The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page B5

THE SUN MARYLAND WEDNESDAY 12.13.2006 Review of charter law urged State board to hear details of study identifying obstacles to schools' success DIGEST Recount confirms Dwyer's victory A hand recount of more than 3,000 paper ballots in a hotly contested Anne Arundel County legislative race confirmed conservative Del. Donald H. Dwyer razor-thin victory over Del. Joan Cadden, election officials said yesterday. Dwyer, a Glen Burnie Republican, defeated Cadden, a Brooklyn Park Democrat, by 25 votes for the third and final spot in a three-member legislative district representing District 31, officials said.

Dwyer received 17,558 votes to Cadden's 17,533 votes. Cadden had challenged the official result, which gave Dwyer a 28-vote edge. It took county officials about seven hours to manually tally the more than 3,000 absentee and provisional ballots cast in the northern Anne Arundel district. The result effectively ends the race for Cadden, a four-term Democrat who chaired the House capital budget subcommittee. She sought a recount last week after a record number of paper ballots wiped out her 73 7-vote lead over Dwyer.

"I'm glad that this is over," said Dwyer, a social conservative who has stressed his opposition to gay marriage and abortion. "The main reason: The public was very confused. Here we are a month after the election and it was unclear as to who the winner was. After today, I hope that is clarified." Dwyer, who had previously declared that his goal was to oust Cadden from office, said both candidates watched the recount at the elections annex in Glen Burnie. He said Cadden did not offer her concession or congratulations.

Cadden could not be reached for comment yesterday evening. Because the margin of victory was within 31 votes equivalent to one-tenth of 1 percent of votes cast the state will pay the estimated $5,000 cost of the recount. Cadden had put up a $10,000 bond in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to cover the cost. PHILLIP MCGOWAN requires its charters to accept special education services provided by the system, but schools have complained that the services aren't good enough. Finding a place to put the school is also a major obstacle.

Baltimore was recognized as one of the few school systems that has worked with charters to help provide unused space in existing schools or offer school buildings that were closed. Currently, 16 of the 24 schools are in Baltimore, two are in Anne Arundel and the remainder are in Prince George's, Frederick, Harford and St. Mary's counties. The evaluation did not attempt to determine whether the schools were providing a good education for students because many of them had not been open more than a year. But Patrick Crain, director of the state Office of School Innovations, said the state intends to look at school achievement in the future.

Despite some of the problems that charters face, he said, the report showed a high degree of parent satisfaction with the new schools. liz.bowiebaltsun.com for students. Others put up barriers that make it difficult for charters to get buildings. The evaluation of the charter school program was done for the General Assembly under a contract with the University of Maryland. Rhim has done research on charter schools across the nation for the past decade.

The Maryland State Board of Education is expected to be briefed today. While the report is likely to be well-received by a board that has been generally supportive of charters, state schools officials would not say whether they might push for changes in the law. Maryland was one of the last states in the nation to enact a charter-school law, and advocates of charters say it is not as friendly to the schools as they would like. Charter schools receive public funds but operate independently. Only local school systems can authorize a charter.

The evaluators recommend that the law be changed to allow more authorizing entities, such as the State Board of Education or universities. Another approach, the report says, would be to set up a new school system in Maryland specifically for charters. Rhim said some school systems are clearly putting up barriers to prevent charters from opening in their counties. It is not easy to get a charter school opened in the state. Of 41 applications that have been submitted to local school systems for approval, 16 have been turned down.

"The greatest obstacle is the newness of the law," Rhim said. Public school systems are risk-averse in general and are moving slowly to try to carry out the law properly, she said. In some cases, she said, their caution has been interpreted as obstructionism. Rhim also said the law is vague in some areas, including how much a charter school should receive per pupil from a local school system. The City Neighbors Charter School has challenged what it gets from the Baltimore system, and the issue might go before the state Court of Appeals.

Some school systems are counting in-kind services, such as special education and school lunches, as part of their funding of charters. But some charters would rather have the money. For instance, Baltimore BY LIZ BOWIE SUN REPORTER Maryland should consider changing its three-year-old charter school law to get rid of some of the barriers to opening new schools and keeping them in business, according to a study done for the state. In the past two years, 22 schools have been chartered in Maryland, but they are hindered by limited funding and difficulties in finding buildings. They also are chafing under local school system rules that don't give them enough independence, the report said.

If school districts are approving charters, they also have some responsibility to ensure that they are creating conditions for the schools to succeed, said Lauren Morando Rhim, the University of Maryland faculty research associate who was the lead author of the report. "Don't create them and undermine them at the same time," she said. Some school districts, for instance, will not allow charters to provide their own school lunches, buy their own classroom furniture or select special education services State funds help save historic school Council supports gas-tax increase The Montgomery County Council approved a resolution yesterday supporting an increase in Maryland's 23.5-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax to pay for highway and mass transit projects. The unanimous action by the newly elected council follows a public call for a gas tax increase by County Executive Isiah Leggett. Neither the council nor Leggett said how much the tax should rise, though Leggett earlier supported an increase in the 10-cent to 12-cent range.

Support for the increase reflects Montgomery's serious traffic congestion problems. The state gas tax has not been raised since 1992. Martin O'Malley has neither backed nor ruled out a gas tax increase. Any proposal to raise gas taxes would likely face stiff opposition from rural legislators, whose constituents often must drive greater distances than urban residents. MICHAEL DRESSER From Page IB "It was a dilemma the road needed widening, but the building needed to stay," said Lewis Gwynn, lodge president and a member for nearly 30 years.

"With fair-minded people working together, we were able to reach a win-win situation for us all." For nearly a half-century, the two-room schoolhouse called the Colored School 2 in School District 11 was where the African-American children of the eastern Baltimore County community of Loreley were taught. Around 1874, Walter T. Allender, a local businessman, built the school-house and donated it to the Baltimore County public school commissioners for use as a free school, according to state and lodge officials. The Maryland Historical Trust, the State Highway Administration and Baltimore County worked with lodge members to save the building. "This in many ways is one of the most important projects we've done," said state Transportation Secretary Robert L.

Flanagan. "We look on this part of our history with a mixed sense. There's a sense of pride in the perseverance of the families and children who used this colored school and took advantage of it. And there's a sense of shame that this is a part of our history." County Executive James T. Smith Jr.

said efforts to revitalize older parts of the county are inspired by its history. "This preservation and restoration is showing our respect for that history," Smith said. "Look how far we've come. That's really what we're celebrating here today." Lodge members began meeting on the second floor of the school after it opened in the late 19th century, said Gwynn, whose 90-year-old father is one of the lodge's oldest members and a former president. The lodge has about 40 members, some as young as 10, he said.

In 2003, the State Highway Administration and the county thought the building was abandoned when the state ordered the developer of a nearby 7-Eleven store to widen the roadway to create a southbound turn lane along Lodge president Lewis Gwynn speaks at yesterday's press conference. Behind him are Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. (left) and state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan.

LLOYD FOX SUN PHOTOGRAPHER Coalition faults crime-lab oversight Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr's recent executive order forming an oversight panel for state crime labs falls short because it lacks a plan to increase funding or set standards for the facilities, a coalition of groups involved in the criminal justice system said yesterday. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the Maryland Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project called on Martin O'Malley to reform the standards and oversight of the state's eight crime laboratories. The labs need more funding and accountability, and higher standards would help increase federal funding, representatives of the groups said yesterday.

"The fox is still guarding the henhouse," said Cindy Boersma, legislative director for the ACLU of Maryland. "Despite repeated calls for standards and independent enforcement, despite wrongful convictions based in part upon problematic crime lab evidence, and despite prosecutions jeopardized by poor forensics, Maryland has failed to address the real issues." A 2004 federal law requires independent crime lab oversight, and without it, Maryland is not eligible for certain types of federal funding, the groups said. The groups said they are drafting legislation for next year's General Assembly session for a stronger oversight structure. Henry Fawell, a spokesman for the governor, said the executive order issued last week "will lead to the highest quality-control procedures, modern equipment and technology, and more successful investigations of crime." SUN STAFF Route 7 at Allender Road, according to state officials. Although the turn lane was constructed within the state's right-of-way, it moved the roadway 16 feet closer to the schoolhouse.

And because of the land's contour, the adjacent sidewalk juts about four feet above the building's first-floor entrance and within arm's reach of the front door. A Phoenix, company is expected to move the schoolhouse as soon as possible, depending on the weather. Lodge members plan to start renovations immediately after the move and hope to reopen it by spring. "God knew what we needed," Gwynn said, referring to the state funding. The state money will cover the cost of moving the building.

The lodge will have to raise funds to pay for the renovations, and members said they don't know how much it will cost. The group wants to replace the building's asbestos shingles, add sewer and water facilities and restore the interior as closely as possible to its original condition, he said. Gwynn beamed as he talked about plans to convert the building into a museum. On the second-floor, Gywnn pointed out a painting of Abraham Lincoln that his father commissioned years ago, and a peep-hole in the door that was used to confirm a member's identity before allowing entrance. A staircase not more than two feet wide links the floors.

On the first floor, a narrow closet door just beyond the still-working kerosene heater leads to a secret doorway that opens to a crawl space where former slaves who were still indentured were given shelter, lodge members said. Narrow wooden benches line the walls of both floors. This is where the children sat for their lessons, Gwynn said. "You have to have history to really appreciate what you have," he said. "I'm excited about what the Lord has done for us.

We're just beginning." gina.davisbaltsun.com City board approves 6 new charter schools projects and internships. Dr. Rayner Browne Elementary and General Wolfe Elementary. These existing schools will convert to charters run by the Baltimore Curriculum Project. They use the direct-instruction teaching model, which involves a highly structured school day.

General Wolfe will change its name to Wolfe Street Academy. Dozens of Wolfe supporters turned out for the vote, and cheered the approval. Baltimore Freedom Academy. This existing city high school, serving 400 students, will convert to a charter school in the 2008-2009 school year. It submitted its application too late to convert in 2007.

The new charters will be preparing to open amid an environment of uncertainty about how they will be funded. The city school board is appealing a ruling by the state Court of Appeals that school systems must give Professor faces child-porn charge A longtime Frostburg State University foreign-languages professor has been charged with possessing child pornography after police allegedly found prohibited images on a computer he had turned over to a school shop for repairs. MacGregor O'Brien, 57, of Frostburg faces 13 counts of possessing child pornography, according to court documents. A trial is scheduled for March 13 in Allegany County District Court. Neither O'Brien nor his attorney, Cumberland lawyer Michael A.

Noonan, could be reached for comment yesterday. O'Brien was arrested Saturday and released Monday after posting $30,000 bond, according to court records. In accordance with University System of Maryland policy, he has been suspended with pay and barred from campus pending resolution of the case, a school spokeswoman said. ASSOCIATED PRESS From Page IB ence Technology Academy. The school plans to serve 300 middle school boys in East Baltimore, with an extended school day and school year.

Baltimore International Academy. The language immersion school in Hamilton plans to instruct about 490 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade in Chinese, French or Russian. Independence School Local 1. This is a program in the Robert Poole Middle School complex in Hampden. It serves 42 struggling high school students now.

But as a charter school, it will grow to serve 112. Run by the Baltimore Teacher Network, it does not rely on a prescribed curriculum and focuses on their charter schools the same funding as other schools. The city spends the equivalent of about $11,000 per child in its regular public schools. Charter schools receive $5,859 per child in cash and the rest in services that the school system provides, such as special education and food. Many of the schools want the $11,000 in cash.

Also last night, school board member Diane Bell McKoy announced her resignation. McKoy, who said the meeting would be her last, recently became chief executive of Associated Black Charities and felt she did not have the time to commit to both positions. Her departure leaves three of the board's nine seats vacant. sara.neufeldbaltsun.com 'THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM IS STRUGGLING WITH HOW CHARTER SCHOOLS FIT." BRIAN D. MORRIS, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF EDUCATION.