DarkStar Spouts Off

Baltimore City Public School System Screws Teachers and Tax Payers, Again

The Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) system is screwing the
teachers and the tax payers again. First, some background.

The Maryland state assembly was going to cut millions of dollars from
the education budget for the state. Because BCPS, and Prince Georges
County, gets money directly from the state as a result of a settlement
of a lawsuit, known as Thorton, the BCPS faced "drastic cuts." City
and county legislators protested the cuts and parents got involved to
restore the money cut from the budget. They were successful in the
effort. Also, historically, BCPS is administration heavy and, in fact,
has the highest ratio of administrative costs to education costs in
the state.

School head Alonso, who stinks in my opinion, previously said BCPS has
to decrease its costs, and asked for a SECOND round of incentives for
experienced teachers to retire:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-second-school-buyout-20110509,0,5203590.story

On the heels of 330 teachers' accepting early retirement packages from
the city school system, officials will propose a similar deal for 500
of its most experienced instructional support staff.

According to an early retirement incentive plan scheduled to be
presented at the city school board meeting Tuesday night, the school
system will look to trim its pool of paraprofessionals who have more
than 10 years' experience by offering them 50 percent of their base
salary for a year and a sick-leave payout to be put into a school
investment plan.

According to the proposal, 10 job titles are eligible,
including paraeducators in ESOL, pre-kindergarten and
special education. Those eligible will have to decide
by June 16 whether or not to take the deal. At least 100, but not more
than 500, paraeducators would have participate for it to be offered.


So, let's get this clear, the BCPS system has had two rounds of
incentives to get the most experienced teachers, meaning most
expensive teachers, to quit to save money. After this, the putz Alonso
does this: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-school-management-positions-20110511,0,5337862.story


Even as city schools are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars for
staff and programs, schools CEO Andrés Alonso has proposed hiring 14
new executives and a deputy CEO at six-figure salaries as part of his
central office reorganization.

Alonso informed the city school board this week that the system wants
to hire the directors at salaries of $125,000, for a total
cost of $1.75 million, to strengthen management and support
school leaders. Alonso has also budgeted a $175,000-a-year deputy CEO
position that has been vacant for the past two years.


Alonso, the putz, wants to get teachers to retire early to save money
so that he can increase the BCPS administration staff, which is
already top heavy and the most top heavy in the state, DESPITE the
BCPS system being the worst performing school system in the state of
Maryland.

If politicians who worked to get BCPS system funds restored didn't
know about Alonso's plans, they should feel like suckers. The parents
DEFINITELY should feel like suckers, AGAIN, as they got it without
benefit of Astroglide.

I repeat: the BCPS system needs to be blown the hell up.

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

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?

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!

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.

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.

Open Season On Teachers In Baltimore

A judge's ruling, in my opinion, means open season on Baltimore teachers by out of control students in the Baltimore City Public School system.

In April of 2008, I wrote about a situation where a teacher was beat up by a student. However, this time, as other students cheered, another student video taped the assault with a camera telephone.

The trouble began, Jolita  Berry said, when she asked a  girl in one of her art classes at  Reginald F. Lewis High School  to sit down.

The student did not obey,  coming closer to confront the  teacher. "She said she's gonna  bang me," Berry said. "I said,  'Back up, you're in my space. If  you hit me, I'm gonna defend  myself.'"

But Berry, who is 30 and  started her job teaching art at  the Northeast Baltimore  school in December, did not defend herself. The girl caught  the teacher off guard as other  students cheered her on and  screamed, "Hit her!"

"She just started beating on  me relentlessly," Berry said, recalling the Friday morning incident that left her with a sore  shoulder and a broken blood  vessel in her eye.

...

Part of the public outrage  stemmed from how Berry said  her principal responded to the incident. She said the principal told  her she'd provoked the attack by  telling the student she would defend herself.

I found that hard to believe. Well, I find this even harder to believe:

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Paul Smith called the ordeal, which ignited national uproar last April after another student recorded the fight on a cell phone camera and broadcast it on YouTube, "outrageous and deplorable," but he ruled Tuesday that too many conflicting accounts from witnesses prevented him from finding the student guilty of assault.

This "good child" beat the crap out of a teacher. An adult. Got up in that adult's face because the adult told her to turn down or off a radio. 

Students won't lie for another student for a cover up?

A videotape, even if started after the fight, that shows the woman covering up while the student is still banging away? Even for self defense, you can use violence only to the point where you are no longer in danger.

You know what is going to happen? That girl's parents are going to hire a lawyer and sue the city. Meanwhile, knucklehead students who don't like a certain teacher, are putting their heads together to jump the teacher and then say, "The teacher started it."

With the "conflicting information," a judge is going to have to find the next student(s) not guilty.

And even though this happened in Baltimore City, it needs to be noted that assaults of teachers is rising in Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, Howard County, Cecil County, Harford County...

Hard Times...

I don't have much time but that documentary laid it out very clearly. Parents/guardians/students are a major component in the failures of Douglass High School.

The entire household saw the show. Mrs. D.S. and I are STILL talking about it. It confirms EVERY. DAMN. THING. I have said about the Baltimore city school system, plus some. Passing kids along to pass them along! What the hell are the degrees worth? Nothing! I've also mentioned the parents/grandparents/guardians not doing what is required for their children.

And then to say NCLB is to blame? There is no way a school can meet the NCLB requirements under those circumstances. None. But even saying that, the movie did a SEVERE injustice in not going into the details of the attempted take over of the school by the state and how the state assembly blocked the plan simply because the assembly is dominated by Democrats and the take over was attempted during a Republican governor's administration.

Like I said before, to hell with the students! Democrats can't look bad!

Or was NCLB really just a hook to really show "inner city school" dysfunction and non-participation by students and parents/grandparents/guardians without having cries of "racism!" being made?

Hmmmmm.....

Baltimore Schools Chief Alonso Is A Putz

About 6 years ago I attended a Baltimore City school board meeting addressing the fact that students who don't live up to magnet school standards, such as those at City, Poly, and Western, were being sent back to their zoned schools. The meeting included students who were sent back. I do not exaggerate or lie when I say THE STUDENTS ADMITTED THEY DIDN'T DO WHAT WAS NECESSARY TO STAY IN THOSE SCHOOLS!

So, when I read this, I went postal!

Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso is making it harder for the city's elite magnet high schools to remove students who are struggling academically.

Alonso says that the schools are already getting the city's brightest students and that they have an obligation to work with them. Historically, he said, a significant number of students who began as freshmen at Polytechnic Institute, City College and Western High were not still enrolled four years later at graduation.

"That's unacceptable," Alonso said in an interview. "It represents a lack of accountability on the part of the school given the fact that they begin with students who by definition are the most academically able students in the city. ... My expectation is that they succeed with them, that they put in place not only extraordinary educational programs but also the interventions that are necessary."

Alonso is a putz! There ARE interventions in place! Students cannot be returned without having not met the interventions!

Sure, ruin the magnet schools just like the regular schools! AGAIN: Blow up the damn system and let the magnets become charters!

Baltimore City Schools

There is a news story about a Baltimore City Public School teacher being beaten up by one of her students while other students cheer. And, it's on YouTube.

The student should be tried as an adult and the parents(s) should also do some time.

More later.

[ UPDATES ]

Here's a link to a Baltimore Sun article.

The trouble began, Jolita  Berry said, when she asked a  girl in one of her art classes at  Reginald F. Lewis High School  to sit down.

The student did not obey,  coming closer to confront the  teacher. "She said she's gonna  bang me," Berry said. "I said,  'Back up, you're in my space. If  you hit me, I'm gonna defend  myself.'"

But Berry, who is 30 and  started her job teaching art at  the Northeast Baltimore  school in December, did not defend herself. The girl caught  the teacher off guard as other  students cheered her on and  screamed, "Hit her!"

"She just started beating on  me relentlessly," Berry said, recalling the Friday morning incident that left her with a sore  shoulder and a broken blood  vessel in her eye.

Here is a link to the news video.

Kids cheered. All of the kids who cheered and encouraged that girl should be charged with inciting a riot.

No Parents Involved, No Education

[Updated]

Education Week has come out with another study on graduation rates. Baltimore has the 3rd worst graduation rate in the nation.

Almost two-thirds of Baltimore high school students fail to get diplomas, a figure so low that it ranks as the nation's third-worst, according to a study released by the publication Education Week.

Only 34.6 percent of Baltimore high school students graduated four years after they began school, according to the study, which analyzed 2004 data. The only school systems with worse figures were Detroit and Cleveland, where the graduation rates were 24.9 percent and 34.1 percent, respectively.

Baltimore schools officials disputed Education Week's new findings, just as they did last year when the journal reported that the city's graduation rate was 38.5 percent in 2003, which ranked as the nation's second-worst, behind Detroit with 21.7 percent.

Although Baltimore's graduation rate dropped nearly 4 percentage points from 2003 to 2004, according to Education Week, its ranking moved up a notch to third-worst because of falling figures in Cleveland.

A Baltimore schools official said the system's graduation rate was 54.3 percent for 2004 and that the figure rose to 60 percent last year.

[ UPDATE ]

I'll write this again.

In Baltimore, there is no core group of parents who give a damn. In politics, you get what you deserve. When parents don't care enough about their kids, when they don't care enough to pressure schools, administration, and politicians, you get what you get in Baltimore.

You get massive failure. And even if the estimated 10% of people in Baltimore are heroin addicts, that's still not an excuse for this failure rate. Parents get 60% of the reason. The other is the almost total dysfunction of the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS).

I don't live in Baltimore and I bet I'm more upset about this than most BCPSS parents!

And should I even mention the Black Democrat politicians who have stood in the way of giving parents who care other options?

Why I Say The Baltimore School System Must Go

Here is another data point to support my idea that the Baltimore City Public School System must be "blown up."

The Baltimore school board has approved a $1.2 billion budget for the next academic year that is filled with errors and tens of millions of dollars of discrepancies, a Sun review has found.

In dozens of cases, the amounts budgeted for salaries do not match with the number of people who are supposed to be paid. One line item shows $6.2 million in salary money to pay zero employees.

The problems surface just months after the school system declared itself fiscally healthy after a major financial collapse and as the state infuses hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the city's chronically underfunded schools.

The school board chairman and the head of the board's finance committee acknowledged that no one had noticed the many discrepancies before the board unanimously approved the budget March 27, with one member absent.

Among The Sun's findings:

• If the figures listed in the budget were correct, at least 460 employees would earn more than $200,000 a year on average, while more than 2,000 employees would earn less than $9,000 a year. One person would earn $1.4 million, another would earn $1.9 million and 13 would earn more than $510,000 each.

• Different sections of the same document provide drastically different figures. A summary page lists 7,011 employees, including teachers and principals, assigned to work under the school system's chief academic officer. Elsewhere in the document, the number of employees exceeds 10,000.

• While the budget is supposed to include an extra $1.5 million to decrease class sizes in selected elementary schools, it would effectively increase class sizes by reducing the number of staff assigned to elementary schools citywide by 204 positions.

Format fix later.

The parents/guardians, who care, of Baltimore city school students need other options.

Past posts on the Baltimore City Public School System.

Talking Education, The Meeting

On Friday I had a meeting with 2 aides for Gov. Ehrlich. The aides are charged with coming up with reforms to improve education in Maryland.

I came "armed" with the suggestions that I wrote about here. I developed others and they follow:

• Disruptive students get suspended. The parents must go to the school to get the students back into school.
• Kids with multiple suspensions are suspended and not allowed to return to school until the students are tested to find academic deficiencies. This is done because many kids who are disruptive in school, are also having academic problems. They may also be having personal problems but that is a fine line that I don't want to cross with government intrusion.
• School and parents/guardians must agree to a plan to bring kid back up to speed. This may include being transfered to another school just for that purpose.
• State tax credit or state tax deduction for parents who get tutors for their children.
• State tax credit or state tax deduction for parents who have education savings accounts.
• State tax credit or state tax deduction for individuals who tutor. This would apply towards supplies and travel expenses.
• Mandatory vo-tech requirements starting in the 6th grade.
• Any child who drops out of school, gets 1 year of vo-tech training at a for-profit extended education school, free, if they pass the course. Or, as a requirement to “be allowed to drop out”, they get vo-tech training in the public school system with an internship program with partner private companies.
• How-to PSAs encouraging parents to take part in children’s education from pre-natal care to helping out in school work to attending school board meetings to volunteering in school to how to get tutor help Private/church tutoring programs encouraged by allowing programs to use school space to tutor.

It was a wide ranging discussion that covered my bullet points, what the administration was doing, the work of the year-long education commission chaired by Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, strategies, problems, successes, and future plans. It was a true discussion. By that I mean, they hit the points they wanted to hit, but so did I and we exchanged ideas, some of which were new to them, some of which were not.

First, read how a Black Democrat (they are friends of the Black population, right?), is blocking an effort to improve a low performing high school.

Political Realities

The political reality is Gov. Ehrlich is a Republican fighting a Democrat controlled state assembly and teacher unions. As such, things that are legislative in nature, are going to get a tough time. I knew that going into the meeting but I had to put the ideas on the table.

My Ideas They Liked

• They liked the idea about kids being able to attend schools, freely, across school district boundaries. The reality is, in some cases, it already exists. For example, county kids are able to attend schools in Baltimore if they want to do so. And, some do. Their parents pay the school system to do it, but they do it.
• The use of PSAs to encourage parents to be an active part in their child's education.
• Tax credits or deductions for parents who pay for tutors and for tutors who pay for supplies.

What Is Currently Being Done

They told me what the Ehrlich administration is currently doing in the area of education. This also included, naturally, them "defending" some of their actions and "attacking" the actions of the opposition. It was interesting to learn that the administration aided a Black pastor in Hartford County, MD, go through the process of applying to open a charter school and getting it approved. They wanted to show that charter schools are a concept that is applicable to the counties as well as Baltimore city. The school will be opened next school year.

They told me how Baltimore City underfunded charter schools and how the charter schools sued the city, and won, on the funding scheme.

              Public school systems must provide as  much money per pupil to charter school operators as they spend on regular public  schools, the state Court of Special Appeals  ruled Friday, siding with the state in a  dispute with Baltimore.

The court -- the second-highest in the  state -- said the funding must be in cash  rather than in-kind services. Baltimore now  spends the equivalent of about $11,000 per  child in its regular public schools. Charter  schools in the city receive $5,859 per child  in cash and the rest in services that the school system provides, such as special education and food.

There is more that I may write about, especially since much of it can "tweak" those Blacks who think Democrats are "our" "friends".

What Can Be Done

I mentioned that I thought the Baltimore school board should be blown up. They asked me to provide names of people who I would like to see on the board. I provided 3 names, one of which would be a strong advocate for children, but who thinks the Ehrlich administration is racist. This person also thinks O'Malley is racist, but it would be nice to put this person in the middle of it. Surprisingly, they were receptive to the idea.

I suggested that more should be done to encourage colleges to adopt schools in Baltimore in particular. I pointed out the work that Coppin is doing and stated Bowie, Morgan, and University of Maryland Eastern Shore should be used more effectively. That is when I was told about the situation at Coppin. This brought up another discussion on political realities, and I started thinking of ways to subvert the perverse politics being played by Black Democrat politicians in Maryland.

I suggested they contact groups like 100 Black Men, who they already are working with, the Positive Black Men's Coalition, the Black Greeks, and some of the megga churches in the area. I'll see what I can do in that area. (Cobb? You reading? Your frat had an announcement, so can you provide points of contact here?)

More later...

Greg Kane Nails Baltimore City Schools

Gregory Kane's article on Black America web takes Democrats to task for the poor state of schools in Baltimore.

...Henderson told a room full of black folks at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University that Maryland’s Republican governor was trying to take over Baltimore schools. Then he told them about how teachers in predominantly-white Baltimore County schools are better than those in predominantly-black Baltimore schools and about disparities in the availability of advanced placement courses between the two systems.

Here’s what Henderson failed to mention: schools in Baltimore County and in Baltimore are run by Democrats. Maryland’s legislature, which funds both systems, has been a Democratic body for decades.

Any failures of Baltimore’s school system -- which, according to a Manhattan Institute study, graduates only 48 percent of its students and only 39 percent of its black male students -- have to be blamed on the political party that’s run the system for years.

That would be Democrats.

...

I’ll use as Exhibit A Baltimore’s KIPP Ujima Village Academy, a fifth-through-eighth grade school that sits in a poor, predominantly black section of northwest Baltimore. On recent state assessment tests, these “poor black kids” Democrats claim to have so much affection for rocked it, totally blitzing their counterparts in predominantly white, affluent areas of the state.

Nearly 92 percent of KIPP’s sixth-graders scored at advanced or proficient levels in reading on the Maryland School Assessments. They beat 24 of 25 schools in Baltimore County and 15 of 19 schools in ritzy Howard County, just south of Baltimore.

In math, just over 89 percent of KIPP’s sixth-graders scored at advanced or proficient levels, beating 23 of 25 Baltimore County schools and 12 of 19 Howard County schools. One hundred percent of KIPP’s seventh and eighth graders scored at advanced or proficient in math, beating ALL schools in Baltimore County and Howard County.

I'll have to say this: parents are also to blame for the Baltimore City schools. There are not enough parents -- I'm drawing a blank on the phrase I want to use -- who care enough about the school system to raise hell.

MD Dems Don't Care About Black Kids in Baltimore

Maryland Democrats in the Maryland State House don't care about Black kids in Baltimore City schools which have been failing kids for 9 years.

From Monday's Baltimore Sun:

With just one vote to spare, the Senate today overrode Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a bill that would stall the state from taking over 11 failing Baltimore schools.

Voting 30-17, the Senate joined the House in defeating the governor's veto. The bill would put a one-year moratorium on the state's move to assume control of four high schools and put seven middle schools into the hands of independent operators by the fall of 2007.

Before the vote, Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, a Baltimore City Democrat, urged his colleagues to remember that this is an issue of "courtesy and local control."

"I'd like to thank the members of the Senate who were supportive of this effort," McFadden said. "The students and the citizens of Baltimore thank those who have gotten behind us."

McFadden ain't nuthin.

See:

Baltimore City Schools Don't Give A Damn
NCLB: A School Take Over

for the history.

This isn't the first time McFadden has worked against the interest of Blacks in Baltimore.