Baltimore Schools in Big Trouble

[donco6]

<snip>
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. issued a stern ultimatum to Baltimore school officials yesterday, saying their near-bankrupt system must submit to major restructuring -- perhaps including the dissolution of the school board and the appointment of an independent receiver -- before he will approve a state-funded bailout.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3308-2004Feb24.html

The consultant they'd hired to try to restructure their finances quit in disgust yesterday because the board backed out of a critical element of the restructuring. Now they'll probably dump the entire board and have the city take it over.

[KamaAina]

1. Didn't Baltimore jump on the privatization bandwagon big-time?

Guess that wasn't such a panacea after all... </sarcasm>

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

2. did they?

what happened?

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. Actually

Baltimore just had financial mismanagement. To the tune of over $75 million. Clearly, the school board didn't have a clue about what was going on.

Bad for O'Malley -- the up and coming Dem mayor -- as well.

[Rob in B_more]

4. the view from B-more

The schools are already in a state-city run nether world of commities lack of accountability. The Baltimore City Paper's idiots guide to the present scandel is here http://www.citypaper.com/2004-02-11/comicsfeature.html
It is a real shame because things have been a little better here for the first time in a while. I generally like O'Mally our Dem Mayor, but he really dropped the ball on this. I think he thought the s**t wouldn't stick to him, that it would just drag down the Ehrlich the repub gov. But there is plenty of s**t to go around. People were realy just starting to feel pretty good about schools, the test scores were going up(thats good if your into that kind of thing) now there are lay offs, the teachers flat out turned down any paycut, (they said who is going to buy supplies for my classroom if you cut my salary), and people turn against them like they are being unreasonable. MY neighbors are flipped out, the fact is there are not many people of means who send there kids to public schools in the City, my neighborhood elementry is considered one of the best and my neighborhood is filled with people who have made a choice to keep their kids in the school and have put an enourmous amount of effort into supporting it. They are seeing the funding for everything slashed and they feel terribly betrayed.