Baltimore County Schools Cut Teachers, Adds to Bureaucracy

At a time when Baltimore County schools are cutting nearly 200 teaching positions, the system has added three dozen new employees to the business side of its operations at salaries that total $1.9 million.

An analysis of data supplied by the school system shows that it could have saved as many as 42 teaching positions and kept class sizes lower if it had frozen hiring for non-school-based jobs in January, when it was clear that spending reductions would be necessary.

Instead, the school system hired administrators, curriculum supervisors, technology experts, grounds workers, accountants and others, amounting to $1.9 million in annual salaries. Of the 35 people added, $1.2 million was spent to hire 11 employees who make more than $80,000 apiece, including a deputy superintendent, Renee Foose, whose salary is $219,000, according to data released last week.

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It seems that Wicomico County Public Schools aren’t the only ones who prefer growing the bureaucracy over teaching the kids. – Ed.

Man Arrested for Pushing Woman from SUV on I-95

A 36-year-old man accused of pushing his girlfriend out of a moving vehicle on Interstate 95 last week was arrested Monday in Baltimore and charged with first-degree attempted murder, according to police.

Detectives arrested Dante Williams, of no fixed address, without incident at a relative's home in the 1700 block of Winford Road, according to Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley.

Williams was also charged with first- and second-degree assault and violating the terms of probation on a previous assault charge against the same victim in Baltimore County, Shipley said.

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Former Padonia Club Executive to Be in Court on Child Porn Charges

The former chief executive of the Padonia Park Club in Cockeysville is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for a plea hearing on child pornography charges, according to the Baltimore County State's Attorney's office.

Ira Charles F. Rigger Jr., of the first block of Thurkill Court in Cockeysville, has been free on bond since his arrest June 17. Rigger, 56, and his family have owned the swim club and child care center on Jenifer Road for decades. According to police and court documents, detectives seized a laptop computer and another computer from his home that contained photographs of nude young girls.

In court documents, Rigger is accused of downloading illegal images over the past five years. According to the documents, Rigger would delete the files after viewing them. He was charged with two counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of possessing child pornography with intent to distribute.

Kathy Angstadt, interim CEO of the club, said Tuesday that Rigger's financial stake in the company is in the process of being "removed" and that he has not drawn a paycheck and has been banned from the property since his arrest.

from Don Markus @ the Baltimore Sun

Number of Baltimore Schools Missing Targets Surges

Nearly 90 percent of Baltimore elementary and middle schools fell short of academic targets on state assessments this year, signaling a trend that education officials nationwide say will eventually label most American schools as failures.

Only 15 of the 141 city schools met federally mandated progress goals in math and reading on the Maryland School Assessments, according to state and city school data. And the schools that didn't meet the adequate yearly progress goals included some of the highest-performers in the city and the state, illustrating the continuing debate about the embattled No Child Left Behind Act.

"It's a crude measure and an unsophisticated system in that it tarnishes schools with the same brush," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan group that has tracked the nation's progress under the law since its inception. "It's one of these things that everyone knows there's a problem, but no one has figured out how to fix it."

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Dream Act Repeal Plan Is No Hit on the Web

While confident that last week they had the required signatures to bring the Dream Act to referendum, petition drive leaders had advice on future efforts to overturn Maryland laws: A strong Internet presence alone doesn’t ensure success.

Del. Patrick L. McDonough, honorary chairman of mdpetitions.com, which made downloadable forms available online to help spearhead a drive to overturn the law that grants in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, said website submissions did not make up the majority of signatures his group collected by the evening of June 30.

“If the passion and the drive were absent, the Internet wouldn’t make a difference,” McDonough (R-Harford, Baltimore County) said. “The real untold story here are the passion and the drive have been the motivating factor behind the success.”

McDonough and his group have asked voters to put their names on the petition to bring the law to the general election ballot in 2012. The law, which was scheduled to take effect July 1 but will be delayed as Board of Elections staff verify the signatures allows students who graduate from a Maryland high school and whose families have filed state income taxes to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

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