Hooray for Alonso!

While Buz has sometimes disagreed with Dr. Alonso, CEO of Baltimore's Public Schools, he wholeheartedly agrees with yesterday's plea to stay the course on the Maryland High School Assessments. This is really a crime issue. So many of these kids go through their school years playing around, playing hooky, running the halls, hanging out, and just thinking that it's all a game--like on the streets. There are no consequences. What Dr. Alonso was saying yesterday is: this ain't juvenile court, guys and gals. There are consequences: you won't be pushed thru to graduate.

Buz works part-time as a vocational caseworker at a local nonprofit, where about 70% of the clients are court-awarded. His job is to help them find jobs. It is so sad to see men (they're mostly men) in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who dropped out of school--most will say 10th grade, though they probably weren't doing much by then--and never went back to a GED. Many have several children. Their job prospects are meager and limited-with a few exceptions. They enjoyed the pleasures of running the streets, hanging out with the girls, smoking a little weed, and not going in for all that nerd-like crap. (Peter Moskos says in his book that: "drug dealers get laid".) Well, people make decisioons.

And I know, this all sounds kind of judgmental, and your consultant feels very sorry for the kids who dropped out of school because the school was controlled by punks and thugs, (now gang members), who get their kicks beating up on people who were not them. But the GED route was always an option, even to them. But nobody was able to, or wanted to perhaps, take them aside and say: Ya gotta stop all this street stuff; without an education you'll get nowhere. But the decision to say that were not made; and the decision to finish even a basic education was not made. And now, as adults, the past is never dead--it's not even past. In three years, I've seen dozens of clients who I've urged to get their GED's; to my knowledge, a handful or less have tried.

Good for Dr. Alonso! He's sending the right message to the kids and their parents: school is not a prison; it is not a playground; it is an opportunity. {Posted in the vestibule of the Institute of Notre Dame}.

Get out of my face!

Buz read with interest Dan Rodricks column today on the travails of an idealistic young man who tried to teach in the Baltimore City Public Schools. To use a sports metaphor, their bench was deeper than his. It seems that the first order of business in teaching kids is "classroom management"--which Buz used to think was a B.S. course. I mean like kids will do kids stuff. But some of the things that column mentioned mirrored Buz's attempt to teach high school kids a couple of classes at Walbrook--allegedly a "magnet" school back then.  The class would not stop talking, or throwing things at each other.

Buz and an assistant could not control the classes for even 5 minutes: since what we had to say was not going to be on a test, and we were not their regular teachers, they were not interested. In the school, fights, running the halls, and fires were not uncommon.

The quote "get out of my face" says it all. Buz would never have dreamed to say it to one of my teachers in any of my schools. The kids who say that and throw things at the teacher and talk in class are actually preparing themselves for a life of the streets and the prisons. It's really sad: public education is there and available; a few misfits destroy it for all.

Perhaps the kids should have a smoking break so that they could smoke a couple of blunts and "relax": "it's hard out there".  I guess so if you don't even have a high school education or GED.

I'm puzzled why the teacher blames himself, as opposed to the parents, or even the kids themselves, or the schools system. He wants teachers paid $100K a year; that's a good idea. But it sounds as though we would be getting highly-paid prison wardens--at least in some schools.

The Sun recently had an op-ed columnist who reported that the drop-out rates in the city for the Teach for America and Resident Teacher programs were about 85% after  2 years in the system. An MSTA official recently told your consultant that the rate at which new teachers had their contracts not renewed (fired) was about 50% in the city.

The point of all this is that this is where crime begins: the kids learn that they can do whatever they want, say whatever they want, and no one tells them that there are consequences. "Get out of my face" works on the corner, or basketball court, or in jail with other inmates--maybe. Don't try telling that to your new boss, the inquiring cop, or to the judge.

Crime and Security in Baltimore: random thoughts

There's been soooooo much happening with crime and security stuff in Baltimore and elsewhere that it's' been hard to keep up!

• A teacher's beating on a cell phone camera, which occurred in Reginald F. Lewis High School, is alarming and disturbing--but not entirely surprising at at all. Fighting is apparently an elective at many of the city's zoned high schools. Sheesh. Doesn't that young woman teacher know that? When she told the student to sit down, and she didn't, that was it: the teacher could have told her to leave (the girl probably wouldn't have) or just ignored her and kept on going with her lessons. I hate to say it, but the dumb principal was right in one respect: once you say you're "going to defend yourself", that's a trigger word to these street thugs who just wanna fight. By the way, why didn't the principal report the incident? Betcha, 6-1, because word has come down from Dr. Alonso that our "children" need to be in school, not suspended--and she didn't want her own lack of control in the building to be noticed. (Also, she was probably saving her suspensions for when she "really" needed them.) Besides, don't these city teachers know that fighting skills are important for them as well?
• Buz has learned from an informed source that "hallwalkers" are really getting prevalent at Reginald F. Lewis, now that the weather has turned warm. Hallwalkers are "students" who check into the school, but don't go to some or any of their classes. They walk the halls of the building all day. Ok, sometimes they run when they see an Assistant Principal or School Police. It's very sad. I see the results every day when I work as a vocational coach at a nonprofit: folks who dropped out of high in order to participate in the fun of the halls, then the streets. They never go back for a GED, and then years later, they lament the fact that they can only get the very lowest level laborer jobs (or too often, no job at all). I spoke with one man who lamented that he was 40 years old, and was washing dishes at a local hospital and he felt awful about it. Well, he had no GED, several arrests, no real work history, and wondered why, perhaps, the hospital wasn't having him help with the surgery.
• Your consultant tried to teach a couple of classes at Walbrook High School a few years ago, to the Criminal Justice students, no less. Neither I nor my Community Service Officer could control the class for even 5 minutes. The class would not stop talking or fooling around. We eventually gave up and showed them a movie. Because we were not their regular teacher, they felt they owed us no respect or attention: it wasn't going to be on the test. 
• Baltimore has several "elite" high schools, which require standards to get in and stay in: City, Poly, School for the Arts, Western, Carver and Mervo. If they did not exist, the entire school system would collapse and many middle class families  would move out. 
• This teacher beating came on the tube the same day that the news broadcast a story about 8-10 kids attacking two others with lacrosse sticks (this is Baltimore, after all). It even showed the attackers running. (Not back into the school, though). And then it showed them running into a building where an adult came out and was showing and  pointing a rifle (this is Baltimore, after all). Police said that part was unfounded. Huh? I guess he was just demonstrating his right to bear arms. 
• All of this means that if you are relocating to Baltimore, you must find out where the good schools are at the elementary/middle level and move to that area. For example, the Tuxedo Park and Roland Park areas are zoned for Roland Park Elementary and Middle Schools-which are good and have a high level of parent involvement. Otherwise, you must go the parochial or private school route.