Let’s confront child sexual abuse

What if I told you that as a city we could reduce the incidents of sexual child abuse by 48%? Consider the fact that last year, the Baltimore Child Abuse Center interviewed 793 children about allegations of sexual child abuse; now consider national estimates that only one in 10 children report the abuse. Baltimore City […]

Let’s stop rewarding truant students with more time off from school

It’s good news that communities and schools are starting to pay serious attention to the problem of student absence and truancy. After all, teachers can’t teach children who simply aren’t there. Students who miss a lot of school are very likely to fail, drop out and struggle throughout their lives. Some of the renewed emphasis […]

On the responsibilities of universities

Baltimore City public schools are underperforming. The Baltimore City Data Collaborative showed that between 2006-2007, just over 44% of 8th graders were proficient in state reading assessments, and just 24.4% were proficient in math. We know that while high-school graduation rates have improved from over six years ago, still nearly 9.6% of our 9th-12th graders […]

Have you had your arts today?

High-performing schools have strong arts programs. Low-performing schools do not. This fact remains true regardless of the demographics. In fact, in challenging circumstances schools show the greatest improvement when the arts are strong. My audacious idea: at the end of each school day, each Baltimore City Public School student can answer “Yes!” to the question: […]

Protect our children

My audacious idea is that we all commit to protecting and nurturing our children. Protecting our children requires responsible parenting. It is unacceptable that any child lives in a home where he or she is not wanted and cared for. It is up to us as a community to show all children that they have […]

Rethinking the school day

Baltimore is a playful, vibrant place.  You need go no further than the parking lot of M&T Bank Stadium to watch adults chasing each other around, football in hand, before and after a Ravens game.  If you stroll through Federal Hill, Patterson Park or Canton on any given evening, you will almost certainly run into […]

Joy: a radical solution for schools

Ask any creator…an architect, sculptor, writer, carpenter, choreographer,  composer or designer. Sometimes you just have to stop and start all over again. They say it is ‘insanity’ to continue doing the same things and yet keep expecting different results. Sometimes you have to detach, throw out and then re-create. This is the formula I suggest […]

What if we let anyone who is smart enough to go to college…actually go to college?

For some reason, the immigration debate is faceless. It’s easier to say “those illegal aliens” instead of “Juan, my nephew’s best friend.” We say we have no moral responsibility to “those that broke the law coming illegally to this country,” but things change when we think of Ana Maria, our neighbor’s housekeeper.   For some reason, we […]

Using television for literacy skills

My audacious idea is to use television to help children learn their letters and, maybe, even to read.  This may be a surprising suggestion given that TV is cited as a main reason for the decline in children’s reading. But, this heretical idea comes to mind for three reasons: First, children watch a lot of […]

Keeping children from missing out

My audacious idea: Track and address chronic absence in early elementary school so every child in Baltimore can reach their full potential in school and beyond. Last year, one out of six Baltimore children were chronically absent in kindergarten through third grade– meaning that they missed twenty or more schools days for excused or unexcused […]