Baltimore Sun

Ebony Paige wasn't sure what Bill Cosby would talk about yesterday in Park Heights, but she figured the speech would be poignant and funny, something worth bringing her two daughters and goddaughter to hear.

Test scores are up, and the centralized North Avenue bureaucracy is being busted up. After years of woe - from a massive fiscal crisis to the rotating door to the CEO's office to the bottom-scraping graduation rates - things are finally looking up for the city public school system.

In New York, Chicago, Washington and Boston, mayors grew frustrated with slow improvement in their low-achieving schools and decided they needed to take control to force change. They now help choose the superintendents and lend their political weight to push through unpopular changes like teacher pay for performance or charter schools.

Middle school students at the Crossroads School near Fells Point were evaluated by teachers every single day last school year, with the results driving the next day's instruction.

Patricia E. Abernethy, the newest chief academic officer for Baltimore County public schools, is described as a champion for children and an educator with an exceptional understanding of what it takes to boost academic achievement.

From rural Washington County to suburban Prince George's County, school systems around the state are beginning to wade into a promising but controversial topic in education: pay for performance.

No penalties for small groups of failing students
Maryland schools with only a small group of students who can't pass state tests will no longer be labeled as failing and be forced to make draconian changes under a plan approved yesterday by the U.S. Department of Education

The Baltimore school board has appointed 33 new principals so far and plans to name about a dozen more before the new school year begins in August.

The agreement, made final in court last week, settles a lawsuit filed this year on behalf of the mothers of three homeless students by the Public Justice Center, a civil rights advocacy group in Baltimore.

Across the nation, urban school districts are breaking up large schools and replacing them with smaller ones. In Baltimore, new high schools with as few as 400 to 500 students have been carved out of old ones with enrollments of 2,000 or more.

The Maryland PTA has stripped the Baltimore City Council of PTAs of its authority to operate, amid concerns that the group's president is using his post as a platform to express personal criticism of city schools chief Andres Alonso

City special-education manager retires, without successor
Three years ago, amid great fanfare, a federal judge ordered a team of state managers to oversee special education in the Baltimore schools, a move that many viewed as a partial state takeover without the controversial title.

Gregory Kane
Brenda Barney hadn't been in a classroom for over 20 years - closer to 30, actually - when she decided to take a math course at Coppin State University. She flunked it.

Parents of Baltimore City students will soon be involved in evaluating their school principals. They'll be able to check homework assignments online. And they'll have summer classes of their own to learn what to expect when their kids go to middle and high school.

The University System of Maryland regents voted Wednesday to freeze tuition levels for in-state, undergraduate students during the 2008-2009 academic year, but some fees, including room and board, will continue to rise.