Funding for instruction geared to high performing students in Baltimore City public schools may be jeopardized by the budget now being considered by the School Board.
It’s a positive sign that we’re discussing how to retain and attract such students. My testimony last night, on behalf of myself and my 41st District colleagues, follows.
Enabling our children to enter school ready to learn was the objective of the Prekindergarten Expansion Act of 2014, a $4.3 million competitive grant program introduced by the O’Malley-Brown Administration and enacted by the General Assembly.
Enabling our children to graduate school ready to excel should be our objective in the Baltimore City Schools budget for for Fiscal Year 2015.
At a minimum, there should be level funding for the Ingenuity Project, the International Baccalaureate program, and all other efforts designed for our high achieving students.
Last year, Mt. Washington Elementary/Middle School received just over $131,000 in funding from North Avenue specifically for the I.B. program. This coming year, it would receive $100,000 under the budget proposal.
Three years ago, this Board approved the middle-school expansion at Mount Washington School. The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program was crucial to the success of the expansion, with inquiries from families around the region and attendance from within the community at or above capacity. Moreover, it has been offered to all students in the middle grades, regardless of their place along the academic spectrum.
Max Yuhas is a Baltimore Polytechnic sophomore who has been in the Ingenuity Project since 6th grade. In elementary school, his mother writes, he showed a keen aptitude and interest in math, but he was not challenged and given the opportunity to learn at a pace that matched his ability until he began the Ingenuity Project.
This experience has continued at Poly, where he is completing a rigorous course load that will prepare him to attend a top tier university. Ingenuity Project seniors were accepted at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Hopkins, Cornell, University of Maryland Honors, among many more top-ranked schools. These students are also being provided an opportunity to do hands on research projects with world class academics at Hopkins, the University of Maryland, UMBC, and other institutions.
Felicity Ross, a former Ingenuity Project teacher and the parent of a 6th-grader in the program at Roland Park, shared with us her experiences.
What the Ingenuity Project offers is a rigorous math and science program for highly academically able students around the city. It is a highly competitive program that offers a very needed service for highly able students, who need to move at a faster pace, deal with more challenging work, and interact with peers with similar abilities.
Her son floundered at his elementary school, where he knew the majority of the content in his Math class before the year had even started. He stopped enjoying school and was at times a distraction.
He is now thrilled to go to school every day, enjoys that his peers take school as seriously as he does, and enjoys having deep conversations about all of his subjects with his parents, his teachers, and his friends.
Perhaps you have read about Michele Robinson, who was born in Chicago at a time when public schools were still resisting integration. By the time she entered high school, the city — under pressure from the federal government — opened an integrated magnet school for high achievers.
Michele Obama credits that experience with setting her on a path to Princeton and Harvard.
There are many children like the First Lady in our city. We can and should give them an opportunity to excel as well.
We urge you to maintain full funding for these vital programs.
