Every legislator who voted earlier this week to delay the takeover of 11 outrageously failing city schools until 2008 should wear a red F until they?re inspired and courageous enough to do what?s right for our children.
Public shaming is more than appropriate in this situation.
The vote means the minds of children attending seven middle schools and four high schools in the city that have been failing for more than a decade will rot for another year.
Exaggeration?
Absolutely not.
At one of the 11 schools, Thurgood Marshall Middle, 79 percent of eighth- graders failed reading and 99 percent failed math.
To remedy the situation, State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick, who might qualify for a Profile in Courage Award, proposed a plan to take over the schools and turn them over to a qualified and competent third party starting next year. Her proposal was a solid start to making schools accountable for their students? performance.
The plan needed legislative approval.
Instead, legislators voted to delay action for a year.
When in doubt and cowering, delay, delay, delay or study, study, study.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich vetoed that plan ? but legislators overrode his veto.
By denying Grasmick that option, legislators will again force taxpayers to throw more than $1 billion to the city system that reported the results for our children cited above, the system where 54 schools rank in the worst category.
Critics of the takeover say some of the schools slated to be taken over were already targeted for major overhauls.
But many previous proposals ? new curricula and vague plans to hold administrators more accountable ? have not shown measurable results in the past. Besides, the Baltimore Teachers Union opposes one of the ways proven to improve learning: merit pay for teachers.
The group says personality conflicts with superiors could prevent qualified teachers from getting raises. Imagine that. Those of us, the majority, who struggle every day to merit a raise from our boss find that argument less than compelling.
A new plan by the city released Tuesday offers promise, however. It introduces financial incentives for high-performing principals to work in the seven middle schools on the list and requires all 11 failing schools to report directly to city Schools CEO Bonnie Copeland?s senior staff. Those ideas mean good administrators will finally have a reason to come to the schools. It also means the failing schools will have to explain their performance regularly.
We hope those reforms work. But it is hard to expect miracles from a system that has so utterly failed its children for so long.
What the city school system needs is for schools to be held accountable to parents, students and those of us footing the bill ? all who pay taxes.
Turning the schools over to a college, nonprofit or charter school company would be a start. Right now, poor-performing administrators and teachers are shuffled around from school to school, whereas an operator could be fired easily for failing performance.
Sen. Nathaniel McFadden, a Democrat from Baltimore and a longtime city schools administrator, rallied legislators to vote to delay the schools takeover. You may reach him at 410-841-3165 or [email protected].
To see who voted to delay the takeover, go to: http://www.mlis.state.md.us and click on Bill Information and Status. Type in HB1215 and a history of the bill will appear.
