Eleven Baltimore City schools that are failing their students qualify for state oversight under No Child Left Behind. Yet when the state department of education moved to assume control of those schools, Maryland legislators blocked the measure in the General Assembly, leaving the schools to fail for yet another year. Baltimore City schools, in academic danger for years, have reached a serious impasse now, simply because no one can effect an appropriate administrative solution.

What legislators, and outsiders, do not appear to grasp is the severe situation of many Baltimore City children. For example, several generations of the city?s special education students were allowed to miss out on essential services before the state finally assumed control of the system. Those effects of state oversight have yet to be measured and will require at least a couple of years to demonstrate any positive effects on student learning.