Courtesy Citybizlist – The BBJ recently ran Jay Brodie’s column on rethinking our city schools. Let’s face it, Jay, the former head of the Baltimore Development Corporation, will always be a bricks and mortar kind of guy. But these days in retirement, he’s a bit unleashed and has some interesting insight into how to return some verve to our city schools. Bricks with a soul… schools designed for the better for our kids.
Funding a Future. Jay’s column frames out the trifecta of challenges most cities face – crime, drugs, schools – and as to the latter, the flight that happens when kids reach school age, with families either moving to the suburbs or escaping within private schools. So why is Jay focused on our schools now? He sees the recent $2.4B of school construction funds as a once in a generation opportunity to reset how education shapes the future for our city kids. He’s right. As Jay in his BBJ column states, “no more school buildings that could be confused with fortresses or prisons.” It’s kind of a funny thought, except when you have passed enough of these city schools, it isn’t. There is little that’s more dystopian (or perhaps Orwellian) than to drive (who would walk…) by such an edifice, with the only color being the tattered, faded banner “Great Kids… Great Schools.” What a tragedy it would be to simply fund the revamping of such a place.
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