how the current accountability method is failing our ailing urban schools....

Yes, our urban schools are in trouble. That is no surprize to anyone. But, as the student in this article reports about the horrors of behaviors and incidents faced by students in the urban school setting, the politicians still want to talk about test scores....Look at what the students said-- when adults showed enough compassion and interest to simply re-paint the decaying schools, the children sensed that they "mattered" to somebody.

Read it again...'Well, they really do care about us,'" said Brandi, who failed seventh grade last year but has made up enough work to move on to high school in the fall.

And again--Adrienne Hall, the student government president at Douglass, asked at a news conference outside city school headquarters last week why the state doesn't give the school the money it needs to, among other things, hire more teachers.

"We have 40 students in one class," she said.

It is time to do something. But, time to do something tangible and lasting; it is time to stop treating urban kids like cattle, attend to their physical environment, give them the resources they need....It is due time for the children in Baltimore City and it is, thankfully, time to recognize the underlying flaw of a policy that pretends to help the situations it hurts and leaves the farthest behind.

More tests, more poverty of curriculum, more lackluster, morale-robbing test-prep. won't make a difference in the lives or education of these students. What will make a difference is the dedication of adults who rehumanize the schools for these kids.

These are children...These are children...These are our children too....


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.md.schools03apr03,0,4438329.story?coll=bal-education-top
From the Baltimore Sun

Few deny schools need change
11 in city targeted for takeover have low test scores


By Sara Neufeld
Sun reporter

April 3, 2006

La'Chelle Alston, 14, stood before the Baltimore school board in late February and asked for help at her school, Chinquapin Middle.

"During this present school year," the eighth-grader said, "there have been numerous incidents occurring involved in all three grade levels. For example, food fights, fistfights, setting fires, pulling the fire alarm, smoking in the hallways and stairwells, group fights, robberies and parents attacking teachers, just to name a few."

Chinquapin is one of 11 Baltimore schools with failing test scores that are being targeted by the State Board of Education for an outside takeover. Mayor Martin O'Malley says the 10,000 students at those schools are being used as "political pawns" and has vowed to do whatever is necessary to prevent the takeovers. In Annapolis, lawmakers rushed through legislation to stop the action.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. supports the state board, insisting the takeovers are not politically motivated and are "about a system that continues to receive more dollars and becomes more dysfunctional."

Despite all the political sparring, one thing is clear: Many Baltimore schools are in chaos. And though the public is divided over how to fix the schools and who should fix them, there's little doubt that a major fix is needed.

La'Chelle told the school board about Chinquapin administrators not evacuating during fires. She told of the elimination of many extracurricular activities and said that as a result, "all of the energy is being used in negative ways. The pupils are being influenced by gangs, and are selling drugs and engaging in other violent activities."

Of the seven middle schools targeted by the state, the best pass rate on last year's eighth-grade state math test was at William H. Lemmel, where 25 percent of pupils demonstrated proficiency. Of the four high schools, Patterson had the highest pass rate on last year's state algebra test, which students will soon need to pass to get a high school diploma. That pass rate was 10 percent.

"The facts are the facts," said education activist Tyrone Powers. "The schools' test scores are abysmal. ... Clearly, these children are not being prepared for any kind of future."

Powers said he is troubled by the high graduation rates at some schools despite low academic performance, indicating that "we may be graduating students who aren't prepared." For example, Northwestern High had a 2005 graduation rate of 78 percent, despite an 8.8 percent pass rate on the state algebra exam.

Unless she is stopped by legislative or judicial action, state Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick is planning to take control of four high schools - Patterson, Northwestern, Frederick Douglass and Southwestern No. 412 - and contract with companies or nonprofits to run them. She is leaving seven middle schools under the jurisdiction of the city school system but requiring that the system contract out to manage them. All 11 schools have been on a state watch list for low test scores since at least 1997.

The city schools' chief executive, Bonnie S. Copeland, said she's not trying to excuse the schools' weak performance but that her administration has been planning significant changes in all 11 schools. Plans are under way, she said, to break up Patterson, Northwestern and Douglass into smaller, more personalized environments. Southwestern No. 412 is slated to close in 2009. All seven middle schools got new principals at the start of this school year, she said.

At three of the schools, however, the new principals came from other failing city middle schools. Last year's Chinquapin principal went to Dr. Roland N. Patterson Sr. Academy. The Roland Patterson principal went to Diggs-Johnson Middle. The Pimlico Middle principal went to Chinquapin. All schools involved in the shuffle - except Pimlico, where test scores last year were equally low - are on the takeover list.

"They don't have quality principals at the middle schools, so they just shuffle them around," said James Williams, president of the PTO at Roland Patterson, which is also scheduled to be closed, either this summer or in 2008.

Copeland acknowledged that the system has trouble attracting principals, as well as teachers, to work in middle schools, a problem faced by school systems around the country. She said it is easier to recruit for elementary and high schools, but the system is hoping that its partnership with New Leaders for New Schools will result in more principals for middle schools. The national nonprofit has set out to train 40 principals for all types of Baltimore schools over three years.

"I have to tell you," Copeland said, "we are struggling to identify people who want to be middle school principals."

The principals of Chinquapin, Roland Patterson and Diggs-Johnson did not return calls Friday.

Student behavior at two of the seven middle schools does appear to have improved under new leadership, though it is not clear whether that will translate into higher test scores. Staff, parents and pupils at Calverton and Hamilton middle schools say the environment is far more orderly than it was a year ago.

Calverton eighth-grader Brandi Colbert, 14, said the fix was simple: New adults at the school showed pupils that they care. In addition, money was spent to improve the physical plant.

"Since there are new things happening at the school - there's a new paint job and everything - we're like, 'Well, they really do care about us,'" said Brandi, who failed seventh grade last year but has made up enough work to move on to high school in the fall. Last year, she said, there were so many fights that "people were pretty much getting hurt every day."

Students and staff from many of the 11 schools came together last week to show their support for keeping local control. At the same time, they note concerns, including high teacher absenteeism and turnover, and large classes.

Adrienne Hall, the student government president at Douglass, asked at a news conference outside city school headquarters last week why the state doesn't give the school the money it needs to, among other things, hire more teachers.

"We have 40 students in one class," she said.

Douglass was placed at the center of a political firestorm in February when Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele visited its West Baltimore campus and said control of the school should be turned over to Coppin State University - a plan Grasmick says is viable.

During Steele's visit to Douglass, students told him they have no Advanced Placement courses. They talked about inadequate science labs and a class with one book for every four students. Principal Isabelle Grant said scores on the state's standardized tests were low last year in part because there were vacancies all year for an English teacher and a math teacher.

At Thurgood Marshall Middle, another of the 11 schools, PTA President Kenya Lee said the school system is constantly sending students expelled from other schools there, thwarting attempts to quell violence. Thurgood Marshall is one of six city schools designated "persistently dangerous" by the state last year because of its high suspension rate for fighting and other offenses.

Lee fears the violence will worsen when Dr. Samuel L. Banks High School moves into Thurgood Marshall's campus, which it shares with Thurgood Marshall High. She said school system officials ignored a gang conflict between Banks and Thurgood Marshall students.

"Some of the students said to me, 'We're going to be fighting every day,'" she said.

Of the state intervention, Lee said: "I really don't care for the strategy. I don't care for the politics of it, but I think it's long overdue. I don't see how the city was allowed nine years to keep on just putting our kids through the same cycle of inequality. ... They've had years and years and years to do something, and they just have not."

Michael Hamilton, president of the Baltimore Council of PTAs, said he hopes parents will start fighting to keep politics out of education, because "our children will be the ones who take the brunt of this battle."

But Powers said he is pleased the schools are getting so much attention.

"At least now," he said, "someone will have to do something."

sara.neufeld@baltsun.com