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Rally Tonight in Annapolis for Baltimore City Schools (Quick Links)

Wish every Baltimore City Public School could look something like this? Rally tonight at 6pm on Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis.

For more about the issue, click around:

Wanna get on a bus? Looks like limited seats are still available on buses leaving from Poly and Northwood Elementary: For emails and phone numbers of bus captains click here: http://www.becforourkids.org/

Posted on February 25, 2013 at 10:23 am in Politics & Politicians, Public Information   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL

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7 Comments to “Rally Tonight in Annapolis for Baltimore City Schools (Quick Links)”

    
  1. paloma
    March 16, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    A quote from The International Federation of Journalists – “Journalists need help and support to stand up to the pressures from those who want them to be servants of big business or of political masters. The remarkable thing is that in every country and under every system, hundreds of thousands of journalists try to work to an ethical code, sometimes poorly articulated or understood, but based on a feeling that it is necessary to keep watch on those in power, to inform citizens and to act in the public interest.”
    I appreciate Mr. Ericson’s piece, and the fact that it’s in our free City Paper (with its tacky X content) is more a statement about the atrophied condition of our “respected” newspaper.
    Thanks again for your blog.

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  2. paloma
    March 15, 2013 at 9:14 am

    Okay – fair enough. When corporate interests are involved, we should all ask why. Full disclosure has never been in a corporation’s best interest. Telling people the truth has not been happening. Privatizing our irreplaceable social institutions, from our Postal Service to our Public schools, is an injury we will feel to our core. The Sunpaper is working out their own agenda. The City Paper deserves much respect for showing them what investigative journalism is in “TransForm Baltimore” ( http://citypaper.com/news/issue-11-the-money-pit-1.1457450)

    Public education is worth supporting, that’s why I joined The Network for Public Education (http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/ ) and will be attending the demonstration in D.C. at the U.S. Dept. of Education from April 4- April 7, here’s some info. (http://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/14/naison-why-i-am-speaking-at-occupy-the-doe/)

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    • Edit Barry
      March 15, 2013 at 10:31 am

      I would only disagree on one thing: Edward Ericson Jr’s City Paper article as a model of investigative journalism. I could have written the same article myself more than a year ago. It’s a book report – actually, a report on reports — reports that have been publicly available for well over a year.

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  3. paloma
    March 10, 2013 at 7:07 pm

    Cagey narrative succintly describes the “school reform” lobby in Baltimore. Have no anti-privatization letters to the editor been written? Certainly none published in The Sun. A look at the “Education Coalitions” who’s who and you’ll find lots of charter chain privatization operatives. I keep reading Diane Ravitch’s blog and shaking my head. Let’s learn from the mistakes of others in our nation and avoid privatizing our schools. Getting people to cheer for the loss of their system of public education is perverse.

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    • Edit Barry
      March 10, 2013 at 10:25 pm

      That would be perverse, indeed, but I don’t see it. To say to the families who took buses down to Annapolis and the organizers who got them there that they were rallying for privatization and the end of public education you would have to be deranged. While the trend toward privatization is unmistakable nationally, (we even had a mayoral candidate here push for PPPs to rebuild city schools), Baltimore City is pushing for government investment in capital projects (buildings) at a time when most other cities aren’t. If the money comes, the battles will ensue over who gets how much and when. I am, like you, suspicious of the motives of the charter school leaders involved in this process. Charters already enjoy fiscal benefits over neighborhood public schools under the auspices of “fair student funding.” Who’s to say they won’t use this new funding stream to their advantage? that’s a valid question. How do those of us who want to keep public education public and tax dollars in public hands do that? We organize. I suppose a letter to the Sun might be in order, if you feel strongly about these issues. The Sun editorial page has no problem with charters. It has cheered Alonso’s plan to “right size” the District and dismissed the idea that there may be something racist in its decision to close certain schools. It also seems to think test scores should be printed every year and that overcrowding in Baltimore County schools is an urgent problem. City Schools buildings that have been deteriorating for decades, with no air conditioning in summer nor heat in the winter, no doors on the bathroom stalls, water fountains from which it’s unsafe to drink–that hasn’t been so urgent for the Sun. They know who buys their paper.

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  4. Robin Bingham
    March 6, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    Has anyone done an analysis on where the 26 closing schools are located, and what this will mean for the thousands of students who currently attend them? School-closings across the country are resulting in vastly lowered educational opportunities for poor students. It seems to me quite a cagey narrative that has resulted in Baltimore families rallying to ensure they actually close.

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    • Edit Barry
      March 6, 2013 at 10:44 pm

      Excellent question. (I posed something like it in Baltimore Fishbowl in November 2011 Here’s the link. I am hoping someone from the Baltimore Education Coalition will parse out the particulars of whether winning on the block grant issue will automatically force school closures. The BEC had nothing to do with shaping Alonso’s 10 year plan, but that plan would never have come about without pressure from thousands of people who are fed up with the state of Baltimore City Public School facilities. Ironically, some of those same people are affiliated with schools that will close as a result of the pressure they helped create. That’s political action for you. Messy. Otherwise, the Sun editorial board wrote something up about the planned closure of Northwestern High School. I’d be interested to know what you think.

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