Schools Await Final Grade

Maryland Considers Fate of Charles Carroll Middle And Others Falling Short

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Twenty-Nine Days and Counting
With 29 days left until the Maryland School Assessments in reading in math, Charles Carroll Middle School is at the end of the line. But what happens next?

It has been eight years since Maryland told the Prince George's County school to shape up, or else. It has been four years since the federal government raised the pressure with a law meant to force shake-ups through aid and sanctions.

Yet Charles Carroll Middle School has continued to fall short of state standards, even though the county has switched textbooks, changed principals three times and even assigned a "turnaround specialist."

So far, actions and threats have been fruitless. The school, for a second straight year, is at the final stage of a state "needs improvement" list. It will stay there at least one more year. State officials call this stage "the deep end."

Earlier than D.C., Virginia and most other states, Maryland faces a question posed by the No Child Left Behind law: What happens when a school reaches the end of the line?

Last week, the Bush administration offered one answer. It proposed $100 million to help parents with children in last-stage public schools move them to private schools or obtain tutoring. The proposal riled school-voucher opponents but underscored the issue's growing urgency.

Maryland Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick said she has asked her attorneys for guidance on the extent of the state's power to remake or take over 65 last-stage schools in Prince George's and Baltimore.

It was Grasmick, in January 1998, who targeted Charles Carroll Middle and eight other Prince George's schools. At the time, she spoke of a possible state takeover. Grasmick took a major step in Baltimore in 2000, hiring a private company to operate three lagging schools there. But she held back in Prince George's. Now, Grasmick said she is taking another look at schools such as Charles Carroll Middle.

"I think we cannot say with good conscience that we can allow a school that has been identified for this period of time to continue to be low performing," Grasmick said in a recent interview. She said she respects local authority over public schools. "But we also have to be respectful of opportunities for children," she said.

Eric Wood, the high-energy rookie principal of Charles Carroll Middle, isn't waiting for Maryland to bring down the hammer. He has restored hallway order in a school with a history of disciplinary trouble. He believes students should walk to the right, preferably with shirts tucked in. When he arrived at the New Carrollton campus last summer, Wood literally dispelled gloom. He put fluorescent bulbs in corridors where some light fixtures were empty.

Wood also tinkered with the school's name.

On his business cards, on the school Web site and on green and white uniforms that students began wearing in January, Wood inserted a word into the school name that he said signals a commitment. For him and 950 seventh- and eighth-graders, it's now "The New Charles Carroll Middle School."

"It's a renewal of the mind and a perception of what you think about Charles Carroll," Wood said. "It's like a covenant. I put it out there. So now you have to back it up."