Dr. Stuart Berger does not shy away from controversy. Some say he thrives on it.
Since becoming Baltimore County's schools superintendent in July 1992, he has done the following: transferred hundreds of students with disabilities to neighborhood schools, demoted some popular school administrators, opened gifted and talented classes to more students, eliminated letter grades for primary schoolers, and criticized suspensions and expulsions as an ineffective way to deal with disruptive students.
Dr. Berger's detractors say he is brash and arrogant, and he is moving the system in the wrong direction.
Meanwhile, Dr. Berger concedes that he's prone to "intellectual arrogance" and issues a warning to his critics: "You take me on, you take me on at your own intellectual peril." He also challenges them to demonstrate how any of his decisions were not in the best interests of the students.
Dr. Berger recently took heat over holiday observances in the schools. The issue emerged in December 1993 when a Jewish family questioned the policy at Catonsville's Hillcrest Elementary School.
After temporarily settling the issue last year, Dr. Berger appointed a committee of teachers, parents, administrators and clergy to recommend a policy. When the committee suggested eliminating all observances and symbols related to religious holidays, Dr. Berger shied from it, saying he was not going to take Santa Claus away from Baltimore County youngsters. Dr. Berger did not want secular symbols banned. But late last month, the school board voted unanimously to keep the present practice, which forbids religious observances and displays, but allows individual schools to set appropriate guidelines for secular celebrations.
Q: A year ago you said you would form a committee to develop a consistent policy for nonreligious observances of religious holidays in schools. But even after the committee's work and recommendations from it and you, there is still no consistent policy. What happened?
A: People with more power than me [school board members] thought I was wrong. It's simple.
Q: And why did the board members vote to stay with present practice?
A: I think they thought it [the committee's recommendation] was a sledgehammer to kill a gnat. It was being made into a countywide problem. It was a problem in one building, and it should have been handled in that building.
Q: Do you know what's happening in the schools with holiday observances?
A: My sense is not much. If you're doing what you did last year, you're probably not having many problems.
Is the issue settled?
It may be at rest this year, but it's not going to go away, as the community gets more and more diverse, and the country moves to the right.
Q: How do noneducation issues, such as the holiday policy, become so important, so visible?
A: Because the schools are integral to the community. Also, because we've had so much controversy, [people now think that] no controversy is good. That's one of the sad things that has happened in Baltimore County.
And what's also happening is people think they can do anything they want if they scream at us [the school board and the administration]. That is a very, very dangerous policy.
Q: Is the board acting on these two perceptions?
A: I don't second-guess the board in public.
Q: Other than this uproar over the holiday policy and a few localized skirmishes, the school system has not been the subject of as much controversy as it was during your first year as superintendent. Do you miss the attention?
A: There is a part of me that does. Sure, sure. I would lie if I said I didn't. But I didn't love being this controversial lunatic. . . . It's just too hard. I've had my 15 minutes. I've had 40 minutes.
Q: Why have you pointed to the change in the seniority policy for teachers as the most significant accomplishment of your first two years? The change allows principals to choose teachers whom they think will do the best job in their schools, rather than simply the person with the most seniority.
A: Seniority is not in the best interest of kids, it's in the best interest of adults. But the easiest thing is to do what is best for adults. Appease the teachers, appease the parents, appease everybody else. And I certainly do that on more than one occasion. What seniority has done is produce these schools where I've got 30 percent of the teachers who are new and we have people going to certain schools to retire and the principals' hands are tied.
We're the only district that doesn't pay attention to seniority in the whole state. I've taken my statutory powers. I assign and I transfer. There were so many situations where principals were calling me and saying I just don't want this person. The key is . . . it's the needs of students that have to be met, it's not the convenience of the teachers.
Q: Have there been challenges to seniority?
A: There have been some. I don't even know where they are in the pipeline, and I don't care. I told the principals to treat people fairly, but if you have a biology opening, pick the best person for your school, period, and I'll support you all the way. And is that going to tick people off? Sure. I mean, this is not a popularity contest.
A superintendent cannot succeed -- no leader can succeed -- who doesn't have people who agree with him and . . . [who] can't inspire some kind of loyalty to the mission. You have to do that. You can't govern because you think you're some genius and nobody else agrees. I'll be the first to admit that. But I do think that what I'm trying to say to people is I think I'm pulling in nTC the right direction and you're going to have to give me the leeway of being wrong sometimes.
Q: Some school observers would say that the magnet schools are fostering social change in Baltimore County, where it has been customary for many people to buy houses because of the school district they are in. What do you think about that?
A: I believe that the magnet schools will allow people to remain in Baltimore County without having to worry about the neighborhood school being their only choice. Your child can go to a school . . . 30 miles away, 20 miles away. It's forcing the neighborhood school to market. Dulaney [High School] has got to market. . . . Dulaney never had to market. It just said, "Here it is, we're the best thing going and come here." And people said, "You're right and here we come."
What I hope it will do is say to people in certain neighborhoods that they can stay right there even if they have some concern about the school in their neighborhood. The other thing we try to do with magnets and [other innovative] programs is to beef up some schools. I'm not blind. We've got some schools that do not have the reputation they should have. We have some schools that aren't very good. People should have a negative attitude toward them.
I think there are two camps in Baltimore County . . . those who believe that the school system should remain as it is with some tinkering. I don't think there's anybody who'll argue that the school system shouldn't change at all. That's just too wild a proposition.
And then there's the group that says no, there needs to be some systemic change that is a fundamentally different way of delivering services. And we don't have that. I've tinkered with the system, I haven't changed it.
You talk about accomplishments, if I had the 40 administrators to do [demote or transfer] over again, you know what I'd do? (He snaps his fingers.) Like that, it's got to be. I had to do that, as painful as it was.
Now, inclusion [putting handicapped students in neighborhood schools], I'd do that, too. But would I do that the same way? Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Q: In a county schools study last spring, parents listed their main concerns as standards and discipline. Do you think standards are going down in county schools?
A: I don't see it. In fact, the data are to the opposite. We have more kids taking the SAT. Eventually, this has got to show up. I think the school system is challenging students more than it ever has. And we have our Advanced Placement results and I assume we are going to release them one of these days.
Q: And discipline? Do you hear much about it?
A: Oh, yeah. It's the biggie. . . . I can't go to a meeting where discipline isn't an issue. More with teachers, I'd say, than parents -- though parents certainly raise it a lot.
I think the times are becoming very conservative, and I wonder -- I know this will get me in trouble -- whether or not we bring some of it on ourselves.
For instance, one of our middle schools was deciding what color hair the kids could have. Who cares? That's not behavior. I think people with green hair look sort of silly and most parents won't let you have green hair, but if you want to have green hair, I don't know that you're causing a major problem. Or a boy having an earring. I mean it's not my thing, but . . .
I'm not certainly trying to say that it's all our fault, because I don't believe that. I think we shouldn't tolerate bad behavior. That is our fault. And I think most kids, if we absolutely have high expectations, will behave. . . . [County teachers union President Ray] Suarez wants us to get more punitive. Oh, come on. That's not going to work. . . . It feels good, but it's not going to work.
Obviously, from some teachers' perspectives, the fewer disruptive kids they have to deal with, the better, and I understand that. I think the alternative schools are the answer. I do think that we probably need to be expecting better behavior. However, then you've got to take some of the constraints off the kids, and you've got to give them some responsibility and expect them to behave well. And then correct them when they don't.
Q: You have appointed a committee, headed by former Baltimore County police Chief Cornelius J. Behan, to investigate student behavior and discipline. When will that committee make its report?
A: I think February. I gave them as much time as possible. I'm interested in focusing on his recommendations. . . . It's a very broad-based committee that's really reaching out to the community. And we'll try to implement their suggestions. I'm not saying we'll implement all of them, but we'll try. . . . Some of them may be very controversial.
8, Mary Maushard is a reporter for The Sun.