“Growing Up Baltimore” – Local Students Face Arduous Path Towards Graduation And Beyond
"Busta"
“My name is Terrence J. I’m 16…but Everybody calls me ‘Busta.’”
Last year, ‘Busta’ had a major “attendance problem”. When his freshman year started at Doris M. Johnson High School, he would go to school in the morning, but by mid-day, he was skipping out on class.
“After lunch everybody left out. It was really really easy. And either we went to libraries or we went to the parks or we was inside the school. Just running around. And I knew everybody so everybody I saw I could chill with and just sit around and have fun. We can just geek and sometimes it gets to the point where the time just fly past you.”
‘Busta’ says he missed his sixth through eighth periods on a regular basis.
Katie Lucot was ‘Busta’s’ eighth period teacher. She remembers the day she first met him.
“I had an officer drag Terrance to my door and say, “here’s Terrance. He’s late again. I said I have no idea who this is. I had never seen this student and it was the third week of school.”
“That started off a long year of a rollercoaster of absences, periods of him coming into the classroom doing fantastic work and just be full of questions, conflicts with other students in his class. So, you have all these things going on at once.”
Even “Busta” knew he had a problem.
“I mean bein’ out of class was fun but it was fun to the extent whereas though when I went to class I didn’t know what was going on. So, I couldn’t make up something I didn’t know.”
“At one point we had a parent conference and it just seemed like things weren’t working out. This was a pattern from middle school and the family wasn’t sure what to do about it. It just seemed like he was on his way to closing out on school entirely.”
But Lucot and “Busta” found a hook to keep him in school. “Busta” had told her he liked to dance. So, Lucot spoke to the teacher for the after-school drama group, Unchained Talents.
“For a while we had a conduct sheet going where his teachers had to sign off for him to go to drama”
“I can say I kinda did still skip – I missed a couple of classes but I did went to class more often than usual.”
“Part of the problem for our kids is that there is nothing in school for them in some case. We don’t have in my school instrumental music, we don’t have choral music, we don’t have a lot of different sports.”
“You gotta get something that’s gone motivate you to stay in school or you gonna fail. You gonna fall into statistics.”
According to a study by Education Week, Baltimore kids are most likely to drop out of school in the ninth grade. Now in his sophomore year, ‘Busta’ faces a new challenge to staying school – he’s come out.
“Being homosexual and young when you in school is always a challenge cuz there’s always gonna be some group of boys that’s gonna criticize you for being you. So they gonna try their best to sabotage me or to break me down and I can’t let it happen. I gotta let it build me up.”
“Busta” says one boy in particular taunts him all day long.
“He always got something to say and I just look at it like you keep sayin something – it’s not gonna make me feel bad., that’s not gonna make me not wanna be here. That’s not gonna make me stop being who I am.”
“Busta” says no one in his family has graduated high school.
“All of ‘em dropped out in high school. I feel as though I have an obligation. I have to do for everybody else. But I also want to do it for myself. It’s like all the failures that’s gone on in my family is pushing me to succeed and make myself a better person. I’m trying to go to college and make something of my life.”
According to a recent study on Youth Violence from the Baltimore City Health Department, Busta’s decision to come to school everyday – and go to class - may save his life.
The study looked at victims of non-fatal shootings and homicides in 2002-2007. It found that 92 percent of the victims and 98 percent of the perpetrators missed enough days of school to be classified as chronically truant.
Jonathan Brice is the executive director for student support and safety in the Baltimore City Public Schools.
“When young people are not in school, they’re unsupervised. That’s when a whole host of problems can take place; including students experimenting with drugs or promiscuity, when they can get involved with gangs, they can get involved with other types of criminal behavior and ultimately they, their families, and our communities suffer from those actions.”
Brice says that keeping students in schools is a top priority of the current CEO. Dr. Andres Alonso. One way to do this is through the daytime curfew passed by the City Council in 2006. The curfew is for those six-15 years of age. It begins at nine in the morning and ends at one in the afternoon.
“Local businesses are working very hard to enforce that curfew and not allow minors into their store during school hours or selling them carryout meals.”
But relying on local businesses to refuse to sell to kids who are under 16 has not been entirely successful.
“That’s when we’ve had to enlist city government, school police, and Baltimore City police in having conversations with those businesses to remind them of the curfew and their responsibility not to serve minors during those times.”
According to the Baltimore City Public School system, they are making progress. Last year there were 700 fewer truants.
But in that 2008-2009 school year, 42 percent of Baltimore high school students still missed 20 or more days, according to the Department of Health study.
Sometimes, like ‘Busta,’ they’re getting harassed or they’re having problems at home, they’re bored, or they have to navigate through pockets of crime ridden neighborhoods on their way to school. Some kids talk about a mental obstacle course –
“Some people gotta choose whether to come to school or hustle –see some coke, crack, weed, whatever the case may be, make a couple dollars to keep the lights on – that’s more immediate.”
That’s Jamal Jones, 18, a tutor with the non-profit Baltimore Algebra Project. Jones says many inner city kids don’t believe a Baltimore City Public Education will pay off in the long run.
I’m like I’m about to spend my time in this classroom not making the money I need to be making right now. As opposed to an education that may, or may not, help in the job world. Where this school system is not going to give you the education you need to stay in the running with the other schools.”
“If you have a child for whom an institution has not worked at some point, they chose to go to other endeavors where they are successful.”
City School CEO, Dr. Andres Alonso understands that the schools have problems, but remains optimistic, pointing to recent progress.
“What is clear that the numbers seem to show fast progress in regards to individual measures that are correlated to kids losing out in life. Attendance is up, dropouts are down, truants are down, test scores are up.”
In the last two years, Dr. Alonso says, approximately 1,000 fewer students decided to drop out of school. The Baltimore Public School System puts its high school graduation rate at 62 percent, but other organizations’ data show it to be as low as 34 percent.
The numbers don’t show the struggle that many Baltimore students experience just trying to make it to high school graduation and press on to college.
Eighteen-year-old Greg Davis is trying to figure out his future – he’s chosen to be optimistic in the face of the everyday challenges.
Greg has fifteen tattoos covering his body and they tell his life story, in a poetic, surprising way.
“I got this one on my throat. I made it up. It says live for the moment never live to fear what ties you to death.”
This tattoo reminds him that he’s grounded and not living everyday thinking about crime and violence.
He got it when he was in the eleventh grade at Doris M. Johnson High School – he was friends with “everyone” as he puts it. But he was especially close to a group of guys who were making decisions that would affect their lives for the worse. He explains another tattoo -
“I have one skull with a cloak over the face – that represents robbing back in the day – bc a lot of my friends used to rob. I actually have a friend who’s in jail for robbing. He said when he come out he just wants to hang around me because I have my mind somewhere else and he doesn’t want to go back.”
Greg says last Spring, before high school graduation, he left his parents’ house because of numerous disagreements and moved in with his sister. He says he was thinking about dropping out of school. He contemplated robbing and trapping, or selling drugs. “It was at his eyes” as he puts it.
“– my moral judgment was like why would you settle for that? It was just this feeling.”
But he was left with many questions.
“Should I be like outkast or should I outkast myself because I don’t want to rob? Am I strange for not wanting to do that?”
The FEAR of being different at first threw him.
“I realized I had nobody but myself. You know you have the love from your family but they can’t go through it for you – you have to go through it yourself. They can’t do it for you.”
Greg says he thought about what kind of life he wanted to live.
“What I wanted to do was basically rebuild schools ‘cause I would always – since I had a lot of friends – I would go to a lot of schools – they seemed old. I kept thinking people make state of the art stuff all the time why not for education? It’s always for like a restaurant.”
Greg says he was clueless about how to achieve this goal. But before he left high school, he sat down with a counselor.
“He gave me a pamphlet and it listed some of the things you could take in college. I seen engineering. When you think engineering – I didn’t actually know what it consisted of. But as I read it was most of the stuff I wanted to do – blueprint, put up structures, your scaling.”
Just a few weeks ago, Greg sat for the SAT for the first time, six months after his high school graduation.
Greg was lucky. He had a counselor from the non-profit, The College Bound Foundation, too, as he says, help him “get his mind straight.” Not all Baltimore students have access to the same kind of in-depth counseling – at most of Baltimore’s 37 high schools, there is approximately 1 guidance counselor for every 400 students.
That’s not enough, says Nyanthara Basusin.
“Our students might be perfectly capable students but they might not know somebody who’s gone to college or followed a career path.”
Basusin has been a teacher in Baltimore’s public schools – last year she taught at the now closed Homeland Security High School. The low numbers of counselors, the teacher says, shows you something –
“I don’t think college is stressed in a real way.
In a lot of suburban schools two guidance counselors might be enough because the parents have degrees – ok, it’s 11th grade, it’s time to take the PSATs, this is what you should look at in schools, this is what you should look at as far as scholarships.”
Jimmy Tadlock is the Program Director for the College Bound Foundation – the organization that counseled Greg Davis. They’re in 22 Baltimore high schools. The first challenge for the students, Tadlock says, is that they often don’t know what they’re missing.
“Schools pay for juniors and seniors to sit for the PSAT and the SAT – now the challenge is to get students to take advantage of that. We may register 100 kids to sit for the SAT and then when the SAT comes only 75 will show up – when you talk to them – “I was afraid” – I had to catch the bus to a side of town I wasn’t familiar with.”
Tadlock says he also sees anxiety when the time comes to explore colleges and visit campuses. Colleges like Coppin State or Morgan have open houses but, Tadlock says, kids are to leave their neighborhoods and travel to a different part of the city, without an adult leading the way.
“They are afraid to go from the east side to the west side to go on that tour. Especially is there is a rumor about gang initiation – you know, I don’t want to get caught up on the wrong side of town.”
“That’s a big piece of growing up in Baltimore that a lot of people don’t understand if they haven’t grew up in Baltimore.”
Chris Goodman is a graduate of City College High School and also a member of the Algebra Project. He’s now a senior at Morgan State.
“I am a psychology major so I want to start looking into the effects of growing up in an environment where you feel unsafe. How does that affect your personality, the relationships you have with people, your grades?”
Chris says having more counselors in the schools would help Baltimore students overcome the fears that affect their lives.
Schools’ CEO Dr. Alonso views the issue of guidance counselors a little differently. He believes that increasing the number of counselors isn’t important –everybody in the school, he says, should play a role in nurturing students who want to go to college. Parents, teachers, office personnel and hall monitors.
“The fundamental goal of every school should be to bring every single kid who is a ninth grader to a place four years later where they go on with a chance to be very successful. I don’t think anybody can delegate that to one role in the school.”
And, Alonso says, that students should be responsible themselves by going online and finding information in other ways. There is no reason why questions about college should remain.
But, Dr. Alonso says if high schools do want to hire more counselors, the power is in their hands.
“The way our budget process works – principals make recommendations but family school counsels provide feedback to the principal about what the budget should be. If a school wants to increase the number of counselors or partner with the College Bound foundation – they are free to do so.”
Jimmy Tadlock says The College Bound Foundation is stretched as far as it can go. At least thirteen schools don’t have someone from The Foundation.
Students like Chris Goodman say if the goal is to be successful in college, then Baltimore’s schools have more work to do.
Goodman says Baltimore’s school system over emphasizes test scores – and ignores the quest for critical learning skills among its students.
“If the test scores go up it doesn’t necessarily mean that the students are prepared for the college for the world to improve their communities and their families.”
Tadlock agrees that test scores and grades may tell one story but once the students gets to college, they experience a certain amount of shock.
“Although they may have got straight A’s in high school – the wake-up call is when they get on campus and they take a placement test to determine if they are ready and that when our kids find out for the first time that they are not ready for the big leagues.”
Baltimore City Community College says 84 percent of its freshman class need remediation.
Gregory Hunter works out of Baltimore City Community College in a federally funded college prep program called Upward Bound. It’s for high school students who would be the first in their family to go to college.
Upward Bound started 22 years ago as an enrichment program. Now – it’s mostly a remedial program that serves about 300 students in the city, which Hunter says is only five-to-seven percent of the kids who are eligible.
“Many kids, ninth graders, tenth graders, or eleventh graders even their GPA or their reading levels are around third, fourth, or fifth grade. Very tough - this is a very tough area. Many of these kids have real heavy deficits. That’s a big dilemma. It requires a lot more work.”
Upward Bound starts their college readiness prep early. They enroll kids starting in the ninth or tenth grades. Every Saturday for 21 weeks during the school year and six weeks in the summer, Baltimore students are given extra tutoring for reading, math, wherever they have the need.
Most of the students who attend this program go on to college without needing additional remedial work.
Others do though and for the student who has persevered through the SATs, the fear of leaving their neighborhood, the lack of information about college, the remedial classes, if necessary – a final hurdle remains – paying for all of it.
Again, Nyanthara Basusin, Baltimore high school teacher.
“A lot of our kids need so much radiation that when they do get into four year colleges it ends up being so costly because they have to take remediation before they get to their real classes or they just feel so unprepared and a lot of students end up dropping out.”
It comes as no surprise that the stress of finding the funds to pay for one’s college education can be daunting for inner-city kids from modest means.
Chris Goodman experienced the financial hardship first hand.
“I had to leave University of Maryland because my financial aid was a big issue.
I decided to go to Morgan to get on top of my grades and because it’s cheaper.”
Dr. Alonso says the Baltimore School System is putting “a tremendous effort into letting kids know the paths to college”. Their goal is that by February 21st every graduating senior will have completed a federal financial aid form. And they’ve scheduled two financial aid fairs to achieve this – one was January 16th and the other is this Saturday – January 23rd.
Just last week, though, Governor O’Malley said that he may have to increase in-state college tuition, which has been frozen for the last four years.
But in the last 10 years, financial aid packages haven’t kept up with the cost of tuition fees anyways, says Tadlock.
Even if there was more money available, Tadlock adds, city students would still have great difficulty getting to college.
“I think there are some things lurking that we need to deal with.”
What’s needed, Tadlock says, is the piece of the puzzle that connects Baltimore’s motivated, interested students with information about how to get from point A to point B,
“Giving them a chance to do more with career assessments in high school to help them understand what they would be good at as well as happy at. We don’t do that enough. We say kids can do it on their own. Go explore a little bit – but we’re seeing that’s why our students don’t do well.”
Teachers, counselors, parents, and kids echo similar thoughts – that students are not prepared for what is going to come after high school – whether that’s college, a vocational school, or some type of job training.
“I just don’t think many of our kids understand their options.”
And as many of the educators we talked to said, “We’re big on options”.
I’m Mary Rose Madden reporting in Baltimore for 88.1 WYPR.
“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. For more on Growing Up Baltimore, listen tomorrow during “All Things Considered,” as we continue to look at the problems facing local youth and possible solutions.
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