Could communities be to blame for Baltimore’s failing schools?

In a city where less than 15% of the adults 18-25 are enrolled in colleges or universities and less than 40% graduate high school, education in Baltimore is in crisis. In the article, “Get Real: Here’s the Boost that Poor Children, their Teachers and their Schools Really Need” from the Spring 2007 issue of American Educator, Antonia Cortes explains that one of the major problems causing the education gap in cities like Baltimore is the socio-economic status of our students. Cortes goes on to explain that children from low-income households are three times as likely to score in the “bottom quartile on assessments of reading, math, and general knowledge” than are children from middle or upper class households. As children progress to the higher grades, this education gap increases as middle and upper class students read and learn over the summer vacation while children from lower-income households often do not. As a result, low-income students will graduate at a much lower level than their peers if they do not receive a better-than-average and highly accelerated education.

Unfortunately, I believe that Cortese is correct in looking to the environments where our children spend 17 hours per day for 185 days each year, for answers to the education crisis in Baltimore City. In many cases, I have met with parents who make it clear that education is not a priority and since many of our student’s parents have not graduated high school, it is impossible to expect that it would be. As a result, our children are not getting the support they need at home in order to be successful at school. In fact, many of our children see a greater financial benefit to dropping out of school than continuing on to graduation. As educators it sometimes feels like our hands are tied. We can provide students with extra help and knowledge based curricula taught by highly qualified teachers in a positive and well organized classroom, but we can only keep students in that environment for seven hours a day, five days a week. We cannot help what a student does or does not do once he or she gets home.

As a result of my desire to untie my hands and close the education gap, I was excited to read Cortese’s article, hoping to find some new and innovative approaches to teaching students with a low socio-economic status. Unfortunately, what I found in Cortese’s article were more “band-aid” solutions such as improving teacher quality, creating a culture of respect among students and providing knowledge rich curricula. While I agree that these strategies are a step in the right direction, I cannot help but think that urban school districts, Baltimore included, are blatantly ignoring the larger community issues that may be contributing to this education gap.

In communities where drug deals, murders and high school drop outs can be found around nearly every corner it is hard to ignore the impact that Baltimore City has on our students. If Baltimore continues to ignore the relationship between our failing schools and the problems in our urban communities, we will continue to do a disservice to our children. Until BCPSS and the Baltimore City government recognize that improving city schools needs to be a joint, community based effort, than we will never be able to close the learning gap. Unfortunately, it seems that much like Antonia Cortese and her “new ideas for urban reform,” neither BCPSS nor Baltimore City itself are willing to put in the effort to improve the conditions of our urban neighborhoods therefore deciding to put a million band-aids on the problem rather than face the enormity and complexities of the truth behind our failing schools.

I do not pretend to know what the answer is for improving Baltimore City schools, but I do know that ignoring the issue and pretending it does not relate to the problems in our communities is doing a huge disservice to our children and expanding the educational gap.

AFT - Publications - American Educator - Spring 2007 - Get Real