Is Annapolis the "GHETTO"???

A friend of mine recently recommended that I read the Kerner Commission Report of 1967. It's a fascinating report on the issues plaguing African American communities in the United States. It covers a wide range of topics, including housing, employment, police brutality, and yes, you guessed it- EDUCATION. The report is over 400 pages long, and admittedly I skimmed through most of it, until I got to the education section. Throughout the report, predominately African American communities are referred to as ghettos. Black people are also referred to as Negroes. As I read it out loud to my children, they were immediately offended by the terms, and I had to explain to them that these weren't offensive back in the 60s. However, as I poured over this section of the report, at one point I shouted "IS ANNAPOLIS THE GHETTO??" The same education-related issues and problems described in this 1967 report still exist today- right here in Annapolis. Check out some excerpts below:

Each of these resonated with me for different reasons, and trust me, there are many more gems throughout this section that would probably resonate with you. The first point about our teachers took me back to a conversation that I had with a friend after we attended a meeting about violence in our Annapolis communities. This meeting was initiated by the local school district, and was largely attended by school leaders. Very few parents and/or community members attended this meeting, leading one journalist to remark that the school leaders were basically talking to themselves. Afterwards, my friend and I began discussing all the reasons this was the wrong approach. She lives in Annapolis, works at a local elementary school, and sends her children to public school. She said something that stuck with me that night- "I am a teacher. It is my job to know about our community. Too many people [that work in our Annapolis public schools] in critical, decision-making roles drive home to Davidsonville, Severna Park, etc.... Why are White people so comfortable with racism but so scared of violence?" I thought about that for quite some time afterwards, and realized that she answered her own question. Many school leaders AND teachers don't live in Annapolis, and certainly don't live in the communities where the violence takes place. Systemic racism (and denying Black people the opportunity to grow generational wealth) have led to this housing segregation, which perpetuates school segregation. Most are completely comfortable with it (de facto segregation/racism) until it (violence) starts to bleed into their own communities or their safety at work. Teachers aren't exempt. It's a THEY problem, not an US problem.

I spoke with another friend of mine just a few days ago- checking in after she was physically assaulted by a student. Our conversation about the incident led her to question why so many inexperienced teachers are allowed to teach in Title I schools (schools with high poverty and high minority populations). While there is a nationwide teacher shortage, the best teachers should be in the schools that need the most help, right? Why would you send 20 firefighters to put out a campfire and one to fight the forest fire alone? That's how the deck is stacked in most school districts, and Annapolis isn't any different.

In addition to the need for increased access to early childhood education (which was fascinating to me that they identified this need so long ago), the report also mentions magnet programs as a solution to help improve educational outcomes in the ghetto. This was especially interesting, because at the most recent Annapolis Education Commission meeting, data was brought forth about how many students from the Annapolis cluster attend magnet programs in our Annapolis clusters schools.

• Apex Arts at Bates Middle School: 127 Annapolis cluster students

• Apex Arts at Annapolis High School: 62 Annapolis cluster students

• IB DP at Annapolis High School: 106 Annapolis cluster students

• NJROTC at Annapolis High School: 24 Annapolis cluster students

*Band/Strings students from Bates Apex Arts program attend Broadneck High School. I could create an entire blog post about how ridiculous that is. One look at the Annapolis High School band and you'd know what I'm talking about. But I digress...*

On its face it seems like there are good amount of students that matriculated into these programs, however, without demographic data (i.e. race) it's impossible to determine if these programs are truly serving the population of students in Annapolis that traditionally would be excluded from them. My daughter has been in the Apex Arts program (previously PVA) since middle school, and during the AEC meeting I asked her to think of how many other Black students from Annapolis that she could think of (off the top of her head) in the Apex Arts program with her- she said one. ONE. Now, that's certainly conjecture, but speaks to a larger point. These programs weren't established for kids like Zakiyah, and it shows. As a teacher, I witnessed firsthand how many barriers are in place that prevent qualified Black and Brown students from entering these programs.

While I could go on and on about systemic issues in our cluster and the light that this report FROM 1967 shed, this last quote hit me right in my heart.

To say that I believe in community schools is an understatement. While we were opening Monarch Annapolis back in 2017, I advocated to our management company that MAA should become a community school- transforming our building into much more than an academic institution. It fell on deaf ears, and not too long afterwards, schools right here in Annapolis were designated as community schools by our state and I couldn't have been more excited. Yet, several years later, the impact that I know can happen within a community school has yet to come to fruition. And this is not an indictment on the Program Managers; I know some of them and they are well-meaning, hard-working educators who want to help their school communities. The district has failed them and thus, has failed our communities. Many of them are not from Annapolis and don't live in Annapolis. Some don't reflect the population they serve. And most importantly, until recently, they lacked the guidance and support from our school board. Community School money poured into Annapolis, but it was never anyone's priority.

The bible says in Matthew 25 that we will be judged on how we treat the least among us. This report outlines in great detail how the least among us, specifically people that look a lot like me, have been treated, and it even offers SOLUTIONS to rectify some of these circumstances. Many of the issues described in these ghettos mimic the issues that I see everyday as I serve in communities here in Annapolis. Housing issues, unemployment, crime, violence, food insecurity, and a host of other problems plague our predominantly Negro communities- our ghettos. Children live in these areas and attend our local public schools. If you work in education, you know these kids, you know their families, and you know their stories. But what are we doing, as a collective, to help the least among us? How are we bridging the gap and bringing the community into our schools? Can you mandate a teacher to build relationships with students that don't look like the kids in his/her neighborhood? Can you teach someone how to love a child that they wouldn't let their own kids play with? How do you convince a "good" teacher to work in a "tough" school? These are some of the questions that keep me up at night.

Is Annapolis the ghetto? I guess it depends on your lens... But from over here at my cozy kitchen table and most definitely from the lens of the authors of the Kerner Commission Report, that seems pretty accurate.

Here, at One Annapolis, we are working towards breaking these generational curses and building a new legacy for our children. Want to join the movement? Email me at info@oneannapolis.org.