I recently finished Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol and upon completion of this book took a moment to examine the differences between school funding in Baltimore City and Howard County. What I found initially seemed a step in the right direction to ensuring that all students, regardless of where they are born, would have an opportunity to receive an education of equal quality.
What I discovered was the Baltimore City received roughly $2205 less per student than the students attending school in Howard County, a difference of 20% less money in Baltimore City. Although a disparity, it seems a far cry from the doubling in per student funding that was occurring in Kozol’s 1991 release of Savage Inequalities.
Then I stopped and took a moment to do the math. Baltimore City services 92,358 students. So 92,358 students times $2205 per student, just what does this equate to… $203,649,390, yes that $203 million and change A YEAR! This startling realization really got me thinking what we, the Baltimore City Schools, could do with this extra $203 million a year. I’m not a math teacher, but must admit my love of numbers and this opportunity to discuss them.
Given the fact the current estimates in Florida is that it costs roughly $23,000 per student to construct a new high school we could theoretically build brand new high schools for approximately 8,800 students. Or, we could refurbish many of our aging buildings with new windows, paint, lockers, books, and other necessary supplies. Alternatively, we could also invest in technology to bring working computers, LCD projectors, and lab equipment to provide our students the skills they will need to succeed in a world that will continue to think and act more globally. On the other hand we could invest in smaller classes by hiring more teachers, not only in our tested subject areas, but also as a means to expand our curriculum and provide greater choice to our students to match that of more affluent districts. A quick Google search turned up the following class list from Santa Ana, California 4 English listing for each grade level, 3 levels of math offerings in sophomore and junior years, with senior level statistics, college algebra, and calculus, 6 classes of world history including Advanced Placement, Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Environmental Sciences to Chemistry to Biology, to Advanced Anatomy and Physiology, Dance, and Aerobics. This, I’m sure isn’t even the most comprehensive list you could find with some searching.
Given the difference this $2205 per student makes, it only heightens the responsible use of the over $100 billion dollars President Obama and Congress recently approved for education spending as part of the recent highly publicized economic stimulus package. According to the roll out plan for that money $20 billion is earmarked for school modernization, $100 million for school construction (I wonder if that’s really enough, considering it can cost in the tens of millions of dollars for one middle school), $13 billion to help special education programs, $13 billion for Title I programs and schools, and a whole host of other schools. I just hope its time we get a fair chance at the pie here in Baltimore, for our students sake.
Showing posts with label baltimore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baltimore. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Filtering the Internet - Hindering Engagement
Before Dr. Alonso’s recent live chat, readers of the Baltimore Sun education blog, Inside Ed, were asked to submit questions for the CEO. Inside Ed received 45 submissions (which you can read here) seven of which discussed BCPSS’s Internet filter, often referred to as Bess. Just a month before the live chat, another lengthy discussion had taken place on Inside Ed about the Internet filter and the uselessness of TSS. Based on the length of these conversations and the number of interested parties (including teachers, parents, and central office staff), I think it’s fair to say that the Internet filter is a hot topic in Baltimore. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, it was not a topic that was discussed during the live chat -- even though almost 20% of the Inside Ed submissions discussed it.
Teachers in Baltimore are more than ready to use technology to engage students and teach technology literacy. English teachers want their students to blog about reading Shakespeare; math teachers want students to make music videos about calculating the surface area of a pyramid; Social Studies teachers want to use Google image search to find historical photos to show students. We want to access lesson plans written by teachers across the country or the world. We want to show our students interesting videos and audio clips. We want our students to use the Internet to research interesting topics.
Not only does appropriate use of technology engage students and “hook” them into content, but technology literacy is an essential skill that schools must teach, particularly because so many of our students do not have access to a computer or the Internet at home. While my students are experts at designing myspace pages, they need real practice performing research. However, as “veteran teacher” notes in the Inside Ed comments, the filter “won't allow students to research breast or prostate cancer and yet will allow them to research the NBA statistics at their leisure.”
Teachers in Baltimore must be able to bypass the filters so that we can access educational YouTube videos, Google image searches, and blogs (like this one!) while in the school building. When planning lessons at school, teachers must be able to access the resources that will help them create the best possible lesson for students. When planning lessons at home, teachers need to be sure that the videos or images that they plan to show students are actually accessible once they get to school.
Let’s face it – I know that many of my students will never use the Pythagorean Theorem again after they finish geometry (although they should because it is AWESOME). What I’m more interested in is making sure that my students have every door of opportunity open to them after they graduate. With the Internet filter blocking so much useful content, my students will not be as technology savvy as their peers in the county, and so I’m sending them into the world already a step behind. That’s no way to start.
Teachers in Baltimore are more than ready to use technology to engage students and teach technology literacy. English teachers want their students to blog about reading Shakespeare; math teachers want students to make music videos about calculating the surface area of a pyramid; Social Studies teachers want to use Google image search to find historical photos to show students. We want to access lesson plans written by teachers across the country or the world. We want to show our students interesting videos and audio clips. We want our students to use the Internet to research interesting topics.
Not only does appropriate use of technology engage students and “hook” them into content, but technology literacy is an essential skill that schools must teach, particularly because so many of our students do not have access to a computer or the Internet at home. While my students are experts at designing myspace pages, they need real practice performing research. However, as “veteran teacher” notes in the Inside Ed comments, the filter “won't allow students to research breast or prostate cancer and yet will allow them to research the NBA statistics at their leisure.”
Teachers in Baltimore must be able to bypass the filters so that we can access educational YouTube videos, Google image searches, and blogs (like this one!) while in the school building. When planning lessons at school, teachers must be able to access the resources that will help them create the best possible lesson for students. When planning lessons at home, teachers need to be sure that the videos or images that they plan to show students are actually accessible once they get to school.
Let’s face it – I know that many of my students will never use the Pythagorean Theorem again after they finish geometry (although they should because it is AWESOME). What I’m more interested in is making sure that my students have every door of opportunity open to them after they graduate. With the Internet filter blocking so much useful content, my students will not be as technology savvy as their peers in the county, and so I’m sending them into the world already a step behind. That’s no way to start.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Gangs and City Schools... Whose responsibility?
The high school where I teach has had a police officer give a presentation about gangs twice – once to the faculty, and once at Back-to-School night. While informative, as it explained gang issues across the city, how to recognize telltale signs of gang involvement, and who to contact if you suspect a child is involved in a gang, it stopped short of offering possible solutions to the epidemic. And, while I was pleased to see that my administration was taking this problem seriously enough to arrange for the presentation, I was disheartened by what appeared to be the end of the dialogue on gangs at our school. No one talked about what we, as a school community, were going to do in order to discourage students from joining gangs. No one brought up ideas for engaging the students in a discussion about gangs, or how to combat their appeal by providing a safe and nurturing learning environment. No one suggested creating additional after-school activities to give our students alternatives instead of being out on the streets.
But my school isn’t the only one who is reluctant to shoulder the responsibility of keeping kids out of gangs. In fact, in the recent series of articles in The Baltimore Sun about Dr. Alonso, the City Schools CEO, had a forceful response when asked what schools were doing about the problem.
"How is it the responsibility of the school system to deal with gangs?" he snapped. "Gangs are not in the schools. Gangs are being formed on the outside."
"They're in the schools," the great-grandmother said.
"I know, and we have a responsibility," he shot back. His next few sentences were disjointed as he tried to regain his composure.
We're missing the fact that it is a community conversation," he said. "What are the parents doing?"
The audience clapped. He continued: "What are the students doing? What is everyone doing? It is so unfair to the professionals in the school to say, 'What are you doing about gangs?' Let me tell you what we're doing about gangs, now, let me tell you." He went on with a list, including gang awareness programs and more school police.
"The reason I'm responding with such passion," he said, "is because there's no way for me to predict whether one of my kids is going to get shot two blocks away from school in a gang-related incident. And, and, for anyone to suggest that this is the responsibility of the school system is a form of madness."
While I do agree that the prevalence of gangs – and young people joining them – is a community issue, and should be addressed at the community level, I do believe that we, as educational institutions, could be doing more. Why aren’t we offering more after-school programs, or weekend activities to keep kids off the streets? Why don’t we have in-school mentoring programs that tackle tough issues like gangs, drugs, and peer pressure? Why aren’t we bringing more positive role models into our schools? Why aren’t we, by our actions, saying to our children, “We care about you and want you to be safe and make good decisions?”
This Sunday’s cover story in The Baltimore Sun talked about how gang members are turning themselves around with the help of counselors and places including the Rose Street Community Center. Though I doubt that schools would invite former gang members like Tony Wilson to talk to students, I think the idea of bringing the issue to the forefront is imperative. As teachers, we see the gang symbols written on our desks and notebooks; we see the handshakes in the hall; we see the colors being worn – but are we content to accept it as a part of city life, to wash our hands of it because it is a “community” issue?
Someone once told me that by teaching in the City, you must be willing to take on the role of a teacher and a parent, because unfortunately, the reality is that too many of our students do not have stable home environments. Effective teachers of urban students will step into the role of a caring adult who is a strong role model. If the community is not willing to step up and fight for our kids, then maybe the schools need to… before it is too late.
After all, if our students do not have places where they can seek advice and discuss alternatives before they join a gang, what choice do we expect them to make? Most young people who become gang members are looking for a family, for something to belong to, and for some form of community. If they do not have this at home, and if we could provide this at school, maybe, just maybe, we would see a decrease in gang activity. It’s a long shot, yes, but at this point, I think it’s worth trying.
But my school isn’t the only one who is reluctant to shoulder the responsibility of keeping kids out of gangs. In fact, in the recent series of articles in The Baltimore Sun about Dr. Alonso, the City Schools CEO, had a forceful response when asked what schools were doing about the problem.
"How is it the responsibility of the school system to deal with gangs?" he snapped. "Gangs are not in the schools. Gangs are being formed on the outside."
"They're in the schools," the great-grandmother said.
"I know, and we have a responsibility," he shot back. His next few sentences were disjointed as he tried to regain his composure.
We're missing the fact that it is a community conversation," he said. "What are the parents doing?"
The audience clapped. He continued: "What are the students doing? What is everyone doing? It is so unfair to the professionals in the school to say, 'What are you doing about gangs?' Let me tell you what we're doing about gangs, now, let me tell you." He went on with a list, including gang awareness programs and more school police.
"The reason I'm responding with such passion," he said, "is because there's no way for me to predict whether one of my kids is going to get shot two blocks away from school in a gang-related incident. And, and, for anyone to suggest that this is the responsibility of the school system is a form of madness."
While I do agree that the prevalence of gangs – and young people joining them – is a community issue, and should be addressed at the community level, I do believe that we, as educational institutions, could be doing more. Why aren’t we offering more after-school programs, or weekend activities to keep kids off the streets? Why don’t we have in-school mentoring programs that tackle tough issues like gangs, drugs, and peer pressure? Why aren’t we bringing more positive role models into our schools? Why aren’t we, by our actions, saying to our children, “We care about you and want you to be safe and make good decisions?”
This Sunday’s cover story in The Baltimore Sun talked about how gang members are turning themselves around with the help of counselors and places including the Rose Street Community Center. Though I doubt that schools would invite former gang members like Tony Wilson to talk to students, I think the idea of bringing the issue to the forefront is imperative. As teachers, we see the gang symbols written on our desks and notebooks; we see the handshakes in the hall; we see the colors being worn – but are we content to accept it as a part of city life, to wash our hands of it because it is a “community” issue?
Someone once told me that by teaching in the City, you must be willing to take on the role of a teacher and a parent, because unfortunately, the reality is that too many of our students do not have stable home environments. Effective teachers of urban students will step into the role of a caring adult who is a strong role model. If the community is not willing to step up and fight for our kids, then maybe the schools need to… before it is too late.
After all, if our students do not have places where they can seek advice and discuss alternatives before they join a gang, what choice do we expect them to make? Most young people who become gang members are looking for a family, for something to belong to, and for some form of community. If they do not have this at home, and if we could provide this at school, maybe, just maybe, we would see a decrease in gang activity. It’s a long shot, yes, but at this point, I think it’s worth trying.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Where Are My Students?
In a Baltimore Sun article this week, some “errors” were found in the city’s school budget which was approved by board members last month. The budget showed the current student enrollment to be 1,000 more students than are actually enrolled. The error was corrected this week, but the implications of a mistake that large are frightening. According to the Sun, at least 10 million dollars would be at stake with that kind of miscalculation of enrollment.
Now we all know this isn’t the first time Baltimore City Public Schools has made a mistake, but this particular mistake made me think of a related issue that has been of concern to me lately. That issue is student attendance. I have a question (don’t worry it’s hypothetical). Where are my students? My daily attendance in class is about half of what I have on my roll. When I start my first period, there are usually only 5 or 6 students seated before me. I am a huge supporter of small class sizes, but this is ridiculous. There are at least 10 other students on my roll who are not present on a daily basis. I know first period starting at 9:00 am can be hard to get to, but this isn’t a symptom of only my first class. There are at least 8-10 students missing daily in my other classes as well. This has posed a problem for me all year. I can’t get students to master objectives when they aren’t at school on a regular basis. And I certainly can’t see passing them on to English II when they’ve only attended English I 45 days of the year.
I had a conversation with a co-worker about this problem with attendance recently. She told me that the students who missed her class a lot were actually quite smart. They showed up on an HSA practice day and passed the exam that so many of our regularly-attending students cannot pass. What does this say? Have the smart kids figured something out about the quality of education in Baltimore? Or are they simply not being challenged in the courses they have, so they see no point in coming to school? I’m not sure.
Even if the quality of courses isn’t the best in Baltimore, I believe students need to be in school on a daily basis. Currently, at my school, the approach to improving attendance consists of threats about being dropped of the roll for poor attendance over the intercom. The problem is that the only students who hear these threats are the ones who are at school every day. In addition, teachers are asked to call the homes of students who are absent, but (this is nothing new) getting a working number for a student who has missed 20 days in a quarter is difficult to do. It scares me when I look at my attendance book and see so many absences. I worry about where those missing students actually are, what they are doing and what their future holds for them without an education. Dropping students off the roll takes care of one thing: making attendance numbers look better. What worries me is how those names that just disappear from our attendance list will affect this city’s future and the future of its education system. If these students see school as a waste of their time, something needs to be done to make them see the importance and value of education again.
Now we all know this isn’t the first time Baltimore City Public Schools has made a mistake, but this particular mistake made me think of a related issue that has been of concern to me lately. That issue is student attendance. I have a question (don’t worry it’s hypothetical). Where are my students? My daily attendance in class is about half of what I have on my roll. When I start my first period, there are usually only 5 or 6 students seated before me. I am a huge supporter of small class sizes, but this is ridiculous. There are at least 10 other students on my roll who are not present on a daily basis. I know first period starting at 9:00 am can be hard to get to, but this isn’t a symptom of only my first class. There are at least 8-10 students missing daily in my other classes as well. This has posed a problem for me all year. I can’t get students to master objectives when they aren’t at school on a regular basis. And I certainly can’t see passing them on to English II when they’ve only attended English I 45 days of the year.
I had a conversation with a co-worker about this problem with attendance recently. She told me that the students who missed her class a lot were actually quite smart. They showed up on an HSA practice day and passed the exam that so many of our regularly-attending students cannot pass. What does this say? Have the smart kids figured something out about the quality of education in Baltimore? Or are they simply not being challenged in the courses they have, so they see no point in coming to school? I’m not sure.
Even if the quality of courses isn’t the best in Baltimore, I believe students need to be in school on a daily basis. Currently, at my school, the approach to improving attendance consists of threats about being dropped of the roll for poor attendance over the intercom. The problem is that the only students who hear these threats are the ones who are at school every day. In addition, teachers are asked to call the homes of students who are absent, but (this is nothing new) getting a working number for a student who has missed 20 days in a quarter is difficult to do. It scares me when I look at my attendance book and see so many absences. I worry about where those missing students actually are, what they are doing and what their future holds for them without an education. Dropping students off the roll takes care of one thing: making attendance numbers look better. What worries me is how those names that just disappear from our attendance list will affect this city’s future and the future of its education system. If these students see school as a waste of their time, something needs to be done to make them see the importance and value of education again.
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