In 2000, Don Hutchinson, then president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, was part of a group of Baltimore's business leaders asked to review and critique the city school system's master plan, an annually updated document.
He said aloud what most of us would never have articulated but likely thought: Start anew. He recommended first determining what percentage of each year's high-school entering freshman class we wanted to achieve graduation within four years; then, beginning at pre-kindergarten, building and funding the structure that would enable those young students to graduate fully prepared for the workforce or for post-secondary education.
In essence, Mr. Hutchinson was saying what Buckminster Fuller had said much earlier: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
Had the school system taken this advice and begun in 2000 to completely re-think and re-make Baltimore's public education, I believe that Freddie Gray — and hundreds of other young men and women now dead — would be alive today. Public schools are the key to a fair and just social order, to social and economic mobility and success.
Many positive steps — some separate, some coordinated — have been taken since 2000 during the tenures of five city-school-system CEOs, three mayors and four governors. There has been a concerted effort to recruit, both locally and nationally, new teachers and principals, many of whom have had a real impact on students. A significant number of organizations are partnering with the school system and providing programs that have altered the trajectory for students on multiple fronts. Public and private universities and colleges in Maryland are revamping their education departments to better prepare students for teaching in urban areas. The city, state and school system are investing $1 billion to build 21st century school buildings.
In spite of these laudable efforts, in Baltimore City schools:
•There has been a 90 percent turnover of principals over the past 7 years;
•Just 73 percent of entering ninth grade students graduate within five years, and many of those who go to college need significant remediation;
•Just 56 percent of third graders are reading at grade level;
•And under 10 percent of students from low-income families (5,131 out of 71,334 students) are at schools consistently achieving or exceeding state performance standards. At non-entrance-criteria high schools, no low income students are at schools consistently achieving state performance standards.
The mayor has set a goal of attracting 10,000 new families to Baltimore City by 2022, and more and more young couples are now making Baltimore their home. But unless our public schools improve significantly, we can expect a repeat of a long-standing scenario: moves to the suburbs when kids reach school age, and worse — continued under-performing schools under-serving our city's children.
As proxy parent for Baltimore's 86,000 students, the mayor must commit to reinventing the public education system for the children of Baltimore. The mayor must ensure that the design, funding and implementation of pre-K through 12 education prepare city graduates to enter college without the need for remediation and/or to enter the workforce earning a livable wage.
This work must be captained by the school system's CEO and be inclusive of experts — people in the community who have first-hand knowledge of what is needed — and invested stakeholders, including philanthropic organizations, corporations, non-profit organizations and city government agencies. When this happens, the outcome can be a public school system where all students are engaged in learning and have every opportunity to succeed.
Eddie Brown, Wes Moore, and Freeman Hrabowski, and countless other civic and social-change leaders know and have said that a student's journey through school, beginning at pre-K, must fully prepare him or her for the workforce of the 21st century or post-secondary education. Repeatedly, we have heard from Baltimore's children and adults in the aftermath of the Freddie Gray shooting that they want and need an education that creates positive possibilities.
If we want return on our education investment — public schools where all students have all the resources to prepare them for success in school and in life — change must not be incremental but systemic. Thinking and acting must be bold, broad and creative.
Donald Manekin served as the invited interim chief operating officer for the Baltimore City Public School System between September 2000 and August 2002 and convened the group of civic leaders asked to review the school system's master plan in 2000. He is founding member of Seawall Development, a community-focused real estate development company in Baltimore. His email is DManekin@seawalldevelopment.com.