A New Era of School Reform

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 Thus, in April 1997, the state  legislature passed Senate Bill  795, a 50-page document  dictating broad reforms of the  Baltimore City Public School  System. A new, nine-member  Board of School Commissioners  was jointly appointed by the governor and the mayor to lead and execute the reforms over a five-year period. Architects of the reform were to entrust a $700 million budget, 14,000 employees, 182 schools, and 109,000 children to these managers with top-flight backgrounds.

In return for complying with the various mandates and deadlines laid out in the bill, the board would win $254 million in additional state funding for the school system. The new city-state partnership made the schools CEO accountable to the state legislature, instead of local politicians. The settlement of the lawsuit was far from perfect, but it deserved support.

Aside from the newly constituted school board, the agreement also included a more generous match of capital funds than before. Instead of having to come up with 25 percent of what the state offers in construction dollars–which some counties have had to reject for a lack of matching funds–the city can access up to $20 million in state capital financing with only 10 percent, or $2 million, in matching funds.

Also, the city will be forgiven any past errors in its system-wide enrollment estimates. That will give Baltimore more money than the current per-student funding formulas would allow if the counts were accurate, which was not the case.

The entire state’s economy is dependent upon a strong Baltimore school system. Willingness to use the state’s wealth to help the city was sheer prudence–for the sake of the children. What could be more important than that.

By June, the list of candidates for interim chief of Baltimore City’s public schools had been narrowed down to three–two executives and a former state schools administrator. The interim leader would have to merge the divided general education and special education services into a single school government; establish the school system’s parent advisory board; and replace administrative staff who have retired or departed during the transition.

Schools would have to be readied for the fall. Top ranks of the system would have to be reorganized. Projects proposed by New School Board members, including a survey of structural conditions of every school, would have to be launched. On the other hand, the interim chief would have little opportunity to institute long-term change, and by law could not be considered for the permanent job.

As a result of the tight deadlines, the school board knew that it could not wait until a new chief was in place to start major initiatives; it would have to choose a (temporary) leader who would be a very strong manager and who would see this as a challenge.

There were other motives, too. Several negotiators wanted to ensure that former Superintendent Walter G. Amprey and members of his administration would not inherit the new post. As a result of fears that the old guard would become the interim management, a law was drafted to block them from permanent leadership. Many negotiators also wanted to ensure that the temporary CEO would focus on the work at hand, rather than competing for the permanent position.

On Thursday, June 26, 1997, longtime educator Robert E. Schiller was named the interim chief executive of Baltimore City public schools. He had plenty on his plate–from getting the system of 109,000 students ready for a new academic year in September to negotiating a new contract with unionized teachers. His real job, however, was to be the tough guy who did the dirty work so that when a permanent CEO was appointed, that new chief would not have to squander initial goodwill by making necessary but unpopular moves.

When he arrived in Baltimore, Schiller found an abysmal tableau of declining student test scores at many schools; a rise in reported school crime; and a high school drop-out rate of 50 percent. This played out against a backdrop of increased spending and an ever-expanding–and seemingly ever more ineffectual–North Avenue bureaucracy.

When Robert Schiller met the newly appointed city school board, he hit the ground running. One month into his 90-day stint as interim schools chief, Schiller submitted to the Board of School Commissioners a state-of-the-system report of sorts, and it did not paint a pretty picture:

There was no baseline data showing where kids stood in reading and math, but fifth graders were not learning geometry and statistics, and the state said they should.

There was no full accounting of expenditures, but the school system would close out the books with a deficit of more than $8-12 million for 1997.

There was a glut of teachers (mostly secondary ones), many of whom were not certified for the subjects they were teaching, and there was no measure for evaluating teachers and zero relationship between their titles and pay–prompting Schiller to liken the school system to “a jobs program for 12,000 people” and to declare he’s “never been in an organization where people ignored the law.”