You've got to be dumb as dirt to live in Baltimore or if you read the Baltimore Sun

Ummm why?   Baltimore City schools maintain a "corps of surplus teachers." The "surplus pool" has cost $18 million since 2008 and it is expected that the  "surplus pool" will  cost the district about $5.5 million this year alone.   Every year the district carries 100 "surplus teachers." IT'S IMPORTANT TO QUOTE THIS CRAP SO YOU DON'T THINK I AM MAKING IT UP: "Over the past three years, the district has been able to avoid layoffs while continuing to hire hundreds of new teachers." (In 2008, the district had 141 "surplus teachers.")

Some, apparently, are losers:  a portion of the "surplus pool" actually "represents ineffective educators whom principals replace the following year instead of giving unsatisfactory evaluations." BECAUSE they have to be "placed on improvement plans for years before being fired." SOME HAVE BEEN THERE A BIT ALREADY.

"65% of the pool have 10 years of service, and 76 percent are deemed advanced professional, meaning they have a master's degree or the equivalent."

Wanna know what that means in base salary?

But that was in good times.


There will be a $53 million shortfall in next years' budget so the district is offering early retirement for teachers. Teachers who take the package would be paid 75 percent of one year's salary, which would be spread over five years.

The city schools CEO Andrés Alonso - you can get a hi-res photo of him at the web site which is spooky - "acknowledged that his philosophy of school autonomy has put Baltimore in the costly position of having teachers to spare." I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

The union responded. The president of the Baltimore Teachers Union was surprised at the cost, but being slightly less articulate than the schools CEO and with no hi-res picture you can download, claimed, "But whatever we did with our surplus teachers, we managed to increase our [student] outcomes, so it's money well spent."

AND GET THIS: "Baltimore is among only a handful of districts in the country that practice mutual consent, meaning that teachers and principals have to agree to the teachers' placements."

AREN'T THESE FREEKING PHANTOM TEACHERS?

And what did the district do with all that stimulus money? The money that was used for construction when the district had fewer enrollments and the state wanted them to close schools. And how did that new contract work out? And have you solved those enrollment miscalculations? How are those $16 million science labs working out? PERSONALLY, I WOULD HOLD OFF ON THE $250 MILLION FOR BIGGER CLASSROOMS AND MORE EQUIPMENT.

And, finally, thank you President Obama for announcing your Education budget last month at a Baltimore COUNTY school. That middle school you visited has 1039 students and rates a 7 at Great Schools, but where, unlike most Baltimore City Schools, is two-thirds white. (ALTHOUGH THE PICTURE SHOWS ONLY BLACK CHILDREN POSED FOR THE PHOTO OP.)

It probably made a better picture. There is little poverty at Parkville with less than a third of the students qualifying for a free lunch unlike the BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS that rates a 4 at Great Schools with a student population that is 88% black  of whom 73% are eligible for a free lunch.

But, hey, those poor black kids got a "surplus pool" of 100 teachers.