Articles

CHILDREN'S ZONE I'm a strong believer in utilizing the experience of others. There are many programs and organizations around the country that have been successful at fighting some of the problems we face in Baltimore now. One of these organizations is the Harlem Children's Zone in New York. The organization started with one block and has expanded to nearly a hundred blocks. As we need to do here, they take a multi-faceted approach to breaking the cycle of poverty. Programs offered include parenting workshops, pre-school, charter schools, fitness, health care and nutrition programs. Some of their programs have already been instituted on a small scale in Baltimore, but we can create similar programs that utilize some of their best ideas and add innovations to create a larger and more rapid impact. CITY SCHOOLS A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to observe a day at one of Baltimore's Elementary-Middle Schools, primarily with a fifth-grade class. While there were some advantages there that I didn't have growing up, there were also areas that we should all have concerns about. My first concern was that I heard more yelling at students in one day than I heard in my entire twelve years in public school. If teachers and staff need to yell at students that much, there is something wrong somewhere. It's not necessary. The art teacher that came into the classroom handled the students perfectly, without ever raising her voice. My second concern was that computers in the classroom were not utilized effectively. Time given for research was more frequently used for playing on the computer. It's a good thing to have in the classroom, but there still many things that can be achieved more effectively without using computers. One other concern was that the class had a girl that didn't know English. Her friend interpreted information to her. How much education will this child lose from not being able to understand the teacher directly. We certainly have enough Spanish-speaking students in the city to run specialized classes, tailored to give them a full education, while also teaching them English. Maryland has some great schools, including schools in Baltimore, but many parents have lost confidence in the system. Throughout my real estate career, from 1992 to the present day, I've seen a recurring theme of parents looking to buy a house in Baltimore County once their children reached age three or four, so that they could send their children to county schools. The loss of tax revenue, caused by the loss of these families alone, has been a major contributing factor to virtually all of the problems the city faces. Improving city schools is not enough. We must restore widespread confidence in the school system. We must also objectively evaluate the impact of Common Core statewide. We will have had enough experience with the curriculum changes to determine if they are having a positive or negative impact on students, and make adjustments as appropriate.

LIFE 101 As part of the education process, students need to be taught to survive and succeed. This is especially true in cases where the parents don't have such knowledge to pass on to their children. Failure to educate students in basic adult survival skills leads to generations of people that don't know how to manage money, don't know to interview for a job and don't know how to get promoted when they get a job. By age 18, everyone should know how to make and stick to a budget, how to cook and do laundry, how to change a flat tire. They should learn both the importance and the advantage of honest and ethical behavior. They should know who all of their elected officials are, and not only the importance of voting, but also the importance of examining all the consequences of legislation and what their elected officials voted for or supported. Over the course of one high school year, students should spend an hour a week in a class that teaches them all the skills they will need to get ahead in life. This is probably more critical than most of the educational skills they are currently getting. There are janitors that have retired with hundreds of thousands of dollars in their bank accounts because they handled money responsibly. Conversly, there are people who have had high-paying jobs for most of their adult lives, but retire with very little to show for it. It's not how much you make in life, it's how much you keep. We must also get away from the concept that everyone should go to college. If somebody wants, that we should give them the tools they need to achieve it. But college isn't right for everyone. We need to help them be the best they can be at whatever they want in their future.