By placing specialty schools in our neighborhoods, we can reverse the decline in neighborhood schools and save money spent on transportation. Adding more specialty schools was far more difficult than I realized when I proposed it four years ago. The chief barriers to new schools, I discovered, have been the lack of space at the elementary and middle school levels, a shortage of leaders to develop these schools, and the expectation that specialty schools would receive extra funds, reducing funding for all other schools. Each of those barriers is in the process of being overcome. The Neighborhood Schools Initiative will increase the availability of space in overcrowded neighborhoods, thus freeing up space in schools which are presently receiving few local children.
Leadership initiatives promise to increase the supply of outstanding principals.
And the board's adoption of equitable funding removes the financial resistance to specialty schools. The first results are appearing in the Fall of 2001. Maryland School will start to phase in a Montessori program. Victory will establish a gifted and talented program. It seems likely that there will be additional specialties in coming years, as schools scramble to adopt programs that will attract more students.