Open Society Institute – Baltimore
Open Society Institute (OSI) – Baltimore : Audacious Thinking For Lasting Change
Let’s be audacious enough to get school accountability right. Let’s hold schools accountable for preparing children and youth for life instead of for tests. Throughout American history, leaders have asked that schools help students develop: (1) the abilities to read, to write, and to compute, and basic knowledge of geography, history and science; (2) the […]
A few weeks ago, OSI announced the Public Safety Compact, a new initiative that will help 250 prisoners overcome their addictions. This is certainly a welcome step forward, but what has taken everyone so long? Everyone knows that it’s stupid and unreasonable to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, yet […]
Most suburban residents live in a metropolitan district in order to share the good things the city can offer. Sadly, we enjoy those benefits without paying a proportional share of their costs. Whether we use the urban setting for employment, or as a cultural, commercial, educational or recreational base, we rely on the city for […]
We need a new Voting Rights Act that makes private financing of public electoral campaigns illegal. Period. And we need to make it a civil rights issue. Consider: We do not allow private donors, each with his or her own desires regarding police protection, to finance the Baltimore Police Department. We disallow such a system […]
No, this is not an overly expensive trip to the Block, this is how we could create and or sustain 1,187,500 jobs, improve the quality of life, reduce congestion, manage growth, limit sprawl, protect and improve the environment, and increase opportunity for the 2.6 million people in Central Maryland. It’s a way to get one […]
We enter the New Year with startling economic developments that threaten the security of residents throughout the country, including right here in Maryland: soaring levels of unemployment, high rates of foreclosure, and dramatic losses in savings and investments. The scope of the recession—and the time and reinvestment required to recover from it—oddly gives us the […]
Baltimore’s dropout rates and youth violence get their fair share of publicity. Blame has been placed everywhere – school structure, gangs, drug culture, family situations. What’s been lost in these conversations is a strong conviction of youth as individuals who need caring relationships with adults, nurturing environments, and stimulating activities in order to develop into […]
For many decades, Baltimore was a great engine of the American Dream – a blue-collar city, where residents without a college degree could find a good, family-supporting job. But over the past generation, most of those mostly manufacturing jobs were replaced by lower-paying service sector jobs – with disastrous results for many Baltimoreans. But why […]
It’s good news that communities and schools are starting to pay serious attention to the problem of student absence and truancy. After all, teachers can’t teach children who simply aren’t there. Students who miss a lot of school are very likely to fail, drop out and struggle throughout their lives. Some of the renewed emphasis […]
The City of Baltimore finds itself mired in a classic Catch-22. Property taxes in Baltimore City are more than twice as high as any county rate in Maryland. That’s because to balance its budget each year, Baltimore City must levy disproportionately high taxes on its citizenry, which in turn induces more people to leave the […]
OSI-Baltimore has permanently closed. It has been our honor and privilege to partner with and serve the Baltimore community for the past 25 years.
This website is available for historical purposes. It is no longer being updated.