The Brand New Budget

Driving home the past few days, I have been struck by how Congress is debating the exact same issues that we are in our “Urban Reform” class, namely how to ensure the quality of teachers and what measures can be used to determine the level of a school’s achievement. With NCLB up for reauthorization, these are very important issues to be considered, and I am glad that Congress is taking such a long look at them. Unfortunately, from NPR reports it sounds as though the debate is mired in the huge numbers of recommendations from individual legislators, many of whom are proposing 20-80 addenda to the already labyrinth NCLB legislation. Still it is interesting to listen to people who have no experience teaching in public schools debate how we, as teachers, ought to be judged, measured, and qualified.

Judging from the school budget released today, it sounds as though Baltimore is sticking to its guns when it comes to counting teachers as highly-qualified based on their undergraduate degrees, but is becoming more progressive when it comes to giving hiring bonuses in hard to staff areas. You can read the whole article from the Baltimore Sun here, but essentially the city is zeroing in on remaining middle schools, elementary schools that will become K-8s and family involvement. For once, I think BCPSS has its priorities in the right place. It is going to put a lot of strain on the system to convert existing elementary schools into K-8 and they should dedicate as many resources to the project as possible at the outset. As a teacher at a K-8, I know that we could use new, age-appropriate library materials as well as literacy interventions for struggling readers. So, for recognizing where to invest in the future, and hopefully giving its reforms a chance to produce strong results, I applaud BCPSS. May you see these efforts out, give them time to succeed, and work for the remaining students who enroll in your schools. (At present count, only 38% of school-age children living in the city enroll in BCPSS. Now there's some food for thought.)