Growing Up Baltimore Essay

For the past eight months, WYPR has been exploring the challenges facing young people growing up in Baltimore. We’ve talked to a lot of bright, hopeful and hard-working kids. Many of them are thriving on the strength of their determination and with the help of their parents.

Deeply-committed men and women in social service agencies are helping them. These professionals are put off only by lack of resources and the scope of the problems they confront.

Some of these men and women say the system is broken. They work hard in their own realm, but often in isolation from those engaged in the same work. Kids and parents often don’t know how to access help.

Young people in Baltimore face heavy headwinds.  They don’t see why staying in school makes much sense. There are scholarships available, but many of those who finish high school struggle to find financial aid. Their job prospects are slim. Some are homeless.  Some have been in jail.

Violence is endemic in many city neighborhoods, even as murder rates decline.  Some say the violence has led to debilitating grief and an epidemic of post traumatic stress syndrome.

Statistics tell part of the tale:

• Baltimore’s teen homicide rate is second worst in the nation;

• Some 73 percent of victims and perpetrators in Baltimore had been referred to the Department of Juvenile Services;

• In 2007, homicide was the leading cause of death in Baltimore for young people 15-34;

Baltimore has the 5th worst high school graduation rate among major American cities. America’s Promise Alliance, a national alliance of corporate leaders, policymakers, and non-profit advocates says the city is graduating 34 percent of those who start high school; the magazine, Education Week, says the rate is puts the rate at  29 percent., which ranks third-lowest.  Baltimore has one of the highest adult illiteracy rates.

In the city schools, 5,000 kids are in foster care. Almost 2,000 have had some contact with the juvenile justice system. And almost 2,000 are homeless at some point during the year – that’s almost a tenth of the student population.

What it is about our social context that leads a 13- and 14-year-olds, and in some cases even younger, to make so many wrong decisions about life? One thing: They don’t have nearly enough positive alternatives.

Baltimore kids grow up learning to cope within an extremely narrow range of life options. A wrong decision – leaving school or selling drugs, for example,– is almost always fatal for life prospects, if not for life itself.

These young people often feel alienated and marginalized. They feel the deck is stacked against them.

We have tried to hear their voices so we can present them as more than statistics, voices you don’t often hear unless a five-year-old gets shot.

Most of the young people we talked to haven’t given up. They are determined to live honorably in a society that doesn’t always honor them.

Essay by C. Fraser Smith

Our series, “Growing Up Baltimore,” is made possible, in part, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. The findings and conclusions presented in our series do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these organizations.

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