Superintendent Smith’s School Woes

Two reports out this week from the Baltimore Sun describe some of the funding and structural problems that the County school system and its Superintendent, Eric Smith, face in improving student performance. First, it turns out that the top performing elementary schools in the County are attracting the best-educated, and most experienced teachers, whereas the low-performing schools, serving children in less affluent areas have a higher proportion of teachers without advanced degrees and with less teaching experience. Given the choice between working in a more difficult environment for pay equal to working in a less difficult one, it’s unsurprising that many of the most highly trained teachers choose the latter. Smith raises the issue of trying to find a way to incentivize teaching in those schools which serve large populations of disadvantaged students by providing teachers with additional funds for educational training and pay increases for improving student performance. This seems like a perfectly sensible course, let’s hope the County Executive and teachers’ union can be brought on board.

An honest assessment recognizes that such incentives come with a price though, and Smith says the school system needs $20-30 million next year just to pay for increases in salaries and benefits and keep up with other school systems in the area. All these considerations raise difficult questions, compounded by the fact that in October 2003, County residents declared “education/problems with schools” [pdf] the single most important problem the County is facing.