In the 2 1/2 years they've been in existence, Baltimore's "new schools" have barely made a dent in the public consciousness. The eight publicly funded, independently run schools are part of a pilot program that has garnered lukewarm support at best from the school system, and, save for the occasional teachers-union spat or test-score coup, rarely registers on administrators' radar.
But Baltimore's new schools may quickly become more prominent and more relevant as they come under the directorship of a longtime, outspoken supporter of the program, and as state education officials toy with new ways of bringing about public-school reform in the city.
"I think the partnership started out slow, and it's just started rolling," says Russell Perkins, principal at West Baltimore's Rosemont Elementary School, a program participant run by Coppin State College. "I think that in the future this is going to be the way. Once we show this is successful, others are going to want to duplicate [the] effort."
It's a belief shared by many reform-minded educators and activists, and one that will hinge on the arrival of Laura Weeldreyer at school-system headquarters Jan. 3, when she takes over as as coordinator of the New Schools Initiative. Weeldreyer, who served as education director for the local nonprofit groups Advocates for Children and Youth and the Citizens Planning and Housing Association, was instrumental in getting the program off the ground. Now that she's on the inside, Weeldreyer aims to build institutional support for the new schools—a program viewed more often as a threat to the system's top-down management of its 184 schools than as a viable cog in the reform machine.
"Mine will be a very inside-outside role," Weeldreyer says. "I'll obviously be an employee of the school system and have to represent its policies, but I'll also be representing the schools, and I want to be a resource to the schools as well as an advocate."
The new schools were created in response to a 1995 court order that the city explore, via independent schools, innovative solutions to its continued noncompliance with state and federal special-education requirements. (The lawsuit that led to the order also figured in the April 1997 school-reform deal, in which the city collects additional state education aid in exchange for greater state oversight of its schools.) Though held to the same statewide standards as other public schools, new schools have autonomy to choose a curriculum and determine their own policies on everything from dress codes and discipline to the length of the school day and year. (Two new schools, Robert W. Coleman Elementary in West Baltimore and the New Song Academy in Sandtown, operate year round.)
New-school operators expect Weeldreyer, with her activist history, to raise the program's profile. "The school board has been working on the big picture, so from a practical standpoint we've not been on their priority list," New Song Academy executive director Susan Tibbels says. "What I would like to see is that we become a part of their priority list, and hopefully Laura will help to bring that about. She's a strong advocate for the initiative and understands the issues thoroughly."
From the get-go, that advocacy will be tested. Four of the city's contracts with new-school operators expire in June, and it's not certain whether they'll be renewed. In the meantime, the state is stepping up its oversight of the citywide reform effort, soliciting proposals from outside entities to take over a few poorly performing schools next year.
Weeldreyer and others in the program see an opportunity in the threatened state takeover: As the New Schools Initiative is independent from the city school system's centralized bureaucracy, state intervention could expand the program's role in reform, or at least ensure its continued existence. State plans to hire third-party operators for schools, Tibbels says, "would give me hope that there is some kind of fallback for us if the city decided not to renew our contracts for whatever reason."
The first four new schools—three that were indeed new and a fourth created by a nonprofit's takeover of an existing school—opened in September 1997. Five more followed last year, all of them older schools run by outside entities. (One such school, Calloway Elementary, reverted back to the school system after a year of operation by Payne Memorial Outreach, leaving the number of functioning new schools at eight.) Each school was given a three-year contract with two one-year options to renew. In June, the contracts for the first four schools—New Song, the Youth Education Academy at Woodbourne in Harlem Park, Midtown Academy in Bolton Hill, and City Springs Elementary School in southeast Baltimore—come up for renewal.
Though most involved are optimistic the extensions will be granted, Weeldreyer says there are "a lot of gray areas in the contracts." She says her first task as head of the program will be to visit the schools and ensure that operators and school administrators are on the same page regarding expectations and progress.
"I want to hear from [the schools'] perspective the status of their agreement with Baltimore: Where are they, and what can I do to help? What is standing in their way of fulfilling that contract?" Weeldreyer says. "If you look at small schools around the country, they have to spend so much time on structural and organizational stuff that it takes away from student achievement. For good or for bad, the system shoots a lot of arrows at the schools. I want to take all the arrows in the back and shield them. The whole point of initiative is that kids can be educated better and achieve more."
Wendy Samet, a co-director at Midtown Academy—whose third-graders last year boasted the city's highest standardized test scores—says the most immediate threat to her school's sustained progress is money. School-system dollars cover 60 percent of Midtown's operating budget; the rest comes from foundations and corporations, support Samet says isn't likely to keep rolling in forever.
At Rosemont, the greatest needs are staff-related, Perkins says: "Probably one thing the program leadership hasn't addressed to date is the quality of instruction. We want to make sure our kids have qualified teachers and administrators."
Also on Weeldreyer's priority list will be exploring whether or not a third round of new schools should be pursued, and mapping out a long-term game plan for the program—key to which could be linking with state plans to put independent operators in some schools. Ronald Pfeiffer, assistant state schools superintendent, says there are currently no plans to link the new schools and the state's "reconstitution" effort: "That'll be something that we probably see as two separate enterprises." But Weeldreyer notes that state superintendent Nancy Grasmick met extensively with new-schools operators in the city before initiating the state search for outside school operators.
"The state's request for proposals was very similar to the new schools'. Should new schools be [associated] with that process? Is there a possible link, a possible fit, or a possible connection?" Weeldreyer says. "At least it should be considered."
Cooperation with the state would become more crucial if city schools officials determine the system can't afford to continue or expand the program. Tyson Tildon, president of the city school board, agrees that small, independently run schools are among the most likely to achieve reform on an individual basis. "It's the ratcheting up that's the hard part," he says, noting that educating all of Baltimore's 107,000 public-school students in a new-schools-type environment would require far more money than the system has. Weeldreyer's challenge in the months ahead is to convince officials that new schools stand to benefit not just the approximately 4,100 children they currently serve, but the entire school system.
"We're not here selling a program, we're selling the ability to come together around a philosophy," she says. "New schools are a breeding ground for innovation. New schools create the space to dream about what schools should be."
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