School Closures and Warnings of More

This week, the Baltimore City School Board had its dreaded school closings meeting. At this meeting, the Board announced that Southside Academy High School would be closing at the end of the year, pending an official vote on March 27. Three middle school sections of K-8 schools—Moravia Park, Federal Hill Prep, and Steuart Hill Academy—will be closing at the end of the year, while their elementary counterparts will continue.

In comparison to Alonso’s first two years in office, this is a relatively small number of school closings. It is nevertheless a struggle for the students, families, and teachers in these four schools. While students and teachers are trying to find schools for the next year, they must also keep motivated through June. Neither families nor teachers had a warning that their schools were going to be shut down until after the meeting. I have heard that teachers were told the morning following the meeting while they were already in school. I applaud their strength for being able to teach after hearing that news, but fear for the students who will inevitably struggle to transition to new school cultures and schools that are much farther from home.

Arguably the most surprising news from this is that the district is planning to close dozens of schools next year. City Schools CEO Andres Alonso ominously warns, “It’s going to be radical next year.” I doubt that my school would be closed next year, but one can never be sure. I can’t help but think of the dozens of teachers and hundreds of families who didn’t know their schools were under consideration for closing until it was too late.

The full article, as published by the Baltimore Sun, is available here.

WHAT! No more “No Child Left Behind”

What do the following states have in common: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Well this week all of them received a waiver exempting them from some parts of the “No child left behind” act passed during the President Bush’s error. This Reuters article by Caren Bohan describes President Obama’s decision to give exemptions for the “No child left behind” act. Bohan states that with these exception schools will no longer have the dread of slapping a “label of "failure" on so many schools.” She also highlights some of President Obama’s reasons for giving the waivers such as letting “school and state officials pursue "higher, more honest standards" instead of following a one-size-fits-all template.”

As much as I disagree with how “No child left behind” evaluates schools, I believed it served the important role of shedding light on how badly the American school systems need reform. I view these exceptions as a way for the president to run away from fixing our school system. The aforementioned states now have to come up with their own stringent benchmarks for which to hold their schools systems accountable. I feel that some of the states will be more lenient than the federal government when schools fail to meet their mandates. The federal government was better able to create a universal (though flawed) system of evaluation. And it also created a pressure that made people uncomfortable and as a result pushed people to work harder. I am not sure that all states will give people the same kind of pressure.

Furthermore, by going the route of exemption rather than the route of create new guidelines to help the schools system, the issue of our failing schools system will get pushed further and further down on the governments long to-do list. I believe we should move to address the issues instead of differing them for later.

Learn more about the article at:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-obama-education-idUSTRE8182E720120209