Baltimoron of the week: Andres Alonzo

Baltimore: City schools CEO Andrés Alonso has vowed to begin new initiatives to combat student truancy after the city's performance on state tests showed an average achievement gap of 25 percentage points between elementary and middle school students who are repeatedly absent and those who attend regularly. The superintendent said he would focus on student attendance, even if it means deploying central office staff to knock on the doors of students who are chronically absent — which means they miss more than 20 days of school a year. "We are at a point now where we know that kids aren't coming to school," Alonso said. "It's a problem. We need to go the extra mile." Data taken from the city's 2010 Maryland School Assessments — which tests third- through eighth-graders in math and reading — showed there was a 15-percentage-point achievement gap in reading proficiency and a 21-percentage-point achievement gap in math between students who were chronically absent and those who weren't. More than 5,000 students in third to eighth grade were chronically absent last year.

So let me get this straight, it is a news story that kids who don't show up to school, basically at all, don't do well on the state tests?? No shit. You know, come to think of it, I missed a class in college to watch Xavier beat down National #1 and undefeated St. Joe's. You know what happened, the next class I got a 68 on the test. Sounds like we have our answer, Mr. Alonzo, go round up all of those kids, put them in vans, drop them off at school, and then poof, you have higher test scores. Good job, you earned your paycheck this week! OH WAIT, this is Baltimore son. You aren't going to find those kids, you are not going to force them back to school, and when they sit down to take those tests, they aren't going to do much better. Why? Because they aren't college students. They don't understand what school is, much less what a math or reading problem is. Maybe if we could find a way to teach the kids who do show up, we could actually get through to a few, and have them help themselves and their community. And for those who don't show up, I think we could all learn something from Bunny Colvin....