School Choice: Baltimore CIty All-School Fair

This weekend at Poly-Western was the great Baltimore Fair, and I’m glad I went early because I have never seen so many people interested in Baltimore City Public Schools in one place. It was quite a showing!

I really like the idea of this fair: students and parents can see presentations from all of Baltimore’s schools at once. Each school can showcase what they do best, and each school can compete for the most engaged students. Students and parents also get choice in their education (or the education of their children). This is the most important part of the fair. Instead of just going to the neighborhood school where their students are assigned, parents can have agency in the decision process. If the parents hear negative things about their neighborhood school, or if they hear positive things about other schools, parents can take actions to help their kids.

My high school is one of the schools that doesn’t have exciting or particularly innovative programs. It is a typical zone high school that claims having a certain theme, but doesn’t have any funding to allow the school to explore that theme, and it doesn’t have a particular mission to expound that theme. If fairs like this are successful, and if parents take ownership of their children’s schools, maybe high schools like the one at which I teach will be lost. I don’t think this is necessarily negative. If a school doesn’t serve the needs of the population living within the neighborhood, and if it is unable to engage students in learning, then maybe it means that it’s time for the school to close.

The challenge in Baltimore will be keeping the geographic diversity of high schools alive. If only the most popular high schools remain open, there must still be schools available to every student. These schools must be located throughout the city.