• The Importance of Student Attendance

    September is, appropriately enough, Attendance Awareness Month and a good time to talk about how attendance is a portal to many other issues involving Baltimore City students, families and schools. Nearly 85% of our students qualify for free and reduced meals, which is an indicator for poverty; and we can’t discount the attendant barriers and burdens that accompany modern poverty in America.

  • A Case for Student Voice

    When Baltimore City erupted on the afternoon of Freddie Gray’s funeral, many adults froze in front of their television screens. The imagery of high school students hurling bricks and bottles at police in riot gear was, to many, stunning, shocking, astonishing. I was not astonished. Instead, I was saddened, because I was watching evidence of something I’d long known: We’d failed our students.