DarkStar Spouts Off

Urban Prep Academies Graduates All College Bound, 4th Year Straight

Urban Prep Academies Graduates All College Bound

For a remarkable fourth consecutive year, all 167 seniors at Urban Prep Academies schools have been accepted at four-year colleges or universities this fall.

Students of the two Chicago public charter high schools -- located in the city's Englewood and University Village neighborhoods -- gathered Thursday morning to celebrate the achievement of their schools, which some have dubbed "Hogwarts in the Hood" for their impressive, seemingly magical rates of success, CBS Chicago reports.

Still, Urban Prep's founder and CEO Tim King says, "the only magic going on at Urban Prep is the magic that these guys put in with their hard work and dedication.”

H/T Booker Rising

So, This Is What I Went Thru When I Went To High School

I'm going to excerpt just the first few paragraphs from this article.
This is what I went through for the first 1.5 years of high school
when I went to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, a science,
engineering, and technical high school. It is what is called a magnet
school, today, but to get into the school, you had to have an 85/100
average and no grade below an 80.

The first 1.5 years of high school, I played catch up AND I had to
adjust to *gasp* white people *gasp* and some who were smarter than me
*gasp*. Essentially, I had to learn how to think more and study. I
went from spending 15 minutes doing homework a night to literally
doing 4 hours a night *PLUS* time to study if I had a test.

http://wapo.st/IhTKHn

Entering my freshman year at Georgetown University, I should have felt
as if I’d made it. The students I once put on a pedestal, kids who
were fortunate enough to attend some of the nation’s top private and
public schools, were now my classmates. Having come from the D.C.
public school system, one of the lowest-performing in the nation, I
worked extremely hard to get here.

But after arriving on campus before the school year, with a full
scholarship, I quickly felt unprepared and outmatched — and it’s taken
an entire year of playing catch-up in the classroom to feel like I
belong. I know that ultimately I’m responsible for my education, but I
can’t help blaming the schools and teachers I had in my early years
for my struggles today.

Even though I attended some of the best schools in the District —
including my high school, the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for
Public Policy, at the Parkside campus near Kenilworth — the gap
between what I can do and what my college classmates are capable of is
enormous. This goes beyond knowing calculus or world history, subjects
that I didn’t learn in high school but that my peers here mastered
long ago. My former teachers simply did not push me to think past a
basic level, to apply concepts, to move beyond memorizing facts and
figures.

Looking back, I realize that the D.C. public school system is like a
neglectful parent who isn’t around much but still likes to brag about
her child’s accomplishments. Since the third grade, my teachers told
me I was exceptional, but they never pushed me to think for myself.
And when I did excel, they didn’t trust that I’d done the hard work.
They assumed I was cheating. Now, only 10 milesfrom those teachers and
schools where I was considered a standout, I’ve had to work
double-time just to keep up.


Read the entire thing, because although the introduction is good, it
gets MUCH deeper in the paper.

And this is why I think urban school systems need to be blown up and
education re-crafted.

Kudos to Darryl Robinson!

Wait, I Thought Black People Don't Care About Education

Again, if you believe the meme that Black people don't care about
education, this story from The Washington Post would surprise you. But
since I don't believe that meme, I'm not surprised at all. In fact,
since it is Prince Georges County, and since home prices have fallen
through the basement into the core of the earth, I'm not surprised by
this at all.

http://wapo.st/w3Cof8

Over the past few years, Prince George’s County has quietly amassed
the largest cluster of charter schools in the Washington suburbs.

Three of the independently run, publicly funded schools opened this
school year in Prince George’s, bringing the county’s total to seven.
That is the highest concentration in Maryland outside of Baltimore.
The growth is a sign that charter schools are a key component in
Prince George’s Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.’s efforts to expand
the county’s menu of education options.

“I support the expansion of quality schools, that’s regardless of the
type of school,” Hite said. “It’s all about more choices for our
parents.”

Although the charter sector is booming in the District, Northern
Virginia has no charter schools. Montgomery County approved one last
year, but it is not yet in operation. A few other charter schools are
scattered in Frederick, Anne Arundel and St. Mary’s counties.

NAACP Makes An Interesting Case For Punishing School Children

In an opinion article that appeared in The Washington Post, Ben Jealous makes an interesting defense of the NAACP for suing the NY school system:

There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.

First, the city has located charter schools under the same roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair and unjust.

...

■ Students in the traditional public school must now eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students can enjoy lunch at noon.

■ The “regular school’s children” had library access for a little over four hours so that the “new charter school’s kids” could have access for almost seven.

■ “Traditional school students” were moved to a basement, where they were next to the boiler room, to make room for their charter school peers, and teachers of the regular students were forced to teach in the halls due to lack of space.

We are asking that the court require the city to follow state law and handle these shared space situations equitably.

Second, inequitable co-locations exacerbate the problem created by the city’s persistent failure to follow the law and engage parents before making major changes. New York state law requires the city to involve parents before announcing its intention to shut down a school or make way for a charter to share a school’s space.

In Maryland, charter schools, WHICH ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, are required to find their own spaces. If they use the space of the school, the school system had to have already closed a school at that location. If what Ben Jealous wrote is accurate, then they have a good reason to sue. If what Ben Jealous wrote is accurate, this is a good defense of their case. HOWEVER, if this is the case, why go in with the  teachers union? The NAACP's case stands on its own merit.

Unfortunately, Ben Jealous raises this question but doesn't address it.

 

Facing 20 Years for Using a "False" Address!?!?!?!

Here we go again. A woman, who is homeless and splits her time between a friend's house, a shelter, and a van, sent her son to a school in a district "where she didn't leave." The end result is she is facing 20 years for using a "false" address!

Connecticut authorities have filed theft charges against Tanya McDowell, a homeless woman, alleging that she used a false address to enroll her son in a higher-income school district, The Stamford Advocate reports. If she's convicted, McDowell may end up in jail for as many as 20 years and pay a $15,000 fine for the crime.

McDowell is a homeless single mother from Bridgeport who used to work in food services, is now at the center of one of the very few false address cases in the Norwalk, CT, school district that is being handled in criminal court--rather than between the parent and school. Authorities are accusing McDowell of enrolling her 5-year-old son in nearby Norwalk schools by using the address of a friend. (Her friend has also been evicted from public housing for letting McDowell use her address.)

McDowell says she stayed in a Norwalk homeless shelter sometimes--but she didn't register there, which would have made her son eligible to attend the school.

"I had no idea whatsoever that if you enroll your child in another school district, it becomes a crime," the 33-year-old told the paper.

Come on!

Really?

Education Is Big Business

I read the following this morning. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised.

When the leaders at the Baltimore International Academy read a property listing for St. Anthony's of Padua — a vacant Catholic school building that is nearly three times the academy's current size and five miles from its location — the $2.5 million price tag was an afterthought.

The advertisement posted by the Archdiocese of Baltimore boasted "big, bright and uplifting" classrooms that could alleviate the public charter school's cramped learning spaces. The building's "auditorium that converts easily into a cafeteria" could give kindergarteners who lunch at their desks a place to eat.

But the description for preferred applicants was not as promising: "This school building cannot be leased or sold to public charter schools," the listing said.

St. Anthony's is one of 13 vacant Catholic school buildings listed for sale or lease that the archdiocese decided should not be acquired by charter schools because they are considered a threat to its troubled Catholic school program.

The Catholic Church is a business as is their school system. Charters are having an effect on Catholic schools, and that's a shame. Sending one child to a Catholic school from pre-K to 8th grade is not that bad. But the price just about doubles for high school. Free vs. cost? Free is going to win many times.

Baltimore Public School Teacher's Union Don't Give A Damn

This is why I don't like teacher's unions.

But the rare educational opportunities Sonya and other low-income students receive at the Northwest Baltimore school could come to an end this summer. The school says it will close June 30 if it cannot reach a long-term deal with the Baltimore Teachers Union over pay or garner enough support for legislation in Annapolis that would allow teachers to set their own working conditions.

KIPP's model requires a longer-than-typical 9 1/2-hour school day, which has caused tensions with the union, in order to achieve its results: some of the highest test scores in the state and a 100 percent college-acceptance rate.

"I feel like they came along to help me with my girl, and now she's not lost anymore," Jefferson said. "She just can't go backward. And if this happens, she will just be lost."

KIPP is part of a nationwide network of highly successful charter schools whose mission is to provide a stringent and structured urban education. KIPP, which opened the first of its two schools in Baltimore in 2002, says it has been hampered by sharing a building with various schools and recently operating on a one-year agreement with the union about how to pay its teachers.

Unlike many of its counterparts around the nation, Baltimore's KIPP schools are bound by the teachers union contract regarding pay, which has earned the state criticism for having a restrictive charter school law. Therefore, KIPP has had to compensate teachers for the extended days — a demand that the school says is costing an additional $400,000 to $500,000 a year.

KIPP is also negotiating with the school system in hopes of getting a long-term lease for the building Ujima now occupies. It is willing to take on debt to fix up the building, which is in poor condition, but only if it can get a long-term agreement.

Without a commitment from the school district, each year will remain as uncertain as the last, said Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore.

"To be in this position every year, and to have to say to parents and students that we might not be here is hard," Botel said. "We cannot finance and fundraise if we have a one-year lease on life — if every year, we're at the risk of shutting down."

They don't give a damn that KIPP works in Baltimore. They find charter schools, which are public schools, a threat and want to do anything to shut it down. And

Vouchers, Pro and Con

I think the following paragraphs from a Washington Post article lays out the issues involved in the disagreement among Blacks who are against vouchers and who are for vouchers:

On one side are black elders who remember when school choice meant no choice at all because of state-mandated segregation. Many also remember how vouchers were given to white children to attend private academies during "Massive Resistance," when Virginia closed its public schools rather than desegregate as ordered under the Supreme Court's Brown v. The Board of Education decision. Opponents argue that school choice might re-segregate the schools, this time by class and ability.

But on the other side is a younger generation of single parents and working-class black families who are looking for any way out of the state's most troubled schools in places like Norfolk, Petersburg and its capital. Even if it's difficult to rescue all schoolchildren, an effort should be made to save some, they argue.

"This is the 21st century. Go look at the areas where the schoolchildren are trapped and look what the color of their skin is," said Alberta Wilson of Chesapeake, an African American who founded a scholarship organization to help children attend private schools.

And so the struggle has led to scenes like the one in Virginia's legislature last week when Jameera, 18, and 16 classmates - all African American and all neatly attired in navy blue school uniforms - spoke up for school choice, only to be shot down. Riding home on their church bus, they wept in frustration not only at having lost, but because Marsh had lectured them that their best hope lay in the public schools.

"... but because Marsh had lectured them that their best hope lay in the public schools."

How do you tell children this when they are refugees from those public schools and they know, first hand, that those public schools offer little hope?

CUBE Members Are On Crack

This is just unbelievable.

The Baltimore school board has been nationally recognized for excellence in urban education.

The National School Board Association presented the award to the district Saturday during the annual 2010 Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) conference, held at the downtown Renaissance Harborplace Hotel.

City school leaders took part in the conference, an annual gathering of educators from more than 110 urban school districts in 35 states and the Virgin Islands, to discuss challenges facing urban school districts. It's was Baltimore's ability to overcome its challenges that earned it the award, said the president of the National School Board Association.

A school system that, GENERIOUSLY, graduates 45% of its Black male students is "recognized" by a group called "Council of Urban Boards of Education"?

What?

What do they recognize? FAILURE?

Pres. Obama and Sidwell Friends

President Obama says the D.C. public schools don't measure up to Sidwell Friends, the private school his daughters attend.

Well, duuuuuuh......

President Obama reopened Monday what is often a sore subject in Washington, saying that his daughters could not obtain from D.C. public schools the academic experience they receive at the private Sidwell Friends School.

But the city, accustomed to the mantra that its schools need reform, seemed to view the judgment as self-evident.

Obama made his comments on NBC's "Today" show in response to a woman who asked whether Malia and Sasha Obama "would get the same kind of education at a D.C. public school" that they would get at the D.C. private school that has educated generations of the city's elite.

"I'll be blunt with you: The answer is no, right now," Obama said. D.C. public schools "are struggling," he said, but they "have made some important strides over the last several years to move in the direction of reform. There are some terrific individual schools in the D.C. system."

Obama said that if he wanted to get his daughters into one of the public schools, "we could probably maneuver to do it." But he said the "broader problem" is that parents without "a bunch of connections" don't have such options.

Well, Mr. Obama, you and the Democrats killed one option that may have been available to District parents and their children when you both KILLED the voucher program in D.C. The fact is, Obama talks a good game but when the rubber hits the road, his actions show he's vapid. The man doesn't care about the education of your kids, just his.

Talking Out Both Sides Of His Butt

When school scores showed this:

Baltimore's poor African-American students are reading on average as well as their peers, whether they are in a small town in North Carolina or a city such as Chicago, according to the results of a national test released Thursday.

The results of the most rigorous and reliable assessment of reading given across the nation show that the city still faces challenges in improving its schools. The majority of fourth- and eighth-graders didn't pass the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which doesn't test just whether they can read, but whether they can comprehend a long passage and write a short response.

Baltimore City Public School "CEO" said this when he liked what school scores showed:

"We are primed to take the next leap into a story which is increasingly about excellence rather than a story about chasing 'good enough,' " said city schools CEO Andres Alonso.

But when the scores showed something he didn't like:

Sixty percent of Baltimore's elementary and middle schools failed to reach their annual progress goals based on state test results

Alsonso said this:

City schools CEO Andrés Alonso said that although adequate yearly progress, also known as AYP, is part of how a school's achievement is measured, the yearly targets are far from the strongest method for determining a school's successes and shortfalls. The targets are set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which dictates that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014 and raises standards every year.

"It's a perverse conversation, because schools can be improving and not make AYP and other schools can be declining and still make AYP," Alonso said. "It focuses school attention only on the tested subjects as part of the push for accountability.

This is further evidence why I state Alonso must be fire, NOW!

If that isn't talking out of both sides of his butt, what is?

What Should Be The Title of That Article?

Here are the first few paragraphs of this article:

Baltimore's poor African-American students are reading on average as well as their peers, whether they are in a small town in North Carolina or a city such as Chicago, according to the results of a national test released Thursday.

The results of the most rigorous and reliable assessment of reading given across the nation show that the city still faces challenges in improving its schools. The majority of fourth- and eighth-graders didn't pass the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which doesn't test just whether they can read, but whether they can comprehend a long passage and write a short response.

"We are primed to take the next leap into a story which is increasingly about excellence rather than a story about chasing 'good enough,' " said city schools CEO Andres Alonso.

Results of the test showed that 42 percent of the city's fourth-graders are reading at a basic, proficient or advanced level, compared with 65 percent across the nation. In eighth grade, 54 percent of students were at basic or above, compared with 73 percent in the nation.

Only 2 percent of the city's fourth-graders were considered advanced readers and none of its eighth-graders were.

Baltimore scored below the average for cities, but still beat out a number of cities with large poor and minority populations. Washington, which made some of the largest gains over 2007 and has a schools leader who has pushed cutting-edge changes, still had lower scores than Baltimore for eighth-grade reading.

After reading that, would you think this would be the title?

Reading scores show city's poor, black students on par with peers around U.S.

I mean, what the hell?!!?!?!?!?!?!

Tell the damn truth! The kids in Baltimore City Public Schools performed HORRIBLY on the tests!

Baltimore Delegation To Baltimore Citizens: You're Too Stupid To Trust To Vote

Quickly, last week there was a vote in the Maryland state assembly to let PG County and Baltimore voters vote to place people on the school board. The PG County representatives were split but voted in favor. However the Baltimore city representatives voted against the measure, hands down.

As it currently stands, Baltimore voters have no say concerning the school board. The mayor of Baltimore and the governor of Maryland appoints people to the school board. The problem with this arrangement is the school board is not accountable to anyone. They can do what ever they want to do and they do so.

The Baltimore representatives have said to the citizens of Baltimore, you are too stupid to trust to vote.

Closing Schools

The KC school closings have to be done from all of the reading I've done about it. It's the future of all cities and, as demonstrated in Baltimore earlier this week, it is already happening in Catholic school. Now is also the perfect time to address the structural problems of urban public schools that the schools CAN address.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5itXI7J7kJ7Eka6sEx9IofeKycRqgD9ECGDNG0

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City School Superintendent John Covington says the decision to close almost half the district's schools was difficult and painful but "unquestionably the right thing to do."

The Kansas City school board voted 5-4 Wednesday night to close 29 of the district's 61 schools in an effort to stave off bankruptcy. The schools will close at the end of the school year.

During a news conference Thursday, Covington thanked the board for its vote. He said the district was spreading itself too thin by educating less than 18,000 students in 61 schools.

Despite the close vote, Covington says he's confident the board and district administration could work together to complete the massive restructuring, which includes laying off 700 employees, including
about 285 teachers.

More later.

[ UPDATE ]

If schools are barely filled, you can't continue to keep the school open without shifting school children around. If the children get shifted around, then it seems some people are going to have to be shifted around and/or fired. The administration HAS to be reduced.

It's a good opportunity to remove non-functioning teachers, but I bet the oldest teachers will be the ones who are let go, because the oldest teachers are the most expensive.

School Responsibility

School responsibility?

• What about the responsibility of parents to make sure their children study?
• What about the responsibility of parents to make sure they communicate with the teachers?
• What about the responsibility of parents to make sure they communicate with the school administration?
• What about the responsibility of the children to do their work in school?
• What about the responsibility of the school administration to have disruptive students removed from the class and/or school?
• What about the responsibility of the school administration to get help for ineffective teachers and/or have those teachers removed?
• What about the responsibility of the teacher's union to protect school children as well as their members?

When you have a school with about a 50% drop out rate and very low scores, this isn't just about teachers.

Firing the teachers won't solve the SYSTEMATIC problem within that school.

I Think Only Maryland Had A KIPP School Fail

If I remember correctly, the only KIPP school to fail was a school in Maryland. That becomes important when you read this:

But they also managed, in coming to the public charter school known as KIPP Ujima Village Academy, to underscore another point: Obama is serious about challenging teachers unions to think differently.

The academy, with 375 students in grades 5 to 8 in the Park Heights neighborhood, is part of a national network called the Knowledge Is Power Program. The school trimmed 45 minutes from its daily class schedule and canceled Saturday classes this fall in response to a pay dispute with the Baltimore Teachers Union. Longer school days and weeks are part of KIPP's formula for raising student achievement in poor urban areas.

KIPP leaders say they had paid their teachers a 20 percent premium to work longer days, but the union had said the school was not paying enough. So KIPP Ujima's school day is 8 1/2 hours instead of 9 1/4 . That's still longer than a regular school day. But KIPP leaders contend that the methods that produced some of the city's best test scores, in a school where most students are from low-income families, have been compromised and that the network might have to pull out of Maryland if the conflict is not resolved.

Pulling out of Maryland is EXACTLY what the Maryland public school system wants! They don't want charter schools at all. In fact, Maryland has the strongest anti-charter regulations in the United States.

Andres A. Alonso, chief executive of Baltimore schools, joined Gingrich and Sharpton and said he admires KIPP but wants all of the city's schools to have autonomy and success. He said the city school system is making progress.

And, again, Andres Alonso is a putz!

P.S. Again, Democrats show they are the ones standing in the public school doorway!

P.P.S. Check out the BCPS category for more of my rants.

The Odd Couple: Gingrich and Sharpton

OK, just listen to this concerning Newt Gingrich teaming with Al Sharpton for education.

Layoff Insanity

Laying off Firing 220 teachers in the middle of the first quarter of the school year is insane.

In one of the most turbulent days in its recent history, the D.C. public schools system laid off more than 200 teachers Friday and coped with the abrupt loss of its 300 security guards, whose company went out of business overnight Thursday.

The combination of events, which included a skirmish between students and police at McKinley Technology High School that resulted in two arrests, highlighted the challenges faced by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) as they struggle to reform the troubled system in lean economic times. The layoffs were the deepest cuts for the school system since 2003.

How in the world is this NOT destructive for, at least, the rest of the first semester?

Not rehiring 220 teachers is one thing, firing them DURING the school year is intentionally trying to destroy the school system.

Do Charters "Cream" The Best?

Do Charters "Cream" The Best?

'Creaming" is the word critics of charter schools think ends the debate over education choice. The charge has long been that charters get better results by cherry-picking the best students from standard public schools. Caroline Hoxby, a Stanford economist, found a way to reliably examine this alleged bias, and the results are breakthrough news for charter advocates.

Her new study, "How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement," shows that charter students, typically from more disadvantaged families in places like Harlem, perform almost as well as students in affluent suburbs like Scarsdale. Because there are more applicants than spaces, New York admits charter students with a lottery system. The study nullifies any self-selection bias by comparing students who attend charters only with those who applied for admission through the lottery, but did not get in. "Lottery-based studies," notes Ms. Hoxby, "are scientific and more reliable."

According to the study, the most comprehensive of its kind to date, New York charter applicants are more likely than the average New York family to be black, poor and living in homes with adults who possess fewer education credentials. But positive results already begin to emerge by the third grade: The average charter student is scoring 5.8 points higher than his lotteried-out peers in math and 5.3 points higher in English. In grades four through eight, the charter student jumps ahead by 5 more points each year in math and 3.6 points each year in English.

More at the link provided.

I Told You So

Somewhere in the comments I left all over the net, I wrote that people shouldn't be concerned about what Obama would say when he addressed grade school students. Instead, they should be more concerned with the day to day teaching going on in the school when it concerns politics. Exhibit A:

I told you so.

The Prez Wants To Address School Kids

Let me see If I understand this. The President of the United States wants to address school students about education. Because of this, "The Right" is having a major fit saying the President is trying to "indoctrinate" the school children of the United States.

1. Hasn't previous presidents addressed school children in individual classes? Some how it's agreeable for a President to indoctrinate a class of about 30 students? If so, at what point does it NOT become agreeable?

2. If you are a parent, how can the President, who gets to "talk to your child" for a few minutes on one day, indoctrinate your child to think opposite of your indoctrination?

ANYONE who is REALLY upset about this, is a fool.

A Bogus Article On Private School Funding

First, here is the title: Wider Gaps in Student Spending.

Then, it was followed up with the first paragraph:

Private schools without religious affiliation spend almost twice as much per student as their public and Catholic counterparts and more than double that of other Christian schools nationwide, according to a new study.

So, tell me what is news about this? And since the article is intended to target vouchers by saying these schools are outside of the reach for vouchers, why didn't they mention that most students who attend non-public schools, now, attend RELIGIOUS AFFILIATED schools?

Look at this part of the article:

The secular private schools analyzed in the study spent $20,100 on each student in the 2007-08 school year vs. $10,100 in public schools. Nonparochial Catholic schools tended to spend roughly the same as public schools. (Parochial schools were not included in the study because their tax data are not publicly available and because their finances are so tied to those of the Catholic Church.) Members of two of the largest associations of Christian schools spent $7,100 -- several thousand dollars less per student than their public peers.

That article is a bunch of crap. It's trying to target voucher use based on the outliers than that of the norm.

Kid Didn't Graduate? Blame The Parent

I'm straight and to the point with what I have to say. As someone once said, I'm economical with words and try to get the most out of what I say. Here's an example.

It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents?

The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did not do enough.

Tatianna Dennis' son, Tarrell, took his eighth grade photo complete with cap and gown, but the day before his grammar school's graduation, Tarrell learned he would not be marching down the aisle.

"I asked him why but he was so heartbroken, he couldn't really talk," said Tatianna Dennis.

Dennis says she had no idea her son was about to fail English; no written notices from Bradwell Elementary, she says, and no warning from his teacher.

Tarrell had failed English two times before, but Dennis thought he was doing better.

See this article? This isn't about a SCHOOL FAILING THE KIDS, this is about PARENTS FAILING THE KIDS. Just read it.

BCPS vs "The People": The People Win One

Brian Morris resigned from the $175K job.

Former Baltimore school board chair Brian D. Morris, who was appointed to a high-level post in the school district this week, resigned Saturday after his hiring came under increasing public scrutiny about the process and his own financial problems.

Morris released a statement at 3 p.m. saying, "It disturbs me greatly that this matter has become a distraction to the public's appreciation for the enormous progress our school system has made under my tenure."

He said in the statement that he had notified schools chief Andres Alonso on Saturday morning that he had "rescinded my acceptance of the position of deputy CEO for operations. I encouraged him to do a thorough search and identify another highly qualified person to perform this important role."

This appointment was shady. Morris is part of the Baltimore Economic Council, which Martin O'Malley is indepted to in so many ways, political and especially financial. Many people are saying, and I have to agree, that O'Malley was probably the hand behind all of this.

Morris had resigned from the volunteer position he had held on the school board since 2003 on Monday and was appointed to the $175,000-a-year job of deputy chief executive officer on Tuesday at the regular board meeting.

The text of Morris' resignation.

This morning I notified Dr. Alonso that I have rescinded my acceptance of the position of Deputy CEO for Operations. I encouraged him to do a thorough search and identify another highly qualified person to perform this important role. I have spent six years working to improve the integrity and quality of the school system for our children and I believe we have taken great strides toward achieving that goal.

It disturbs me greatly that this matter has become a distraction to the public's appreciation for the enormous progress our school system has made under my tenure. I am very proud of my service on behalf of Baltimore's children, and I feel a sense of pride knowing how far we have come over the last six years. I will continue to be an advocate for our children as my record of service indicates. I look forward to determining the ways in which I can continue to serve the youth of this city.

The text from Alonso. You can read it at the link.

I think "The people" won one. Actually, I think the BEC forced the resignation because if people started following the money trail, they would be further exposed, only this time, the public would be paying attention.

More On Baltimore City School Scam

So, the person you create a position for, who will be responsible for the millions of dollars budget, is in a personal financial mess? And HE is the one who got the school CEO hired? And the CEO is now the guy who created the position?

Brian D. Morris took a gamble when he led the city school board in the hiring of Andrés Alonso.

Not only was the leading candidate for school system chief executive an outsider from New York, he wasn't African-American, as parents, teachers and administrators were expecting.

And Alonso was demanding unprecedented authority from a board that had a history of micro-managing.

But Morris, the volunteer school board chairman and a young developer, pushed the board to make the hire, and then protected Alonso when the going got rough.

Yeah, this stinks to high hell.

Financial trouble you say?

Brian D. Morris, who resigned as Baltimore City school board chairman this week to accept a six-figure job overseeing school operations, has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits and bad-debt claims the past 15 years, including foreclosures, garnisheed wages, unpaid taxes and other cases involving his personal finances and business ventures, according to city court records.

The city school board hired Morris, 38, as a deputy CEO on Tuesday, giving him a $175,000 annual salary and oversight of all the school system's central operations, including finance.

Yet a review of dozens of court records by The Baltimore Sun shows a lengthy struggle to manage his own businesses and affairs. Bill collectors garnisheed Morris' wages and bank accounts, and tried to repossess his cars. Creditors won judgments against him for rent payments, medical bills and homeowners association dues. In one case, a potential business partner said Morris walked off with $12,500 intended for a new venture. In another, a couple said he rented them a house he didn't own and collected their monthly payments until the real owner ordered them to leave. At least two creditors say they plan to seek a portion of his school system salary to settle old debts.

A COUPLE PAID DUDE MONEY ON A HOUSE HE DIDN'T OWN!!!!!

[ UPDATE ]

To make this even MORE unbelievable, the Baltimore City Public School System sent out layoff notices a few days before this. LAYOFF NOTICES to about 80 people, and then turn around and give a financial goof and, if what the couple says is true, a THIEF, a $175K job created JUST FOR HIM!!!!