What happens to students when a school closes, and what is the impact on the alumni?

As a native Baltimorean and proud graduate of the city’s public school system I am saddened each time a schoolhouse padlocks its door for the final time. These closures make me wonder if others feel the same sense of loss or displacement.

Every primary and middle school my siblings or I attended has been closed. Once shuttered, the classrooms where I learned to read, count, make friends and began my dream of earning a living as a writer, often fall upon hard times. 

One of my old schools sat vacant for years, vandalized nearly beyond recognition. Another building etched into youthful memories was re-purposed into municipal use as a training facility. The middle school my brother attended became an alternative learning center for at-risk juveniles. Years after it was closed, toxic installation materials were discovered in the school where I attended kindergarten. It was quickly and quietly demolished.

During the 2013 Maryland legislative session, Baltimore City Public Schools secured permission and funding to implement a multi-million dollar facilities improvement venture. It remains to be seen if a better building equals a better education. One thing is certain, for many current students the upheaval and anxiety of going to a new, unfamiliar school will be disruptive at best and in some cases disastrous.

There is also the impact on underserved neighborhoods that desperately need the jobs and professional presence of a public school. Long after the chain grocery stores, first-run movie theaters, pharmacies and banks pulled up and moved away, schools and churches are often the only institutions left to anchor the community and offer a safe haven to

residents.

I am aware that the city’s long-range plan is to replace the aging school buildings with new and better structures. But, in fragile neighborhoods, 18 months (or more) of construction and displacement can be tough on a family’s routine.  

A few months ago, I heard that my high school, Northwestern is slated for closure. I can remember when the school opened. I was a seventh grader at Pimlico Junior High, which by the way closed a few years ago and is now a rather elaborate, state-of-the art police training facility. Former mayor Sheila Dixon graduated from Northwestern, a school that produced a number of doctors, lawyers, at least one public school principal and scores of professionals in other respected fields. 

It’s no surprise that I’m pretty upset by the prospect of Northwestern shutting down. Given my thoughts on this issue it may seem I’m just someone resistant to change, reluctant to let go of the past. However, consider the words and thoughts of 17-year-old Alexis Banks,

a senior who spoke out publicly in protest of the planned closing of her high school. "Every student should have a high school to go back to, to say, 'This is where I came from. This is what got me where I am.” Alexis, has been accepted to seven colleges including Virginia Tech and offered a full scholarship at Towson University.

Moving on, I’m just asking… am I the only one disturbed by the fact that one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers had failed seven college courses without getting kicked out of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth?

In my years as an educational advocate for poor and African American students, I have seen several young people who struggled academically be dismissed from a white college after failing two or three classes. To me this is an unbelievable footnote to the bombing that killed three bystanders and seriously injured over a 250 people. Nevertheless it’s  true!

The New York Times obtained a copy of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s college transcript. The 19-year-old University of Massachusetts (UMASS) student had seven Fs over three semesters, a D and a D-plus in two other courses. Ironically, one of his failing grades was in “Introduction to American Politics. 

According to the school’s website the average GPA of accepted students is 3.25. Yet, he was a white, foreign-born student with grades that put him well below the college’s academic standards.   

A former classmate reports that Tsarnaev said he wasn’t doing as well as he expected because going from high school to college is “totally different.”

Reports indicate he was in this country on a student visa, which would have been revoked if the school had kicked him out of college for academic failure. This is of course pure speculation, but perhaps the Boston Marathon tragedy could have been avoided with more diligent and fair academic oversight by UMASS. 

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and mother of three school-aged children believes that “Education matters, because only the educated are free.”

The topic of education reform brings to mind an endless list of clichés. Take your pick, these many failed attempts to improve education can be described as: pie in the sky, throwing good money after bad, cost and arm and a leg; wishful thinking; and too little too late— to name just a few. Or perhaps worst of all, it’s everyman for himself when it comes to receiving the benefits of education reform measures.

For poor and minority students the creation and implementation of educational programming that ensures academic success as evasive as a diet pill that lets you over-eat and stay slim. However, the lack of past success is no excuse for throwing in the towel (another tired cliché) when our children’s lives can be shortened without access to a good education.

It is not an exaggeration to say the quality and longevity of your child’s life depends upon whether or not they receive a good education. Every year hundreds of young people die needlessly, victims of violence, ignorance, poverty, and a whole host of ailments that are associated with poor decision-making. A closer look at the root cause of these problems can most often be traced back to the lack of early academic success.

Waiting for an over-paid public school administrator, a self-serving politician or well-meaning but, under funded social activist to create education reform guaranteed to secure your child’s future, is in most cases, a useless waste of time.

Clean, safe schools, great teachers and effective academic programming are very expensive. Kids come up short, but not for the lack of money spent. Each year federal, state and local governments pour hundreds of millions of dollars into education. Unfortunately, children are on the wrong end of those generous funding streams.

Education is big business. It is highly profitable to the providers at the expense of its biggest customers, our children. The Washington Post reports that the education sector now represents nearly nine percent of the country’s gross domestic product!

Yet, according to the most recent national reading test, only 38 percent of high school seniors are “proficient” in reading, meaning these students cannot write an essay based on an article that they’ve read. This means our schools have a 62 percent failure rate.

While I am not an economist or business manager, it’s safe to say that very few companies could survive with such a dismal lack of success. Patrick Farenga, who wrote “Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling,” asks an intriguing question: Are schools a [business] market or a civic institution? Corporate funding and involvement, and how schools respond to it, will be the deciding factor, says Farenga.

His response reveals the complexity of this issue. “School has become big business— not only are countless new educational products on the market, but investors are hot to make money off the schools themselves. The goals of education, however, run far counter to business.”

Other critics point out that, “The school reforms of the past 20 years have been exactly this application of business models and metrics to the learning and lives of children, and the results have been largely disappointing, so why intensify what isn't working? Further, the critics warn that private interests should not influence public school policies, and that the school environment and curricula will shift to accommodate the implicit goals of important corporate supporters.”

In an article titled “Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S.

K-12 Market,” Stephanie Simon reports the following from a recent gathering of public sector vendors of school supplies and services.

Attendees were told to “Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it. It could get really, really big."

Simon adds, “Investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education. The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18.

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into— fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. 

They are pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.”

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and mother of three school-aged children believes that “education matters, because only the educated are free.”

It’s easy to take the public library for granted. But parents and families looking for activities that are fun as well as education should take a closer look at the public library’s wide variety of programs and services. The Baltimore’s library’s name says it all— nearly everything at Enoch Pratt Free Library is offered without charge.  While many people believe all good things come at a price this venerable institution is clearly the exception to the rule.

If the 11th Annual Fairy Tale Festival were measured in dollars and cents it would be priceless. Described as an “extravaganza” this month-long FREE literary festival includes opportunities for children to dress up like princes or princesses, create art projects, act out their favorite fairy tales and explore the many literary wonders of the Enoch Pratt Library.

On Sunday April 14, 2013 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. the Central Branch will host a Skype conversation with author Catherynne Valente. Her two loquaciously named novels The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, describe the adventures of September, an engaging young girl who went to Fairyland, and the characters she meets there.

Technology savvy teens and fairy tale fans of all ages are invited to join in a Skype conversation with the author and learn more about September's journeys. "Fairy food" will be served. FREE!

Throughout the month the Fairy Tale Festival the Enoch Pratt (pardon the pun) branches out with a wide variety of activities and events at its neighborhood libraries. On Monday, April 8  “The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man” was read at the Hamilton branch. Afterwards, kids were able to decorate their own Gingerbread man to enjoy or to take home.

Think you know the story of the Three Little Pigs?  Children 6 to 12 read this classic tale with a new spin at the Hamilton branch on Thursday, April 11.  Then youngsters built their own house to see if it could withstand the huffing and puffing. 

On Saturday, April 13 at 1:00 p.m. bring your aspiring Terrace Howard or Kerry Washington to the Roland Park branch to listen to a fairy tale and they will get the chance act out a favorite role. In addition to sharpening their acting skills, children ages three to 12 can make regal crafts and practice royal manners.

Movies based on bestselling books are a popular, yet very expensive weekend activity. Why not enjoy a free classic film at the library. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is considered by many film historians to be the best written screenplay. This 1962 Oscar Winning film takes place in a small

Depression-era Alabama town in the 1930s. Lee's story is told through the eyes of six-year-old "Scout" Finch, daughter of Atticus Finch played by Gregory Peck.

Finch, the town lawyer is a wise, quiet man with a great sense of justice who defends a poor, black man accused of rape. This is a must see film for young teens, who may be inspired to read the book and write a story based on a significant event in their lives. The film will be shown at the main library on Saturday April 20, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

For younger children “Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted” will be shown at the Orleans Street Branch on Saturday, April 13 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple. Their journey takes them through Europe where they find the perfect cover: a traveling circus, which they reinvent— Madagascar style.

For directions to the library and a full schedule of special events, visit: www.prattlibrary.org

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and mother of a son who attends college in Maryland believes education matters because “only the educated are free.” 

Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion competitive federal grant program that provides a financial reward to states that develop and implement programs which create the conditions for significant educational improvement by closing achievement gaps, increasing high school graduation rates and college preparedness.

Adoption of standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace in order to compete in the global economy is one of the fund’s four education reform areas.

While Maryland did not apply for the first round of funding, it does intend to compete this June. To bolster the state’s efforts the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) was formed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA).

The CCSSI is in the process of creating a set of grade-by-grade voluntary state standards for what students should know in English/language arts, math, and eventually science.

 Critics of the concept of common core standards are concerned that curriculum may be “dumbed down” to meet the academic needs of a student population that grows more diverse each year. Supporters believe it is the best way to ensure uniformity and academic accountability.  

To provide an overview of the program and help parents make an informed decision on the merits of a common core curriculum the CCSSI provides answers to the following frequently asked questions:

What are educational standards?

 Educational standards help teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning.

 Who leads the Common Core State Standards Initiative?

The nation’s governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers led the development of the Common Core State Standards and continue to lead the initiative. Teachers, parents, school administrators and experts from across the country together with state leaders provided input into the development of the standards.

 Why is the Common Core State Standards Initiative important?

 High standards that are consistent across states provide teachers, parents, and students with a set of clear expectations that are aligned to the expectations in college and careers. The standards promote equity by ensuring all students, no matter where they live, are well prepared with the skills and knowledge necessary to collaborate and compete with their peers in the United States and abroad.

Unlike previous state standards, which were unique to every state in the country, the Common Core State Standards enable collaboration between states on a range of tools and policies, including:

the development of textbooks, digital media, and other teaching materials aligned to the standards;

and the development and implementation of common comprehensive assessment systems to measure student performance annually that will replace existing state testing systems; and

changes needed to help support educators and schools in teaching to the new standards.

How do the Common Core State Standards compare to previous state standards?

The Common Core State Standards were written by building on the best and highest state standards in existence in the U.S., examining the expectations of other high performing countries around the world, and careful study of the research and literature available on what students need to know and be able to do to be successful in college and careers.

No state in the country was asked to lower their expectations for their students in adopting the Common Core. The standards are evidence-based, aligned with college and work expectations, include rigorous content and skills, and are informed by other top performing countries. They were developed in consultation with teachers and parents from across the country so they are also realistic and practical for the classroom.

Will there be tests based on the Common Core State Standards?

Yes. States that adopted the Common Core State Standards are currently collaborating to develop common assessments that will be aligned to the standards and replace existing end of year state assessments. These assessments will be available in the 2014-2015 school year.

Next week- Part II Common Core Standards

Jayne Matthews Hopson is an education writer and mother of a son attending college. She believes education matters because “only the educated are free.”