Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso wants to more than quadruple funding for gifted students, saying schools fail too many children who slip from advanced to remedial as they age.
Principals would decide how to spend $22 million for students who earn advanced scores on reading and math tests, compared with the $5 million allotted now, under Alonso?s proposed $1.2 billion operating budget.
“This is a story of tremendous decline,” Alonso said, noting that 893 first-graders score advanced but only 83 seventh-graders do. “This is wasted potential.”
School board members will vote tonight on a budget that includes $22 million for gifted students and $58 million for struggling ones.
Board member Anirban Basu backs the funding increase for advanced students.
“This helps the culture of the school when you have students outperforming and talking about college,” he said.
But other school board members, including George VanHook and Jerrelle Francois, wondered whether more money should be devoted to troubled students.
The budget would let principals decide how to spend $5,000 per student, as opposed to the $90 per pupil they control now.
And schools would receive an additional $2,200 for each struggling student and each advanced student, as well as $900 for each student at risk of dropping out of high school.
School board member Kalman “Buzzy” Hettleman suggested that the dropout funding be shifted to middle schools before it?s too late for some students.
Under this year?s education budgeting, some schools will receive less funding than before while others will receive more. Last year, middle schools received more funding, but now high schools and K-8 schools will get a greater share.
About 125 schools would gain an average of $492,000, while 21 would see an average decrease of $76,822, under a scenario Alonso recommended to the school board.
“No matter how we do this, schools will complain about unfairness,” Alonso said.
The changes, he said, are needed to more equitably distribute funding to students systemwide.
