Earlier in the week on Twitter I saw a message from The Baltimore Sun which said, “Don’t panic if you hear gunshots in Charles Village today — police are testing new detection technology.”

I thought to myself it’s kind of hard not to take gun shots seriously or at least it should be pretty hard to ignore.

We saw what happened in Chicago when neighbors who lived near actress Jennifer Hudson’s mother ignored what they believed could have been gunshots. People were killed and police didn’t know for hours.

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In a couple of days I’m going to write the first check to begin repaying my undergraduate student loans. You know it’s one of those things you do because you must. This event serves as yet another sign that I’m not in college anymore. Admittedly, I miss it. I feel that way every time I go to write an e-mail versus a text so I can meet up with a friend in a dining hall or somewhere near campus. I feel that way every time someone asks about work or how life after graduation feels. A few times a week I think back to the days where what I thought about was much more simple. Read the rest of this entry »

The Obama Family

The world is watching for an all important decision to be made by the President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama. Everyone wants to know where the pair will decide to send their daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, to school come January.

This decision is mentioned in the same vein as picking the President’s cabinet. Why? It’s a consequential decision if elected to two terms, Malia would be finishing her high school career in the spring of 2017 a few months after her father leaves office. Sasha would be finishing her ninth grade year at the same time.

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JHU Post- Election Night Rally

JHU Post-Election Night Rally

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JROTC class at Forest Park High School {thanks, The Baltimore Sun}

Step 5: Send in the military.

I saved this step for last because, honestly, it’s my wild card. It’s a solution that may not be very popular. However, if it were ever implemented in earnest, it could very well be the most effective cure for our ailing schools.

While teaching at Douglass, I regularly found myself escaping to the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) wing of the building during my planning periods. Quiet, clean and empty, its hallways were an alternate universe patrolled by retired military folks in impeccably starched uniforms and crisp fatigues. Quite different from the general population of the school where anonymous packs of feral kids roamed the hallways while classes were in session. Read the rest of this entry »

Student volunteers gather in Patterson Park {Baltimore Sun photo}

Step 4: Build social responsibility into the curriculum.

My suggestions for repairing a broken school system have been relatively hard line.  Some readers have called them overly conservative.  Others have seen them as cruel and mechanical.  I imagine all apply to some degree.  There’s rarely a lasting fix that skews one way or another.  It’s more an amalgamation of perspectives.  And that’s why Steps 4 and 5 of my plan are going to confuse some folks.   They’re going to seem like contradictions of thought. In some ways, I suppose they are.  But contradictions can exist in our world.  There are evil people who do beneficent things.  There are good people who perpetrate heinous deeds.

Now, humor me for a few hundred words. I’m about to paint the Volkswagen bus, gun the bio-diesel engine, and roll down the Hippie Highway at 85 liberal miles per hour on this next step.  This is about as far left as I lean on education.  Before I tip over, anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

Teacher of the Year Thomas Acampora {Baltimore Sun photo}

Step 3: Treat teachers like professionals.

In recent years, the public has gotten the equivalent of a backstage pass into Baltimore schools.  Mainstream media - thanks in large part to HBO’s “The Wire” and the documentary “Hard Times at Douglass High” - has provided the public with a raw and sadly accurate depiction of what insiders have known for a long time. Baltimore classrooms are hurting.
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