Baltimore City’s Hampden Elementary/Middle School #55 Gets a Gigantic U.S. Map!

We did it!

Tonight in Baltimore: Seeds of a Parent Revolution, Grassroots Style

Tonight at the Village Learning Place in Baltimore’s Charles Village, just a few blocks southeast of the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus and a few yards south of Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle School, a group of parents and caregivers will convene to hear about how three neighborhood public schools in Baltimore turned around. (Hint: It didn’t require state intervention or the contracting of outside operators or charter conversions.)

If you’re curious about the power parents have to improve a city school, don’t miss it. Cases under discussion will be Roland Park Elementary/Middle School, The Mt. Washington School, and Federal Hill Prep.

WHEN: TONIGHT! Weds, April 25, 2012.
Doors open at 7 for refreshments and the panel starts talking at 7:30 pm.

WHERE: The Village Learning Place, 2521 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

Check out the invite on the Village Parents website for more details.

Many thanks in advance to the Village Parents for organizing the event and to Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance President Judy Chung O’Brien and others for their participation.

Reflections on Year One of Re:education in Baltimore

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A week ago Baltimore storyteller Rafael Alvarez challenged me, over pita points and taramosalata at Samos, to explain what I was doing with this blog and who I was doing it for, in 140 characters or less. I couldn’t. But I took up the challenge to explain my quixotic quest, as he painted it, in my anniversary post.

Today marks one year of Re:education in Baltimore. It’s my paper anniversary. After filling a dozen creamy pages with ink (they used to call that writing), it’s time to transfer some thoughts to the Web.

What am I doing? 

I started this blog to prevent myself from alienating my friends and family. After a year of engagement with the charter versus neighborhood school quandary, I was bombarding everyone in earshot with talk of issues they either didn’t want to talk about or didn’t want to confront at the same high level of intensity. I’d learned a lot. The people in a ten-foot radius may not have cared, but I was sure others did. Why not write a blog?

What started as (and still is) an outlet for sharing knowledge and curating stories of interest quickly turned into a platform for staging public resistance. Less than a month in, I published “Why I Don’t Want a Charter School in My Backyard (Not Just Yet. Not So Fast.).” May 2011 would prove the blog’s biggest month in page views for all of 2011, not surpassed until January 2012. The uptake was thrilling in a sort of crazy-making way. I was the rookie who hit a homer in his first at bat. But it was only the beginning. I was in it for the long haul. I had bigger fish to fry.

The uptake of that post changed the direction of the blog when Baltimore NewsTrust reposted it. The site was a short-lived experiment in allowing the public to evaluate the merits of local news stories. It’s sort of like Star Search in that readers can rate selections for “style” and “originality.” It’s a grand experiment. It’s also supremely irritating in that it turns readers into judges. State senator Bill Ferguson, of all people, rated the post, and rated it “poor.” This did not endear him to me. It did get me on his radar, though, and I called him to see if he could help me improve my neighborhood school. He gave me some names. This blog became a foot in the door, a way to link to potentially helpful people in real life. I love it for that. I think that’s why I value it most.

As a result of the NewsTrust attention I began to think of myself differently as a blogger. I began to think of myself as having a journalistic obligation. That was odd. I have a full time job writing for a marketing agency that brands colleges, universities, and independent schools. I hadn’t reported a news story since 1999. But I couldn’t help seeing a major hole in news coverage in this town and a slant in opinion making that is less than progressive or populist – two words I would like to think describe my political values. When mayoral candidate Otis Rolley came out with an education agenda that encapsulated everything that was wrong with the federal push for reform, I used it to take the national conversation down to the local level. I loved his candidacy. There is no greater friend to an activist than an enemy with a four-point plan. But the race ended. And so did my turn as a spotlighter of local politics. I turned inward again, back to the mission to make my neighborhood school a top choice, and the personal tale that goes along with it.

Who’s it all for?

“This isn’t just for your son,” Rafael tells me between bites of a gyro sandwich. He’s right. I wish I could say it was. But it’s not.

Who am I fighting for? Poor people? Black people? I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself. I can’t. I won’t. I write as a parent whose salary is not commensurate with her level of education. (The irony is that I haven’t been able to cash in on my education because I work in education. I sell it. Before that I developed content for it. These are not lucrative tasks.) I might say I am a fighter for the shrinking middle class. I’m one of its voices. I care about the direction the country is taking. I worry about the future of the world my son is growing up in. I witness behavior and read language that is thoughtless and careless, that is based in prejudice, classism, and racism, and I feel compelled to call it out. I’ve been doing that since the ninth grade. It has never won me any friends.

“You’re earnest,” Rafael tells me.

“That’s my blogger persona,” I explain. “I cultivate that. I can do snark and irony and cynicism, but the blogosphere doesn’t need it.”

“That’s fine,” he says. “You can make your nuanced arguments. You can take the high road. But people want their 140 characters.”

Fine, then: I want to leave my little world better than I found it.

If that’s not enough, follow me on Twitter. Better yet, help me celebrate my anniversary by subscribing to Re:education in Baltimore today.

Are Baltimore Parents Taking Out Loans for Private Kindergarten?

A recent piece in Smart Money reports that more parents are borrowing money for their children’s independent schooling. I recently met a parent in Baltimore who had borrowed to send his child to private school here, and told me it’s cheaper to send a kid to college, after financial aid and student loans are factored in, than it is to repay loans for private school. I wonder if other parents in a similar situation would be brave enough to share their stories in the comments below.

 

Public Education Communication Breakdown

I just came across a section of a piece on education reporting — “Flunking the Test” by Paul Farhi in the February/March issue of American Journalism Review — that I find myself wishing the communications officials at Baltimore City Public Schools would read:

…veteran education reporters say they face a simple yet profound barrier to doing their job: It’s hard to get inside a classroom these days. They say administrators are wary about putting potential problems on display, particularly in the wake of No Child Left Behind and the Obama Administration’s initiative, Race to the Top.

“School systems are crazed about controlling the message,” says Linda Perlstein, author of two books about schools and, until recently, public editor of the Education Writers Association. “Access is so constricted.” As a result, she says, “There’s great underreporting of what happens in classroom, and it’s just getting worse.”

Perlstein spent three school years in classrooms to report a series about middle school for the Washington Post in 2000, and for her books, “Not Much Just Chillin’” (about middle schoolers in Columbia, Maryland) and “Tested” (about high-stakes tests). But Perlstein says other reporters were never able to gain similar access to other schools, including those in Washington, D.C., where the reform efforts of former Schools Chancellor Rhee attracted national attention.

Even with a cooperative principal or school superintendent, few reporters could make the lengthy commitment that Perlstein did in her reporting. That means journalists don’t get to see the very thing they’re reporting about. Imagine if sportswriters never got to see athletes play or political reporters never attended a campaign rally. Some districts even forbid teachers from speaking to the media on the record outside the classroom.

What to do? “You rely more and more on talking heads and less on what a school looks like,” Perlstein says. She adds, “That matters.” Ironically, superintendents and administrators “always tell me that the media gets it wrong. Well, how can we get it right when they won’t talk to us?”

Two Year Olds Shooed Off Baltimore City Public School Playground Due to State Tests

When I picked up my son – age 2.5 – after work today, his babysitter told me that she, along with him and his 2-year-old playmate, had been kicked off the playground behind her house. 

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s the MSAs,” she said. 

“Oh,” I said.  

If You Give a Kid a Cupcake, or Is Baltimore the New Brooklyn?

Yes, moms and dads, I was thinking of this book when I wrote this post!

The New York Times reported on March 16 on the cupcake wars at a Brooklyn public school. There’s some class conflict stirring up in the gentrifying neighborhood of Sunset Park, where the median income has gone from the mid-$30Ks to around $60K in the last decade. Other neighborhood schools in Brooklyn have similar stories, with some P.T.A.s running auctions that bring in thousands of dollars. Inequality is no good for community relations, even inside public schools. (The idea that P.T.A.s have to raise that kind of money at all is another issue.)

A few months ago on this blog I mentioned a book that changed my thinking about starting a charter school – sociologist Judith de Sena’s Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn. In it she reveals some bitterness about the new middle class’ rejection of neighborhood public schools in Greenpoint in favor of charters. What she seems not to appreciate is the resistance of longtime immigrant and working class communities to gentrifiers. The reasons to resist are many, not least of which is the rising costs of living that the gentry bring in their wake. An important site of resistance is the neighborhood public school, over which the old guard may not be eager to relinquish its hold.

The same dynamics are at work in Hampden, the Baltimore neighborhood where I live. The divide between old Hampden and new Hampden is so clear that it pretty much goes unmentioned. Old timers drink at Zissimo’s. Newcomers drink at Golden West, or Holy Frijoles, or 13.5% Wine Bar. Old timers buy coffee at Royal Farms or 7-11. Newcomers buy it at Common Ground or Spro. (There is no Starbucks here. The newcomers value local over corporate enterprise.) Old timers send their children to the local public school or the Catholic school a few blocks away. Newcomers? Historically, they move or pony up for private school. These days, they attempt to start charter schools or enter the charter school lottery. Now a growing group is doing what my husband and I are doing – work to make the neighborhood public school a top choice for every family zoned for it.

About a year ago I sat down on my couch and drew up a mission for an organization that was already beginning to take shape on its own. I called it Wham!, an abbreviated mash-up of Wyman Park and Hampden, two neighborhoods with lots of newcomer parents of infants and toddlers. Our first event was a playground clean-up with the principal. We’ve become regular contributors to our community organizations’ respective newsletters on the school’s behalf. We’ve connected with current parents at the school and catalyzed a move to get every conceivable volunteer opportunity at Hampden Elementary/Middle School #55 loaded up on the Baltimore City Public Schools website. We raised some cash by running a booth at Hampdenfest. We’re putting it toward painting a gigantic U.S. map on the school playground in May. The principal has dubbed us the Pre-P.T.O.

I get lots of “good for yous” and “more power to you” when I talk to people about Wham! It’s encouraging. But we all know that what’s going on in Brooklyn right now presages the kind of friction that could be stirred up here.

We know you can’t make a cupcake without breaking some eggs. If we do this right, though, we might just get some sprinkles to go with it.

Today in Annapolis: Last Stand for Baltimore City Schools Renovations

This is an email from Frank Patinella, tireless leader of the Transform Baltimore movement. Get on the bus. And if you can’t get on the bus, spread it:

Transform Baltimore

Build Schools. Build Neighborhoods.

Last hearing to support the renovation of city school buildings – We need a big turnout!  Join us!

Goal: Pass Senate Bill 533 (House Bill 304)

This bill would lay the foundation to fund more than $1 billion in school construction and renovation needs for Baltimore City, and the upcoming hearing in Annapolis is our highest priority!

We had a great presence in the House Appropriations committee on Tuesday afternoon.  The room was packed!  Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Dr. Alonso sat together and gave testimony in support of the bill.  We also heard powerful statements from over a dozen students, school staff, community advocates, religious leaders, building contractors, architects, and other experts.  We need that same energy for the Senate hearing this coming Wednesday if this bill is going to move forward!

Can you join us?  

We’re providing bus transportation!  RSVP required (leaving from Barclay Elementary at 11:30am, see below)

Wednesday, March 7 at 1:00pm

Senate Budget and Taxation Committee

Miller Senate Office Building

11 Bladen Street

Annapolis, MD 21401

Bus will leave at 11:00am from Barclay (2900 Barclay Street) and return ~4pm.  RSVP as soon as possible to transform.bmore@gmail.com or call 410.889.8550 x 123 or 119 to let us know if you plan on attending.  If you will be driving to the hearing, let us know as well!

Ben Kaufman and Frank Patinella for the Transform Baltimore team

———————–

Frank Patinella | Education Reform Project
American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland
410.889.8550 x 123 | patinella@aclu-md.org

Washington Post Opinion: French Parents are “Superior” Because of Government Support

Remember three weeks ago when I theorized that social supports for the middle class might help explain American parents’ so-called “inferiority”? Brigid Schulte, a Washington Post staff writer and a New America Foundation fellow, gives the theory some substance, here. (Thanks to my friend Giuliana for tipping me off.)

…if French parents are calmer and more confident, it’s not just because their parenting standards aren’t as intense. Another reason is on the corner: In France, that’s where you find the crèche, a government-subsidized child-care center where virtually everyone, after a four- to five-month, state-subsidized, paid parental leave, sends their children — working and at-home mothers alike.

In contrast, the United States is one of only three countries in the world, along with Swaziland and Papua New Guinea, that have no federal paid parental leave policy. After President Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Childcare Act of 1971, which promised to ensure quality, affordable child care, American parents were left to fend for themselves. In a country that pays its child-care workers less than its janitors, that is a time-consuming, expensive and often fraught search. Child-care costs, which consumed 2 percent of the average family budget in the 1960s, now take up 17 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, second only to a mortgage or rent.

Thoughts?

Three Pro-Public School Posts to Make You Smile

A parent-artist painted this mural in my neighborhood public school. What have you done for your public school lately?

“If progressives want to improve schools, we shouldn’t empty them out. We ought to flood them with our kids, and then debate vociferously what they ought to be doing.”

These are the concluding lines of Dana Goldstein’s inspection of the progressive credentials of politically liberal homeschoolers in Slate (Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Kids, February 16, 2012). While there’s a lot to argue about in that piece, right now I’m content to praise it for promoting public schooling as a political virtue. Which it is.

Here are two more pro-public school pieces that brought a smile to my face this week:

• Affluent, Born Abroad and Choosing New York’s Public Schools, Kirk Semple, New York Times, February 14, 2012
• No kids in public school? You still benefit, e! Science News, February 17, 2012

I also like this last one, though only tenuously connected to schooling, because it recognizes a trend that will only help neighborhood public schools thrive (with your help, of course):

• Most Americans want a walkable neighborhood, not a big house, Nona Willis Aronowitz, GOOD Lifestyle, February 7, 2012

Happy reading! And if you live in Baltimore, register to volunteer in a Baltimore City Public School today!