The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page A4

4A TUESDAY 03.13.2007 THE SUN mm Mm mi Schools' progress stalled, audit finds If Mi TIM ROSKE ASSOCIATED PRESS Propane explosion in central N.Y. Cars from a freight train are strewn along railroad tracks in Oneida, N.Y., after an explosion there yesterday. The small city in central New York was evacuated, and part of Interstate 90 was shut down after liquid propane exploded; no injuries were reported. Seeking clean, catchy jingle From Page 1A ogy plan meets state standards, many teachers aren't comfortable integrating computers into their instruction. Auditors said they visited more than 1,000 classrooms that housed about 6,000 computers, but found that only 24 percent of the computers were being used.

While the audit credits schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston for establishing an overarching plan for academic progress, it chided the school board for obsolete and outdated policies nearly half of which are more than 25 years old that do little to help shape the educational priorities for the third largest school system in the state and one of the 25 largest in the nation. English said the system is doing as well as it is in large part because of Hairston's planning guide, called "Blueprint for Progress," but that it is the school board's legal responsibility to set policy so that the district's future doesn't rest upon one person's vision and plan. "People come and go," said English, who has overseen about 60 curriculum audits since 1979. "The board's policies are the only thing that sticks.

It's the only way you can hold your administration accountable." Donald L. Arnold, the school board's president, said the board began reviewing its policies a few years ago with the goal of updating ones worth keeping and eliminating ineffective ones. The board's plan is that all policies will be reviewed at least every five years, he said. He said the audit confirmed many of his suspicions. "Although there are a lot of things we had a general concept about, this gives us proof," he said.

"This was a total check-up of the system to help us make sure we're making the best use of our resources, both dollars and people." Hairston said he plans to follow the team's advice and has already taken the report's recommendation that the district hire a chief academic officer. About two weeks ago, he named Sonia Diaz, who most recently was superintendent of New Mexico's second-largest school district, to the position of associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction. "We're not a bad school system, but we need to improve," Hairston said. "We put ourselves under the microscope because we want to do a better job in preparing our youngsters for the future." The county school board last summer approved a $245,000 contract to Phi Delta Kappa. The nonprofit organization has reviewed curriculum management in school systems across the country and abroad for nearly three decades.

The executive summary of its report on Baltimore County schools is expected to be available online at www.bcps.org after tonight's board meeting. With about 106,000 students, the county's schools are spread across rural, suburban and urban communities. State test results show a range of student performance, with some schools internationally known for high performance and others struggling to meet state standards. For example, results from the 2006 High School Assessment in English showed that 58 percent of the county's students passed the exam, which is one of four tests that students starting with the Class of 2009 must pass to graduate. School-to-school comparisons showed disparities that ranged from 88 percent of Eastern Technical High School's students passing to only 35.5 percent of Wood-lawn High School's students passing.

And while the achievement gap the difference between how whites and minorities perform on the state tests is narrowing, school officials continue to grapple with ways to eradicate it. In its analysis, the audit team estimated it could take 64 years to eliminate the nearly 20-point percentage gap in reading scores between white and black sixth-grade students. Hairston said he enlisted Phi Delta Kappa International in August soon after the system's previous head of curriculum and instruction left for a job in Michigan because he knew changes were needed, and he wanted an objective evaluation. A team of 26 auditors spent a week in December visiting 157 schools, including more than 3,000 classrooms, and interviewing parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders. They also analyzed information that directly and indirectly affect curriculum and instruction, including planning guides, budgets and policies.

"The system is data rich and information poor. But it's producing more data than teachers can effectively use," English said. "There has to be more professional development to show teachers how to make the data useful in the classroom." English cautioned against using the audit's findings to make sweeping generalizations and said that the school system's curriculum is strong in some areas, such as English and language arts and math. "We were in more than 3,000 classrooms and saw some excellent teaching and some excellent schools," English said. "Baltimore County schools are a fine school system.

I would put any of my 16 grandchildren in them. I don't think we found anything in Baltimore County that was surprising or shocking, save one thing the poor maintenance of facilities, which are in deplorable condition." He also stressed that the audit, called an "exception report," is purposely designed to point out a school system's weaknesses. "This is not a report card, where you get some As and some Bs and some Cs," he said. "The district is not going to be complimented for when the trains run on time. They're supposed to run on time." gina.davisbaltsun.com quite proud of this one they urge: "Don't Trash the 'Nati." Linda Holterhoff, the executive director of Cincinnati Beautiful, knew that slogan had potential when she didn't get it and her board hated it.

"You just can't have a group of old people do this," she says, adding that their target audience was male litterbugs aged 15 to 32. "We would go out and talk to groups all the time about litter prevention. It came to our attention that we were preaching to the choir." The focus group kids heard "Don't Trash the 'Nati" and "lit up like Christmas trees," Holterhoff says. "They loved it." But once the catchy message hit billboards, urban radio stations and schools, did it have the young people suddenly remembering the existence of garbage cans? "Um," Holterhoff says. "We think it might." Even in Texas and Cincinnati where officials say the campaigns are effective, it's hard to know exactly how much so if at all.

To measure change, Keep America Beautiful advocates the "litter index." Something less than scien- kle," an attempt to cajole neighborhoods into self-cleaning programs. He heralded "Trash Bash," an elaborate promotion featuring a jingle contest where hundreds vied to have Peabody Conservatory musicians play their song on New Year's Eve at the Inner Harbor. The winner also got a free turkey. But no Baltimore anti-litter effort caught on like Schaefer's Trash Ball. In the mid-1970s, garbage receptacles across the city became impromptu basketball hoops, urging people to "Jam one" in.

The sanitation crews, in coveted numbered jerseys, were first-stringers on the team. For a while, anyway, folks responded, enthusiastically dunking their junk like Dr. J. Even Friskey praises that campaign. "It was a nice combination of creativity and behavior modification," he says.

"Something like that clever and fun without being a scold would probably be a good direction to go in." Dixon, who says she's "obsessed" with the trash issue, is seeking pitches from local advertising firms with a goal of launching a new "aggressive" campaign in June. She's already promised that like the fish and the crabs and the turtles, we can expect to see trash can art around town. "As I tell my children everyday," Dixon said recently, "when my house is clean, I'm a happy camper. I believe that Baltimore residents should think of their city as an extension of our homes." From Page 1A Once the environmental movement picked up steam in the 1970s, civic leaders across the country and abroad began turning to slogans in hopes of tidying their streets. Keep America Beautiful's "Crying Indian" spot set the standard.

It also drove home the near universal lesson of anti-litter campaigns: Clever doesn't necessarily lead to clean. "I don't think," says Robert Wallace, Keep America Beautiful's vice president of communications, "there's ever been a campaign that's totally stopped it." But that's not to say there haven't been some great campaigns. Most notably, "Don't Mess With Texas," a gimmick so wildly popular, 20 years after its debut most folks don't even remember it was created to combat littering on state highways. "That was amazing," Wallace says, "a great slogan that tapped into the local pride and what it meant to be a Texan." Through the years "Don't Mess" included endorsements on the radio and on TV by the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Lance Armstrong and Erykah Badu. In each ad the star intones, "I wouldn't do it." The campaign won a spot last year in Advertising Week's hall of fame.

And yet, says Brenda Flo-res-Dollar, Texas' litter prevention program manager, "We still have a litter problem." In Knoxville, they've got "Don't Throw Down on K-town." In Washington State they warn "Litter and It Will Hurt." In Cincinnati and they're tific, this involves someone driving around town, eyeballing things, and then deciding how dirty they are on a scale of one to four. If things look better by the next drive-around, the campaign's declared a success. Of course many of these programs have more in their anti-trash arsenal than a cute slogan. In Knoxville, they've got something called "I Spy on Litter" where people who spot litterbugs can send anonymous emails to the city. With the "Don't Trash Allen-town" campaign in Pennsylvania, the city has handed out thousands of kits with brooms and garbage bags.

Infusing Washington State's "Litter and It Will Hurt" with some serious ouch, someone who drops a fast-food wrapper could face a $103 fine $1,025 for a lit cigarette. Quite a few Baltimore leaders have taken luckless shots at the litter predicament. It defies easy answers as the paper-strewn streets and rubbish-clogged harbor testify. Mayor Martin O'Malley distributed black rubber cans with his trademark "Believe" logo printed on the side. People loved them so much so they didn't want to waste them on garbage.

His administration also found the slogan "Cleanup is Contagious" to be less than infectious. Kurt Schmoke, O'Malley's predecessor, had a campaign called "Can It" that never got out of the box. But William Donald Schaefer, in his mayoral days, had his mind on the city's gutters like no one else. He christened "Baltimore Spar "I WISH I HAD A CLEVER SLOGAN." PUBLIC RELATIONS EXPERT ROGER FRISKEY ON CITY'S NEW ANTI-UTTER CAMPAIGN balts jill.rosen GOP says Democrats' proposed cuts not deep enough House Democrats have proposed modest cuts to Gov. Martin O'Malley's $30 billion budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins in July.

But Republican delegates want deeper spending reductions in anticipation of a projected $1.3 billion shortfall starting in July 2008. Here are highlights of the two plans: DEMOCRATS Identified $148 million in cuts Proposed trimming spending increases in some departments, such as by reducing the number of new employees in the attorney general's office REPUBLICANS Suggested across-the-board cuts ranging from $640 million to $800 million Proposed cuts that include a delay in implementing the last phase of the landmark Thornton education funding formula and elimination of new corrections officers paying higher energy costs, higher fuel costs when they fill up their cars and higher health care costs." The House Republicans' proposal would essentially hold spending to the same level as this year, with a few exceptions. The plan would allow for cost-of-living increases and pension enhancements for state government employees, but it would cut funding increases for new prison guards and for a new juvenile justice facility to replace a privately run one that the state closed down this month. The plan would also cut money designed to freeze tuition at Maryland colleges and universities. In the Senate, Sen.

J. Lowell Stoltzfus, an Eastern Shore Republican who sits on the Budget and Taxation Committee, has proposed cutting about $640 million out of the budget. The two proposals are the first serious suggestions that the state delay implementing the last phase of the so-called Thornton education funding formula, a plan approved five years ago to ensure students statewide are given an adequate education. Lawmakers did not enact a funding source for the program, which, when fully phased in, will increase education spending by $1.3 billion, almost exactly the amount of the structural From Page 1A ber of new staff authorized for the attorney general's office and other state agencies. Del.

Norman H. Conway, the Appropriations Committee chairman from the Eastern Shore, said the Republicans' push for larger cuts is "not socially responsible." He said O'Malley submitted a budget below the General Assembly's spending guidelines the first time a governor has done so in years and that the committee did enough to put the state on a path to solve its problems next year. "The governor didn't cause our structural deficit, but I believe he will solve it," Conway said. "The goal of the committee this session was to take a small step to bring state spending more in line with revenue, and we have done that." O'Malley, a Democrat who took office in January, slowed the rate of spending growth this year, proposing to increase continuing expenses by 7.8 percent, down from ll.l percent in Republican Gov. Robert L.

Ehrlich Jr's final budget. However, expenses would still rise faster than the growth in state revenue, expected to be about 4.3 percent. In an interview last night on Maryland Public Television, the governor said he is committed to finding systematic solutions to the state's budget problems but Secretary T. Eloise Foster's proposal to cut $50 million from the current budget, a figure she arrived at through savings from a hiring freeze, the elimination of over-budgeting for employee health care and reductions to agencies that were not likely to spend all the money they had been allotted. But those cuts and the Appropriation Committee's proposed reductions would do almost nothing to reduce the $1.3 billion gap between revenues and spending projected for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2008.

Adjustments to the state's balance sheet in the last month and O'Malley's calls for additional spending on corrections and juvenile services will wipe out all but about $1 million of the cuts. Republicans on the Appropriations Committee said yesterday they think the Democrats who lead the panel didn't do enough to prepare for next year, and they are proposing $800 million in cuts that they say would wipe out the structural deficit without tax or fee increases. "We don't feel we've done our due diligence in getting ready for this huge deficit we face," said Del. Gail H. Bates, a Howard County Republican who serves on the committee.

"If we don't, we're looking at a substantial tax increase at the same time we're looking at constituents Stoltzfus said the situation is desperate enough that Thornton has to be on the table. "We are either going to have to make cuts or else taxes will be increased," Stoltzfus said. O'Malley spokesman Steve Kearney said the Republicans' proposals are curious, considering they endorsed Ehrlich's budget increase last year, when the scope of the current problem was already known. "That's an interesting about-face," he said. Republicans acknowledged that their proposals have little chance of being enacted by the Democrats, who control the General Assembly.

Del. Susan L.M. Aumann, a Baltimore County Republican who serves on the Appropriations Committee, said O'Malley's desire to hold off on major budget decisions until he has a better grasp of state finances is understandable. But in the meantime, she added, the projected deficit is only getting worse. "We definitely understand that the governor wanted to take a year," Aumann said.

"I think it's a good move, but to then go ahead and increase spending levels while you're waiting, facing a deficit of the magnitude we're facing and not having a concrete plan to deal with it, is a mistake." andy.greenbaltsun.com SOURCE: MARYLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY that he first wants to familiarize himself with state finances and to bring together legislators around a fix. "There's not a consensus in both houses around the solution we need to apply," O'Malley said on the MPT program Direct Connection. "If we can develop a consensus more quickly, some things may happen in this session that we may not have foreseen." O'Malley reiterated that he sees more common ground on the need for funding increases for transportation and that he is "open to that this session." However, he has not endorsed Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller's proposed 12-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase, which would provide money for new roads and mass transit. The governor said he also intends to pursue efficiencies as he did in Baltimore, where structural deficits "were addressed through a hundred, a thousand things, if you will, that allowed us to turn that deficit around." Earlier this month, the Board of Public Works approved Budget.