Education reform on the ground: Baltimore and New York City

We’ve been talking all week about how to make American schools better. Do we increase funding, create better tests or shut down failing schools? This time, we look to learn from two cities experimenting with their own education policy reforms, Baltimore and New York City.

Baltimore is opening charter schools at a rapid pace, more than thirty in a last five years. New York is pushing to close its lowest-performing schools and create new ones; so far the Bloomberg administration has closed 91. But recently the city ran into a roadblock after a judge ruled against closing 19 more schools unless they had a clear plan for the students that they currently serve.

Two journalists from these cities, Marc Steiner of the Marc Steiner Show on WEAA in Baltimore and WNYC’s education reporter Beth Fertig, discuss whether there are lessons to be learned from the reforms happening on the ground. The question is whether these policies, touted by the Obama administration, will work in cities across the country.

Beth is also the author of the book, “Why cant u teach me 2 read? Three students and a mayor put our schools to the test.”