Our City schools are suffering. This is a call to action.

Our City schools are suffering. This is a call to action.

"We can’t afford not to make serious investments in our young people and their schools now."

Dear Baltimore, 

In case you missed it, the AFRO ran my op-ed last week on Baltimore’s public schools and our obligation to do right by our students when it comes to fully funding our schools, implementing the Kirwan Commission’s recommendations, supporting the infrastructure needs of our school buildings, and ensuring all of our schools have proper HVAC systems so our students can learn.

You can read my op-ed, titled “Our City schools are suffering. This is a call to action,” here.

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins released a report on educational equity and school infrastructure. They found that our students have missed almost 1.5 million instructional hours a year, mostly due to lack of heating and air conditioning. This is exactly why I called on the Mayor to use last year’s budget surplus to help Baltimore City Schools fully meet its immediate heating and cooling needs in our schools.

As I said in my op-ed, students missing 221,000 days of school means 221,000 times our state and local government has failed to prioritize their basic right to a quality education.

On Friday, my counterparts in state government introduced HB 1300/SB 1000, legislation containing the Kirwan Commission recommendations to address inequities in school funding, increase teacher pay, and ultimately invest $4 billion a year in Maryland’s public schools. I am ecstatic to see my state colleagues prioritizing our students with this bill. It is the culmination of a three-year long process to make our educational system more equitable.

Our students deserve a world-class education and fully adopting the Kirwan recommendations will put us on the right track.

 

- Council President Brandon M. Scott