“City … was one of the very special places in my life.”

Russell Baker wrote that.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and City College graduate died this week, as you likely know.

His City is what public education can be. Ditto for me.

Baker, a working class kid from West Baltimore, went to school with classmates from families with the resources to supplement what they learn in class.

Decades later at City, a future member of Congress, Elijah Cummings, would be in an integrated environment as an equal for the first time.

At City and other schools in Baltimore and around this state, that ideal is still met.

But that is the exception.

As we consider the future of Maryland’s public schools this term, we must remember that.

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The letter to the editor I discussed in “I’m the drafter” is at http://www.delsandy.com/2019/01/24/opposing-the-boycott-and-protecting-the-first-amendment/