the schools in question receive and average of $200 additional per student.

Teachers need to address bullying: But how?

Before setting up my classroom in my first year of teaching, I was advised to develop a positive classroom culture in my classes. This made complete sense to me as an end goal, but still left me with the question of “how?” Throughout my first year, and into my second year, I have still struggled with this question of how. As a ninth grade teacher, I find that many of my students enter the classroom in the fall with their own set attitudes, behaviors, and habits, both positive and negative. I must shape all of these to fit in with what I had envisioned as a positive classroom. But how?

Baltimore City Public Schools have recently caught the attention of the country due to a few incidents of bullying which have gone too far. On Monday, Dr. Alonso released a statement addressing the issue of bullying. In it, he places the responsibility of addressing bullying on teachers, parents, and the community as a whole.

As a classroom teacher, I agree with his statement. Teachers only work with their students a certain number of hours in a day. When students leave the school building, they are also easily influenced by others they encounter, and the influences of the teachers do not necessarily follow the student. There is a need for the families and community to address the issue of bullying.

As I was told before my first year of teaching, I need to address bullying in the classroom and create a positive classroom environment. But I was never told how, and trust me, I struggled with this task. For new teachers, and even veteran teachers, I think it would be incredibly helpful to provide professional development about how to create this positive classroom culture. Strategies, examples, and modeling could be shared to provide teachers with an idea of where to begin. Because bullying is such an important thing to address, among other issues within a classroom, I think teachers need to be provided with a basic knowledge of how to develop classroom culture in order to better address these issues before they begin.

Evaluating Teachers: Let the Riots Begin

Maryland Superintendent Nancy Grasmick came up with an ingenious new plan this week that would force schools to link teacher evaluations to student achievement. For some reason, she thinks that teachers ought to be judged by how well their students perform. More specifically, she thinks that at least 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation ought to be based on their students' achievement. (The definition of “achievement” it yet to be determined, but one can assume it will mean students’ performance on standardized tests.) Where on Earth would she ever get such an idea? Why should teachers be judged on how well their students perform? Shouldn’t they just have job security because they have served their time in the system, sat through hours of professional development and staff meetings over the years, dealt with parent upon parent, and written hundreds of lesson plans? Why do they need to actually be good at what they do? Isn’t it good enough that just show up at work everyday?

Well, thankfully the whole Race To The Top movement and national push to get better test scores and see real student achievement is getting to Grasmick. And she, along with several other schools administrators around the country, are making real strides to get qualified, successful educators into classrooms and try to combat the issues plaguing countless schools around the country.

And the unrest in teachers’ lounges and at union meetings throughout Maryland can now begin (that’s to say there were at one time peaceful and calm environments). One teacher (who put in her 34 years) wrote into the Sun.story saying that it’s not realistic to tie student success to teachers because teachers cannot be expected to produce growth in troubled children. I can imagine that in the near future, several more teachers and union leaders will speak out against the proposal in similar ways. And many will attempt to chip away at Grasmick’s plan and create negotiations so as to prevent strikes and keep everyone calm.

It seems so counterintuitive to me that so many teachers and teacher unions are steadfastly opposed to the idea of linking teacher evaluations to student success. I would think that all teachers would want to be in the company of successful teacher and would want to reassured that all of their co-workers are there for a common purpose: creating better students. It is understandable for people to get frustrated over the fact that their job is linked almost solely on a single test, but if students aren’t learning (meaning teachers aren’t accomplishing their main duty while at work) then teachers should be let go. Why is this so hard for teachers to accept?

If Maryland really wants to see real change and produce real growth in its students, then, yes, it’s probably going to mean letting teachers who have been around for 34 years clean out their classrooms and let someone else try. And, unfortunately, it’s also probably going to mean enduring several riots from teachers in the process.

Finally More Money in the Budget 4.27 Post

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-ci-school-budget-20100414,0,7361987.story


This seems to finally be what looks like good news, in term of the much talked about Baltimore City Public School Systems budget. The Baltimore City school board voted recently to adopt a $1.23 billion budget for the next academic year that will increase the amount of funding for students and continue shifting control over spending from the central office to principals. In its adoption of the 2011 budget, proposed by schools CEO Andres Alonso, the system will spend about $200 more per student next year. However, that extra money will come from a decrease in the amount of additional funds the district provides in extra educational services for students who have disabilities, fall behind in achievement, are advanced or are at risk for dropping out. For example, students with disabilities this year received an additional $1,282 per student; next year, those students will receive an additional $641. The board will also eliminate 15 vacant positions in the school system's central office and put the $637,000 saved back into the pot for city principals to use. Wow! The per student funding will increase; does this mean that achievement will increase for the students? Money in the hands of principals, will this be misappropriated like it was at the central office or are principals now budget specialist as well as educators? This makes me question if the principals are qualified to control their budgets, do they get any training or are they just going from their gut? The increased money sounds great in the news, I guess only time will tell if the students benefit from the increased spending.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-ci-school-budget-cuts-20100413,0,2281198.story

This seems to be same story over and over, that there is not enough money for anything of importance in the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS). We are continuing to experience budget cut after budget cut and trying to find how to pick up the pieces in order to find money for necessary budget items. This article started with direct testimony from a local BCPSS principal about how the budget cut would affect her school directly. Principal Rhonda Richetta vividly recalls days when students have come to her office door at City Springs School gasping for air because the school has a large population of asthmatic elementary- and middle-school-age students who receive critical services such as daily breathing treatments — from a nurse practitioner in its health center. This cut would release the nurse practitioner and this could change next year if the school is one of six that are slated to reduce their health care services because of proposed funding cuts from the city. Further, the city may cut the budget for the crossing guards that are essential to ensure that are students who walk to school, cross the street safely.
Finally, the budget may be cut to the point of taking away the students subsidized or free bus passes, if the students have to pay to come to school, it poses the question-are the students going to stop coming? I find it unfortunate that the city continues to cut the budget at the expense of the student’s heath and safety.

Parents organize to fight school health center closures

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-ci-school-cuts-reax-story-20100416,0,491054.story

As reported in the Sun this morning, the City has reported that they are going to make as much as 6 cuts to school's health centers, with maybe more to follow. The mayor is reporting that the reason for the cuts is to cut down the ginormous Baltimore budget ($121 million).

This article got me to thinking: at my school (grades 6-8), all I ever see the nurse doing ALL day is reading her People magazine. I think the only thing she is qualified to do is give students ice packs and band aids. Beyond that, I don't think there is anything she could legally do if a child was in a real state of emergency. The kids at my school use the nurse as an excuse to get out of classwork. I'm not saying that school health facilities aren't important, because they obviously are. What I am saying is that the city needs to look at what health centers are being effective and which ones aren't and then get rid of the less effective ones. Seems like an easy fix, right?

The article goes on to mention that the Mayor is going to look at a number of factors in deciding which health centers to close, with student population being one of the main one. Health center closures probably means that overall attendance at some schools could go down because the students who need daily medical attention will not be receiving it. Thoughts?

Incentivizing Students

The cover article on this week’s Time Magazine, "Should Kids be Bribed to Do Well in School", got me thinking about providing financial incentives to students in Baltimore in order to improve attendance, passing rates, and academic achievement. The idea explored in the Time article, which was largely based on information collected by a Harvard economist Ronald Fryer Jr. gathered in a multi-city performance study, is that by giving students money for superior academic behavior, student achievement (aka test scores) will increase. Ultimately, the goal is to chip away at the learning gap by paying kids to be better students. While the results of Fryer’s study are mixed and heavily contested, Fryer did find that focused, learning-based incentive programs (like paying students per book that they read) lead to better results than simply paying students for good test scores throughout the year. I guess the idea is that when students are just encouraged by money to do better on tests, they probably won’t do any better because they don’t really know how.

Nevertheless, I started to think about how creating appropriate incentives in Baltimore schools that are focused (and learning-based) might create positive results for our students. For example, paying students to participate in a certain number of review sessions for HSA tests or for completing homework assignments could lead to better city test scores (and perhaps higher graduation rates?). Obviously Baltimore schools runs into the perpetual issue of funding. What public school in its right mind is going to start doling out cash or prizes to “good” students (who are essentially doing just what they are supposed to do) when the school can’t even afford to pay for a crossing guard? (For more info on crossing guard cuts, see http://wjz.com/local/school.budget.cuts.2.1633032.html.) Schools could start tapping into private funding, but many schools might not care enough to take the time and effort to create such a program (especially if positive results are not a guarantee).

Despite the funding issues and the question of positive results, I think there are certain ideas that Baltimore City Schools can gain from the Fryer study. While giving students money might not be the solution to the city's education troubles, better motivational efforts and school-based positive reinforcements (instead of simply punishments) ought to be emphasized in schools. I truly think that good students (and schools) ought to be commended and appreciated more in Baltimore. I agree that it is difficult to overlook big problems in order to see some good in Baltimore schools, and that too much optimism can indeed be a bad thing, but some students could use a little bit more motivation and positivity in school than educators are currently doling out.

Maryland Releases Draft of Race to the Top application

As the Maryland Legislative Session wraps to a close, the Department of Education has released a draft version of their proposed application for the Race to the Top program. The 257 page document outlines Maryland's plans to close the gap, and secure itself $250 million dollars of the federal school reform pie.


Thus far, the plan is being met with mixed reviews. Many believe that the ideas are good, but some, like executive director of Advocates for Children and Youth Matthew Joseph, criticize the plan for not going "nearly far enough to address achievement gaps." Others expressed concerns that controversial points like teacher and principal evaluation reforms (namely performance based pay and evaluation systems with revised proficiency categories) may be unpopular with teachers' unions and school boards.


The application (available here) is set to be submitted to the committee for consideration in June of this year. In the meantime, local school districts will be reviewing the plan, and concerned citizens have until April 23, 2010 to submit their opinions, thoughts and comments to a dedicated e-mail address: RTTT@msde.state.md.us

Teacher Pension to remain on state ledgers

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/legislature/bal-budget0408,0,1428330.story

A recent article in the Baltimore Sun reports that a committee from the State House and Senate have decided to keep teacher pensions on the state ledgers. Pensions for teachers will cost Maryland $900 million this year. The Senate proposed to shift some of this cost from the State to local governments. However the conference committee established a commission to find ways to sustain the pensions at the State level. They had originally wanted to shift a little over 1/3 of the $900 million to the counties.

If this were to happen counties would have to find ways to come up with that money like raising taxes or cutting other services. In fact even with those measures they still might not even be able to come up with that amount of money. If that were to happen it would also more than likely affect the future pensions of current teachers. They would probably have to use up some of the money that teachers are presently contributing to the fund which would also most likely affect their pensions when it is time for retirement. I think that it is good that the State keep paying these teachers pensions.

Importance of Early Education

Recently, in American Educator I read an article entitled, “The Promise of Preschool-Why We Need Education for All”. The article discusses the importance of expanding preschools and making quality education programs available to students of the preschool age. With 25 years of research in the early education field, the article argues that the budget cuts in these areas of education are very harmful. Because of the economy, education as a whole has suffered from early education all the way to secondary and into higher levels into college. However, forming a foundation in skills and content from literacy to math skills is imperative to the success of students. By cutting out the programs that focus on these areas at such a delicate time in a child’s life will affect the rest of their educational experience. The article goes on to discuss that there is no argument that early education will prevent high school drop outs or decrease criminal activity but that it has certainly proven to help.

When reading this article I couldn’t help to think about my students. Teaching 11^th grade, I see ability levels and reading levels from second grade to post high school. When reading my students’ journals and speaking with their parents, there is a direct correlation between the students who attended pre-school and who had adults read to them at an early age with their high or on grade reading levels. The same goes for my students with lower levels and their lack of attendance to early education classes. I truly feel if we placed an emphasis on the importance of foundational education skills such as literacy, comprehension and fluency at a younger age we would not have the issues of illiteracy and high school dropouts to the degree we have now. This seems, to me, such a simple and necessary fix. Why haven’t we done this? Where is our educational system lacking (aside from “funds”) that we don’t seem the value in giving our children every means possible to be successful?

First round of stimulus money set to trickle in... with strings attached

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.funds27mar27,0,402569.story

The first round of federal education stimulus money, totaling $47 million in all, is set to roll into Maryland over the next three years. The funds are part of the School Improvement Grants, separate from the Race to the Top Grants, but drawn from the same stimulus pool of $3.5 billion. Maryland is one of the first 7 states to receive such grants, and the large majority of the funds will be funneled into Baltimore city ($30 million in all) where the highest concentration of failing schools exists.

Although the specifics have not yet been released (more information is set to be revealed at the April 13th board meeting, according to DCOS Laura Weeldryer), the state's initial grant application did outline a protocol for the disbursal of funds according to a three tier system in order of highest need.

However, the funds will be tied down with some pretty significant strings. Weeldryer stated that the district intends to focus on only eight schools, which is the largest number they believe they can "affect dramatically with this infusion of money." If the funds are distributed equally between these eight schools, each will have $3.75 million dollars to spend over the next three years. While these eight schools were not named outright (only the five "first tier" schools were named) Weeldryer suggested that schools already showing some improvements are unlikely to receive any funds. They are primarily looking for a failing school which "doesn't have a plan and who needs the help"

The eight schools chosen to receive the funds will not have much say over how the funds are spent, as this will largely be dictated by "nonprofit operators" who will do the heavy lifting work of overhauling the schools. Schools who accept funding must agree to a federally approved overhaul plan, which could include converting to a charter school, zero-basing, or outright closure.

The New Waverly Elementary/Middle set to open in 2013

http://www.bmoremedia.com/devnews/waverlyschoolleedbldg031610.aspx

This article is interesting to me for a couple of reasons:

1) I currently work at Waverly Elementary/Middle and there is definitely a divide between the faculty and the people in the community about whether or not the new construction is a good idea. On one hand, it is very exciting to get a new building in a neighborhood that originally was supposed to mirror Roland Park, but has since gone downhill. On the other hand, there are a lot of people (faculty and community members alike) who have been upset with the way the administration has run things since the middle school opened in 2003. While everyone is excited for a new building, a lot of people question whether or not leadership can lead the "new Waverly' in the future. I don't think people understand that the money to fund this project has to come from somewhere (taxes, etc.).

2) This is the first newly constructed school in Baltimore City in a VERY long time (I couldn't find that exact info. Does anyone have it?). Knowing this, there is a question that needs to be asked: how did the city determine that this school would be rebuilt? I'm asking because I don't know and I'm curious. Waverly has not met AYP for the past 4 years, which means we are entering alternative goverance for the '10-'11 school year. I'm not saying that Waverly doesn't deserve a new school. I am just interested in finding out the process by which the BCPSS and the city approve this deal (and ones like it).

Joe A. Hairston reaches 10 years of service

In a recent article in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston has been recognized for raising student achievement in his district. He has been running the school system in Baltimore County for 10 years. That fact alone is impressive. The national average for length of stay for a school system superintendent is a little over 3 years. Hairston has helped close the achievement gap in his district. He believes that every student is capable of succeeding despite poverty or coming from a struggling school. All students should be held to the same rigorous standards despite socioeconomic divides. Hairston has striven to have at least 12 AP courses offered at each high school in Baltimore County.

Baltimore City in the past has been right around the national average for length of stay for their CEO's. With new CEO's coming in and out every few years it has been hard getting things done and seeing improvements. Will we see improvements in Baltimore in the next 6 or 7 years. I believe so if not sooner, much sooner. After Dr. Alonso has had some time to make changes and see the changes take effect I believe we will begin seeing improvements in student achievement. If things stay the same, with steady, strong leadership at central offices, City Schools should see improvements very soon.

Students May Have to Wait Until Age 18 to Drop Out of School

According to an article reported on WBALTV.com last week, Maryland senators amended legislation that would increase the drop-out age to 18 from 16 years old. Senate Bill 239 would go into full effect at the start of the 2013-2014 school year, requiring mandatory school attendance until age 18. During the 2012-2013 school year, however, the age will be 17. This legislation foots a $48.8 million dollar bill (for first-year implementation costs), so the governor and his budget play a crucial role in its passing. However, proponents say to take into consideration that the funding for the services for delinquent youth would most likely decrease due to the 2 more required years of schooling.

I believe that this bill would be beneficial to the youth of Baltimore City. Theoretically, the longer we legally require students to remain in school, the longer we have the opportunity to educate them, getting them, hopefully, to graduate high school. An increase in the number of high school graduates would without a doubt begin to transform the City. While the effects may take many years to become noticeable, I think that this is a wonderful step in the right direction. I do realize that traditional schooling may not be the easiest path for every student, and that the 18 year-old dropout age may create new issues in school (behavioral and academic), however I think that these issues maybe necessary outcomes of a process that yearns to better the citizens of Baltimore.

http://www.wbaltv.com/education/22852118/detail.html

We Bleed Orange in the Summer and Purple in the Winter, But Let's Bleed Green All Year Long!!!

Patterson Park Public Charter will use 13.7 million dollars worth of tax-free bonds issued last week by the Maryland Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority to renovate the building housing the 6 year-old charter. They will add middle school classrooms as well as a music center and an art facility. Some of the existing classrooms will also get technological upgrades, and some will be converted into music laboratories. An exciting aspect of this renovation is that it will be completed using some recycled materials following Baltimore City’s Green Building Standards, including solar panels and irrigation systems.

In response, Alonso was quoted as saying the school system "was pleased to support Patterson Park's efforts by providing umbrella financing for their bond issue to facilitate this new middle school building. We look forward to creating more settings where our children learn in the types of buildings they deserve."

I am very excited for the prospect of more “green” renovations occurring throughout the city. Considering that up until this year my school didn’t even have a paper-recycling program, it is clear that schools all over the city are at different levels of “greenness.” Although we all cannot be as fortunate as Patterson Park Public Charter, this is my shout out to everyone to do little things to “green” their schools. Start a paper-recycling program – it can actually earn your school money!

Also, if your students love Capri Suns as much as mine do (some students drink 2 or 3 at lunch time alone!), your school can also earn money from collecting empty pouches and mailing them off to the company (this company collects other types of food wrappers too!).

Hopefully, teaching our students to recycle and about the importance of preserving the environment will inspire them to carry on with these environmentally-friendly habits outside of school. Little by little, person by person, we can help make Baltimore a “greener,” cleaner city!!!

Links to the paper-recycling and Capri Sun pouch programs:

http://www.paperretriever.com/

http://brands.kraftfoods.com/caprisun/be-green-earn-green.aspx

Article: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.patterson20mar20,0,5336281.story