POST Local

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III wants to transform neighborhoods, and at the top of his list is creating an “excellent educational system.”

On Thursday, Brad Seamon, Baker’s chief administrative officer, offered the members of the school board a PowerPoint presentation detailing Baker’s plans for the initiative.

After he finished, the members had few questions.

But they peppered Seamon with comments.

Congratulations to the Maryland winners of the 2012 Washington Post Agnes Meyer award. The recognition goes to about 20 teachers each year who are nominated by their local school districts for their initiative, creativity and professionalism.

I got to meet some of these teachers at an award ceremony last night at The Washington Post.

Carrie Vieira, an English and theater teacher at Rockville High School and the Montgomery County award winner, spoke on behalf of all the awardees.

“Teaching is hard work. It brings you to your limits and sometimes beyond. We are here because we love what we do; because we live for it,” she said.

A little WaPo history — The award is named for the wife of Eugene Meyer, who bought The Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction in 1933. Agnes Meyer was an ardent public education advocate and philanthropist who lobbied for the desegregation and federal funding of public schools.

(Photos provided by award winners)

The winners are:

David Bradshaw, physical education and health teacher at Maurice J. McDonough High School in Pomfret, Md.

Charles County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

Elizabeth Dyson, a biology and physical education teacher at Great Mills High School in Leonardtown, Md.

St. Mary’s County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­

­­­­

Walter Harley, chairman and director of bands and orchestra at Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Md.

Prince George’s County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

Sarah Jester, choral director and department chair at Northeast High School in Pasadena, Md.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

Jon VanDeventer, Geometry and engineering teacher at Patuxent High School in Lusby, Md

Calvert County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

(William Mills)

Carrie Vieira, English and theater teacher at Rockville High School in Rockville, Md.

Montgomery County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

Deborah Winkles, a visual arts teacher at Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Md.

Frederick County Public Schools

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

­
­­­­­­

Lisa Young, gifted and talented resource teacher at Atholton Elementary School in Columbia, Md.

Howard County Public Schools

Students at James Hubert Blake High School launched a new kind of diplomacy this year to spread a message of tolerance for gays and lesbians : Call it rainbow diplomacy.

The school’s Gay-Straight Alliance created a rainbow-colored paper doll and sent her around the world. “Allie the Ally” can be printed out and photographed anywhere and with anyone who wants to show support for gay youth.
George Lopez with Allie The Ally, a paper doll created by Blake High School students to spread the message of tolerance. ( Mary Wagner)

Since her official debut in November, Allie has become increasingly popular and enjoyed a jet-setting lifestyle.

“Allie’s been to Vietnam and Poland and Australia,” said Jenna Beers, a junior and president of the group. “She’s met celebrities.”

Ally was photographed on the set of “CSI” in Hollywood with Ted Danson, and at George Lopez’s celebrity golf tournament. She’s been glimpsed on a mountain top in Austria and outside the opera house in Sydney. She was also visible in Annapolis this year with Governor Martin O’ Malley (D) and Del. Anne R. Kaiser (D-Montgomery) when the legislature passed a measure to legalize same-sex marriage. Her many travels have been documented online.

This week, Allie helped the Silver Spring student-led group win a national leadership award.

Superintendents in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore city co-authored a letter to state lawmakers Monday urging them to restore education funding in the upcoming special session.

The General Assembly passed a budget during the regular 90-day session, but did not agree on any new taxes to cover rising costs. The so-called “doomsday budget” that now stands would mean $500 million in cuts to state agencies and public schools in the fiscal year starting July 1.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) last week called a special session on May 14 to resolve the impasse over taxes.

Of particular concern to school leaders is the potential elimination of a $129 million supplemental education grant that benefits counties with
Superintendent William R. Hite, Jr. signed on to a letter from superintendents urging state lawmakers to increase education funding during a special session next week. (Mark Gail) higher costs of living and higher rates of poverty.

The leaders of the state’s three largest school systems - Andres A. Alonso of Baltimore, William R. Hite, Jr. of Prince George’s County, and Joshua P. Starr of Montgomery County - estimate their school systems would have to absorb nearly three-quarters of those cuts.

“Our districts, combined, educate more than one-third of Maryland’s students and, within that, nearly two-thirds of the African American and Hispanic students in the state and more than half of the students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals,” the leaders wrote in their letter.

“The elimination of $93 million in...funding would disproportionately harm our students, our ability to continue to narrow achievement gaps for those students who are minorities and poor, and student performance for the state as a whole,” the letter said.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a story this weekend questioning ”extreme score gains” at Silver Spring’s Highland Elementary School and at dozens of other schools that have won the national Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Education Department.

Highland went from the cusp of a state takeover in 2005 to posting some of the highest reading scores in Maryland by 2009. The remarkable turn-around came about at a school with a challenging population. More than 80 percent of is students come from poverty and a majority don’t speak English at home. The school won the prestigious federal award in 2008.

Unlike in some cases of alleged cheating that the Atlanta newspaper and other news outlets have exposed, the latest story did not report any suspicious erasure rates on answer sheets or include allegations of cheating made by teachers or staff members. Montgomery officials have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Still, such jumps are “remarkably unlikely” and suggest cheating, the article said. From the story:

No statistical analysis alone can prove that anyone cheated. But in data and documents and in interviews with school officials and testing experts, few other credible explanations surfaced for how the scores of so many students could shift so quickly to such odds-defying degrees.

“Those kinds of changes are just incomprehensible,” said Jaxk Reeves, director of the University of Georgia Statistical Consulting Center. Reeves was one of the academic experts who reviewed the AJC’s analysis.

Another researcher who advised the newspaper, James Wollack, director of testing and evaluation services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many schools credit their instructional strategies for overnight success. But no changes in teaching methods, he said, are enough to account for “ridiculous, nonsensical gains.”

“More often than not,” Wollack said, “something other than student learning was causing those gains.”

Montgomery County school leaders say there have never been any allegations of cheating at Highland.

“Let me be clear: The turnaround that occurred at Highland Elementary School was the result of having a great school leader and a motivated staff that had the training, support and resources it needed to serve its students,” said Montgomery County Superintendent Joshua Starr in a statement.