Baltimore County Public Schools officials have yet to comment on reports that the Thornton funds ? intended to enhance student performance ? were steered into other expenses such as teacher salaries.
From fiscal 2002 to 2008, the county received an additional $220.6 million in Thornton funding for the same time frame, according to a state legislative report.
Yet regardless of increased millions of dollars poured in school coffers, student performance in standardized math and reading tests has dropped.
A 2006 report by MGT of America found that the majority of the extra funding from the state went toward salaries and wages.
Advocates for Children and Youth, a statewide advocacy group, believes Thornton funding also may have been poured into health care and the maintenance of facilities.
“The fund was intended to enhance student proficiency, but the outcome doesn?t necessarily do that,” ACY Director of Education Terrylynn Tyrell said.
“We?re looking for the state to ensure funds are used as intended,” she said, adding each jurisdiction has to present a master plan to the state schools superintendent for approval.
“But [the master plans] include very little [providing for] low-performance students,” Tyrell said.
“So schools get to pick and choose what they want to spend the money on.”
State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick was unavailable for comment, but spokesman Bill Reinhard said all of Maryland?s school districts used the money appropriately.
“The preliminary report from MGT shows the systems spent money to improve student achievement,” Reinhard said.
“The most important way for schools to improve achievement is to improve teaching that goes on in the schools,” he said. Therefore, “the systems rightfully did that by using [Thornton] funding to hire and retain good teachers.”
Examiner Staff Writer Kelsey Volkmann contributed to this report.
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About this series: This is the third in a series of editorials and articles that look at the effects of Maryland’s Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2002, which is pumping an extra $1.3 billion into state schools this year. It examines whether students achieved academic excellence as a result of the increase in aid, and how the money impacted Maryland students’ performance on state and national tests. Background: The legislation is commonly referred to as Thornton, after Alvin Thornton, who led the Maryland General Assembly’s Commission on Education Finance, Equity and Excellence leading to the law. According to the Department of Legislative Services, “The task of the Thornton Commission, as expressed in its charge, was to redesign a cumbersome school finance system in order to achieve excellence in public schools through adequate and equitable funding.” Click here for a history of the Thornton Commisson and the reports it created. Methodology: The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis is home to one of the largest collections of privately held public policy databases in the United States. The Center employs the databases to estimate the likely effects of policy changes on key dimensions of everyday life including marriage rates, income growth, educational attainment, and retirement decisions. Shanea Watkins, who analyzed the data for The Examiner, is a policy analyst at the Center for Data Analysis, where she performs social science research in the areas of education, poverty, and family structure. She completed her doctorate in public policy at George Mason University in 2007, where she was involved in research that examined the effects of both school choice and desegregation on academic achievement. |
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Reading the charts: These charts follow the same set of students through grades, and overlay the amount of money spent per student with test results. They are different than the grade-by-grade charts, which show how unique classes of students perform in different years. Each spreadsheet contains a wide range of demographic information for students in the county. Click on the tabs at the bottom of each spreadsheet to view charts for each group. Grade and Cohort MSA Proficiency: The county-by-county spreadsheets analyze the performance of the same set of students over time next to the performance of students on a grade-by-grade basis. Each spreadsheet contains a wide range of demographic information for students in the county. Click on the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to view charts for different demographic groups. Click your school district to view the spreadsheet. Allegany County Anne Arundel County Baltimore City Baltimore County Calvert County Caroline County Carroll County Cecil County Charles County Dorchester County Frederick County Garrett County Harford County Howard County Kent County Montgomery County Prince Georges County Queen Anne County St. Mary County Somerset County Talbot County Washington County Wicomico County Worchester County State of Maryland |
