Staff Report Blank

Report to Bowie City Council
On Education Priorities
Executive Summary

Bowie Education Committee
November 24, 2003

A review of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) voucher program which has existed for 15 years has yielded equivocal results. As is true in public schools, some students have obtained positive/improved results, others less so. The most generous conclusion to draw, based on the most solid of the studies1 (Rouse, 1997), is that voucher students performed no better than MPS students in reading and slightly outperformed MPS students in math. The same can be found in regard to Charter schools. For example, a recent survey of the results of eight years of charter schools in Massachusetts reveals that while many charter schools showed individual gains, they did not appear to out perform public schools, statewide2.

The conclusion from these and other studies seems clear: We cannot give up on our public schools - the schools in which most children are likely to be educated. If we give up on the public school system and place our faith and financial resources in vouchers, charter schools, and other alternatives, we run the risk of failing the majority of our school-aged children who may be unable to access these alternatives.

The recent Education Summit held at Bowie State University (Sept 13, 2003) stressed the importance of parental involvement to a child's successful academic achievement. Unfortunately, parents have less time, or sometimes less willingness to become involved in their child’s education. We need to find ways to increase parental involvement. We need to identify those societal factors that can have a negative impact on learning, and find ways to overcome them. Education must be a partnership between the schools and concerned, involved parents, and if we expect the schools to assume further responsibility for the care and education of our children, then we must be willing to provide the necessary financial resources.

Another factor crucial to academic success is having qualified/certified teachers in the classroom. Without qualified teachers, all the new schools and new classrooms being built are meaningless. We still have a large number of provisionally certified teachers in Prince George’s County and the state. The state needs to make certification a priority, if we want to insure that our children have the best teachers possible to prepare them for an ever-demanding world. We need to find ways to encourage our young people to consider teaching as a career.

PRIORITIES

Budget

The Prince George’s County School System has operated with a severe budget disadvantage for years.

· Each year the proposed budget is reduced through the budget reconciliation process so that the system barely maintains the required “maintenance of effort.”

· Each year the school system has an increase in the number of students being educated yet the budgetary increases are minimal, so that there is hardly enough money for the additional materials needed to accommodate this growth.

· Each year, as more programs, personnel, etc. are reduced or eliminated, there is no way to bring back valuable learning tools that have been cut in previous years.

Among the program reductions due to budget cuts that have been brought to our attention this year:

· Elementary schools have lost reading and math teachers (considered to be Specialists, cut in the budget reconciliation process).

· Middle School Resource Officers have been removed. It is our understanding that the grant money was cut for Resource Officers in Middle Schools.

· There is no longer a Career Lab person at Bowie High School, as the budget has cut any personnel beyond those that fit within a limited-staffing formula.

· There is no longer a full time Peer Mediation person at Bowie High. We have determined that there is still a program in the schools, but it has been changed to a different model.

· Safe and Drug Free Schools programs have also faced budgetary shortfalls, which are cutting into the substance abuse and prevention programs. These have been very helpful services for students.

Funding of Other Programs and Initiatives

If students are going to be successful on the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) and the High School Assessments (HSA), the school system must fund training for teachers in areas in which they need additional skills. Research indicates that the level of teacher qualifications is the single greatest influence on student success.

Other items that need to be considered when looking at education funding are:

· Fully funding the Thornton "Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act" for equity in education funding across the state.

· Seeking creative ways of funding the school system budget and the CIP in order to reduce or eliminate the annual shortfalls.

School Construction and Repairs

The new elementary school on Northview Drive is on track to open in Aug 2005. Construction has already been pushed back several times for various reasons. The Cerebral Palsy Center has relocated from Whitehall Elementary, and renovation is scheduled to begin in spring. This school, too, is scheduled to open Aug 2005. We urge the Council to continue to insure that these projects continue, as scheduled, so that we can begin to provide relief to our overcrowded schools. As the following chart shows, a significant number of Bowie schools are severely over capacity.

2003 -2004 Bowie Area School Enrollment

School	03/04 Enrollment	St. Capacity	Over/ Under	03/04 % Utili.	02/03% Util.	% Change
Heather Hills E.S.	457	347	110	131.70%	139.20%	-7.50%
High Bridge E.S.	401	472	-71	79.54%	89.20%	-9.66%
Kenilworth E.S.	583	619	-36	89.63%	106.10%	-16.47%
Pointer Ridge E.S.	781	716	65	118.73	121.80	-3.07
Rockledge E.S.	639	519	120	134.58	120.20	14.38
Samuel Ogle E.S.	767	829	-62	82.13	93.20	-11.07
Tulip Grove E.S.	557	444	113	132.56	129.70	2.86
Yorktown E.S.	591	519	72	120.75	116.60	4.15
Woodmore E.S.	619	629	-10	97.12	96.70	.42
Benjamin Tasker M.S.	1513	1029	484	147.04	133.90	13.14
Bowie H.S.	2764	1934	830	142.92	131.60	11.32
Tall Oaks Voca.HS	160	100	60	117.29	174.00	-56.71

Chapel Forge	233	180	53	115.27	28.90	86.37
C. Elizabeth Rieg	89	120	-31	91.07	70.80	20.27

· Bladensburg High School is expected to move to its new facility in Aug 2005. Once again we may have the opportunity to regain this facility to use as either another middle school, or perhaps as an Annex to Bowie High.

· Air conditioning in schools is no longer a luxury! Increasing numbers of students suffer from allergies and asthma and miss many days of school because there is no air conditioning that would help in prevention of more serious problems.

· Heating systems need upgrading to meet the demands of larger populations, and electrical systems must be improved to meet the demands of computer use.

· If our schools are going to remain overcapacity, we need to insure that sufficient restroom facilities are available to students and staff – especially when many children are attending class in our so-called “temporary” buildings!

SUMMARY

As noted, it will be difficult to make much progress in these areas unless we can begin to convince parents, legislators, and businesses that their increased funding and support is worthwhile. Dr. Hornsby is beginning to focus on the positives in our schools. This is an important first step. No Child Left Behind establishes standards and goals to ensure that ALL children receive a basic education that will make them self-sufficient in an increasingly complex world. Achieving the goals of No Child Left Behind will require increased funding, resources, and commitment by all involved parties to assure success. This we should do! This we must do!

REFERENCES

1. Rouse, Cecilia Elena, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement:
An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," Princeton University,
September 1997

2. The Boston Globe, October 17, 2003.

Report to Bowie City Council
On Education Priorities

Bowie Education Committee
November 24, 2003

INTRODUCTION

When Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., returned from a visit to Iraq, he noted that he was surprised at the number of positive changes he saw in the country. He wondered whether the focus of the press on mainly the negative aspects of the occupation might be contributing to attacks on Coalition troops by making Iraqis reluctant to provide information to Coalition forces, and causing US citizen support for the reconstruction efforts to decline. When I heard his observations, I immediately thought of the Prince George’s County School system.

For years we have read and heard about what is ‘wrong’ with our schools; we rarely hear about what is ‘right’. Recall that last year’s Jeopardy Teen Champion came from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George’s County – not Montgomery County, not Howard County, not from some county in northern Virginia – Prince George’s County, MD! We routinely read about athletic achievements, but academic and artistic accomplishments rarely get noticed. In a recent meeting with the Student Government at Bowie High, this was one of the comments made by the students.

If we want our schools to be better, it will take a great deal of effort – by the school system, by legislators who fund the schools, and by parents who volunteer their time and get involved. But with all of the negative press over the years, have we not created similar circumstances to those in Iraq? Have parents given up on the system? Have legislators begun to feel that putting more money into the system is not a cost-effective use of limited funds? Have we caused businesses and private industries to look elsewhere to build because of concern about the schools their children would attend if they moved to Bowie or Prince George’s County?

Fortunately, one of CEO Hornsby’s initiatives as he begins his job is to focus on what is right with our schools – a focus the Education Committee has had for some time, as reflected in our Teacher of the Month program, our annual Excellence in Education banquet, and our scholarship program for promising Bowie students, among others.

If we hope to turn the school system around, we need to inform our citizens about the positive things that are happening in our schools. Only when citizens see the good things happening will they once again put some of their energy into volunteering. Only then will legislators be willing to provide greater financial support for our schools. Only then will citizens be willing to consider an additional tax burden – should that be necessary – to support education.

Alternatives to Public Schools

A review of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) voucher program, which has existed for 15 years, has yielded equivocal results. As is true in public schools, some students have obtained positive/improved results, others less so. The most generous conclusion to draw, based on the most solid of the studies1 (Rouse, 1997), is that voucher students performed no better than MPS students in reading and slightly outperformed MPS students in math. The same can be found in regard to Charter schools. For example, a recent survey of the results of eight years of charter schools in Massachusetts reveals that while many charter schools showed individual gains, they did not appear to outperform public schools, statewide2.

Test Performance

The low test performance results in our schools are not unique to Prince George's County. Similar problems are found in other parts of the country, as well. But that is of little consolation to those parents whose children are not academically competitive with children from other school systems in our area, or with children who attend private schools. It would seem that after nearly 150 years of public education we would have figured out what works by now - or we would have learned what is working in other school systems - and we would have implemented those successful strategies in schools across the nation. We frequently hear of new, innovative methods of teaching that are seen as the "magic bullet" to fix all of the system's ills, yet performance does not improve, or does so minimally. We must do better!

Not all of the poor academic performance is attributable to the schools, nor can the schools be responsible for fixing all of the problems. We are placing more demands on the school system to provide additional assistance - if not during the normal school day, then with before-and-after school programs, summer school, and other programs. While these programs are necessary in many cases, they are not an alternative to parental involvement.

The recent Education Summit held at Bowie State University (September 13, 2003) stressed the importance of parental involvement to a child's successful academic achievement. Unfortunately, due to societal, cultural, and other factors parents have less time, or sometimes less willingness to become involved in their child’s education. We need to find ways to increase parental involvement. We need to identify those societal factors that can have a negative impact on learning, and find ways to overcome them.

Education must be a partnership between the schools and concerned, involved parents, and if we expect the schools to assume further responsibility for the care and education of our children, then we must be willing to provide the necessary financial resources.

Qualified/Certified Teachers

Construction is adding a significant number of new schools and classrooms to the school system. While these classrooms are sorely needed to reduce overcrowding in our schools – such as at Benjamin Tasker – we seem to be less successful than necessary at recruiting new teachers to the County and encouraging young people to consider teaching as a career.

Each year the State of Maryland graduates approximately 2,600 education majors, but only 1,800 or so actually begin teaching upon graduation – and not all in Maryland. However Maryland requires some 8,000 or so new teachers each year to replace retirees, teachers leaving the career or the state, or to staff new schools and classrooms. This requires a concerted effort each Spring and Summer to recruit teachers from surrounding states. How long can we continue to meet our needs in this way – especially when 50% or more of our current, baby-boom teachers will be retiring, or be retirement-eligible, in the next five years, or so? All of the new classrooms will be irrelevant if we can’t find sufficient, qualified teachers to staff them.

PRIORITIES

Budget

The Prince George’s County School System has been operating with a severe budget disadvantage for years.

Each year the proposed budget is reduced through the budget reconciliation process so that the system barely maintains the required “maintenance of effort.”

Each year the school system has an increase in the number of students being educated yet the budgetary increases are minimal, so that there is hardly enough money for the additional materials needed to accommodate this growth.

Each year, as more programs, personnel, etc. are reduced or eliminated, there is no way to bring back valuable learning tools that have been cut in previous years.

The overall picture is not great, as our school system continues to lag far behind neighboring school systems in per pupil expenditures3.

In addition, the Anne Arundel County FY2003 Per Pupil expenditure was $8370, and the Howard County per pupil expenditure was $8311.

While more dollars is not the only solution to our problems, it is interesting to note that if we assume a current PGCPS enrollment of 134,000 students, it would require an increase in the PGCPS annual budget of nearly $430,000,000 to compare to the per pupil expenditure in Montgomery County!

Among the program reductions due to budget cuts that have been brought to our attention this year:

Elementary schools have lost reading and math teachers (considered to be Specialists, cut in the budget reconciliation process)

Middle School Resource Officers have been removed. It is our understanding that the grant money was cut for Resource Officers in Middle Schools. This had been a valuable addition to the staff in the middle schools as someone to prevent, deter, handle and follow up on incidents. The school system did not include this in their budget.

There is no longer a Career Lab person at Bowie High School, as the budget has cut any personnel beyond those that fit within a limited-staffing formula.

There is no longer a full time Peer Mediation person at Bowie High. We have determined that there is still a program in the schools, but it has been changed to a different model:

There are four people in each Region who are training people in each of the region’s schools, such as counselors and Vice Principals and students.

The trained staff will then be the facilitators who work with the students.

There is one person working with Bowie High and Tasker (also John Carroll, a smaller school, elementary level)

Safe and Drug Free Schools programs have also faced budgetary shortfalls, which is cutting into the substance abuse and prevention programs. These have been very helpful services for students.

The "Walk-in Student Counseling and Family Support Center Program" has been available to Prince George's County Public School students since 1999. It is a high quality, professionally staffed service open to students and families. Clients are referred by guidance counselors, school administrators, psychologists, or self-referred.

They began with one center in 1999, quickly expanding to four, and by their third year were operating seven centers around the County.

In 2002-2003 they had 1200 student contacts and more than 1200 parent contacts.

In 2003-2004 they had planned to operate seven centers, including one at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie. The Bowie location would have replaced one of two in Laurel, because they were serving a significant number of Bowie students at the Laurel centers. As in past years, they had intended to offer a regular schedule of workshops for families.

These workshops cover topics like ADHD, drug education, stress management and appropriate discipline.

They noted a particular need for their services after 9-11 and the sniper shootings.

Funding of Other Programs and Initiatives

If students are going to be successful on the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) and the High School Assessments (HSA), the school system must be able to fund training for teachers in areas in which they need additional skills. Research indicates that the level of teacher qualifications is the single greatest influence on student success. We must train teachers to meet the challenges they are facing if students are going to reach the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) expected of them within the next ten years.

In the near future the State Board of Education will decide whether students must pass the High School Assessments in order to graduate. This will have a huge effect on many students who will need completely different types of learning situations to prepare for these assessments. The state will also need to develop a plan for supplemental learning experiences for those students who have difficulty passing them.

Other items that need to be considered when looking at education funding are:

Fully funding the Thornton "Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act" for equity in education funding across the state makes sense and is important to Prince George’s County School System.

Without a significant influx of money, our schools will continue to lag behind those of surrounding communities

Seeking creative ways of funding the school system budget and the CIP in order to reduce or eliminate the annual shortfalls, including closely following the progress of bills being introduced in the legislative session to:

Dedicate lottery money to education funding.

Grant bonding authority to the school system to raise money for budget items.

School Construction and Repairs

The new elementary school on Northview Drive is still on track for construction and is scheduled to open in August 2005. Construction has already been pushed back several times for various reasons. The Cerebral Palsy Center has relocated from Whitehall Elementary, and renovation is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2004. This school, too, is scheduled to open to students in August 2005. We urge the Council to continue to use their influence to insure that these projects continue, as scheduled, so that we can begin to provide relief to our overcrowded schools. As the following chart shows, a significant number of Bowie schools are severely over capacity.

2003 -2004 Bowie Area School Enrollment

School	03/04 Enrollment	St. Capacity	Over/ Under	03/04 % Utili.	02/03% Util.	% Change
Heather Hills E.S.	457	347	110	131.70%	139.20%	-7.50%
High Bridge E.S.	401	472	-71	79.54%	89.20%	-9.66%
Kenilworth E.S.	583	619	-36	89.63%	106.10%	-16.47%
Pointer Ridge E.S.	781	716	65	118.73	121.80	-3.07
Rockledge E.S.	639	519	120	134.58	120.20	14.38
Samuel Ogle E.S.	767	829	-62	82.13	93.20	-11.07
Tulip Grove E.S.	557	444	113	132.56	129.70	2.86
Yorktown E.S.	591	519	72	120.75	116.60	4.15
Woodmore E.S.	619	629	-10	97.12	96.70	.42
Benjamin Tasker M.S.	1513	1029	484	147.04	133.90	13.14
Bowie H.S.	2764	1934	830	142.92	131.60	11.32
Tall Oaks Voca.HS	160	100	60	117.29	174.00	-56.71

Chapel Forge	233	180	53	115.27	28.90	86.37
C. Elizabeth Rieg	89	120	-31	91.07	70.80	20.27

As these numbers show, overcrowding remains a serious problem at Bowie High and Benjamin Tasker. Due to overcrowding, students are sometimes eating lunch shortly after arriving at school in order to accommodate the large numbers in a cafeteria that was not designed for these increasing numbers. We urge the Council to seek relief for these schools.

Bladensburg High School is expected to move to its new facility in August 2005. Once again we may have the opportunity to retain this facility to use as either another middle school, or perhaps as an Annex to Bowie High.

If we were able to regain use of Belair Annex, and Middle School was realigned to include the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, this facility could then become a second Middle School – along with Tasker. Then the 7th and 8th graders from Tasker, as well as the 9th graders from Bowie High could be split between these two facilities, relieving the crowding at both Bowie High and Benjamin Tasker.

Air conditioning in the schools is no longer a luxury! Increasing numbers of students suffer from allergies and asthma and miss many days of school because there is no air conditioning that would help in prevention of more serious problems.
o Many schools face busy streets, and open windows expose students and staff to exhaust and poor air quality.
o A comfortable environment – for both teachers and students – is more conducive to learning than trying to teach and learn in hot, crowded classrooms.
o With the increasing use of computers and other technology in the schools, air conditioning can offset the increased temperatures generated by this equipment.

Building repairs are constantly postponed due to funding shortfalls.
o This leads to worsening conditions, which endanger the overall quality of the buildings. Often when a problem worsens it causes additional, related deterioration.
o Case in point: Oxon Hill High School where the roof of the gym was badly in need of repair – until it finally caved in!

Heating systems need upgrading to meet the demands of larger populations, and electrical systems must be improved to meet the demands of increased computer use.

If our schools are going to remain overcapacity, we need to insure that sufficient restroom facilities are available to students and staff – especially when many children are attending class in our so-called “temporary” buildings!

SUMMARY

As the preceding indicates, we see three major areas of concern which we feel are crucial for the Bowie City Council to focus on in the coming year: Budget, which affects programs available in the schools; Funding of Other Programs and Initiatives, which addresses overall operation of our schools, preparation for test success, and training of our teachers; and School Construction and Repairs, which addresses classroom overcrowding and providing a comfortable learning environment for our children.

As noted, it will be difficult to make much progress in these areas unless we can begin to convince parents, legislators, and businesses that their increased funding and support is worthwhile. Dr. Hornsby is beginning to focus on the positives in our schools. This is an important first step. No Child Left Behind establishes standards and goals to ensure that ALL children receive a basic education that will make them self-sufficient in an increasingly complex world. Achieving the goals of No Child Left Behind will require increased funding, resources, and commitment by all involved parties to assure success. This we should do! This we must do!

REFERENCES

1. Rouse, Cecilia Elena, "Private School Vouchers and Student Achievement: An Evaluation of
the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," Princeton University, September 1997

2. The Boston Globe, October 17, 2003.

3. Metropolitan Area Boards of Education (MABE) by the Parents United for the DC Public
Schools. (Figures include most federal grant funding but not all state-level in-kind expenses,
such as summer school & special education tuition) .

4. Maryland State Department of Education.
http://www.msde.state.md.us/divisions/dld/pdf/nclb%20slide%20show%20june%202003.webdocs.ppt