Note: After this week, Audacious Ideas will be on summer hiatus. We’ll return with an exciting new lineup of bloggers after Labor Day. For the past 10 years, as the Executive Director of Wide Angle Youth Media, I, like most nonprofit administrators, have collected thousands of surveys and assessments, from audience feedback at events, to […]
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Giving students time to make friends and socialize during their 9th grade transition would encourage more students to attend school
Monday, July 26, 2010We have an attendance problem in Baltimore. For the past three school years, over 40% percent of Baltimore City public high school students have missed a month or more of school making them chronically absent1 and last school year 49% of 9th graders missed at least a month of school.2 Imagine what would happen if […]
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A treasure map of Baltimore’s opportunities for youth
Monday, July 19, 2010Research tells us that engaging out of school time learning opportunities are a necessary part of a well-rounded childhood. Children spend only a fraction of their hours in school and need nourishing, challenging, and fun activities to fill in the balance. My audacious idea is to map all of the opportunities that currently exist for […]
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Baltimore: where everyone has a home
Monday, July 12, 2010On June 16, 2010, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress confirming what many of us already knew—family homelessness is on the rise. The same report documented an overall increase in homelessness in Maryland of 26.89% between 2008 and 2009. Baltimore County already uncovered a […]
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What are youth worth to the state: the creation of a generational glass ceiling
Tuesday, July 06, 2010Since the beginning of time many groups have overcome situations where their advancement within the hierarchy of society was undermined. From women to racial groups, many have seemingly broken the “glass ceiling” looming over their heads. Yet I have a hard time believing teenagers facing the prospect of jail and prison as the only viable […]
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Education goes 3D: the power of play
Monday, June 28, 2010What makes a classroom different than a children’s museum? In many kindergartens today, children sit passively at their desk while teachers deliver the latest scripted lessons on vocabulary, spelling and addition—lessons sometimes dotted with classes in science and history. In children’s museums, these same students can be seen engineering bridges with tinkertoys, testing the force […]
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Repeal the death penalty and put the needs of survivors of homicide victims first
Monday, June 21, 2010When the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment urged repeal of the death penalty in 2008, it also made a second, much less publicized recommendation: increase the resources and services for the surviving families of homicide. The Commission clearly listened to the testimony of about a dozen family members of murder victims, including 2005 OSI Baltimore […]
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Chicken Masala with a side of mentoring
Monday, June 14, 2010In Maryland more than 207,000 children are at risk for hunger. The same number of young people are unsupervised during the after-school hours. The child who goes home to an empty house is likely to be the same child who may not have access to food between the end of the school day and the […]
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Engaging kids through theater
Monday, June 07, 2010Let’s give every student the chance to write and produce a play. This can happen in the language arts classroom or as part of an after-school program. The important part is that students are in charge, from brainstorming to production night. Students crave opportunities to express themselves, and theater offers a constructive outlet for the […]
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Building a resilient Baltimore
Monday, May 24, 2010Since 2005, I have been an active member of the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition, which helps Baltimore residents address the potential loss of their home to foreclosure. We recognized the problem early, and mobilized to get the message out to people in mortgage trouble that they should seek help from a nonprofit housing counselor. The […]
