BLUEPRINT

FOR BETTER SCHOOLS

_____________________________________________________________________

ENSURING EVERY STUDENT HAS

A STRONG SCHOOL,
A TRUE CHOICE, AND
A FAIR CHANCE

Executive Summary
Public education is of critical importance to our City, to our nation, and most of all, to
our children. And yet, far too many of our students do not receive a top notch, or even a decent,
education in this city. Every one of Baltimores young people deserves a strong school, a true
choice, and a fair chance. Today, we fall far short of those goals. And as a consequence, so
many in our city are ensnared in cycles of concentrated poverty and segregation. This is
Elizabeth Embrys blueprint for closing the opportunity gaps for our children and ensuring that
every student has a strong school, a true choice and a fair chance.
To invest in education, the future of the city, Elizabeth will:
Reflect education as a priority in the City budget.
Fight for state educational funding and reform of the Thornton pre-K-12 funding
formula.
Ensure that the city is held harmless for economic development initiatives.
Press for ongoing support of the 21st Century Buildings program.
Partner with the private sector on education initiatives.
Support the campaign to bring Say Yes to Education to Baltimore.
To make the education system accountable to Baltimores families, Elizabeth
will:
Create a culture of transparency.
Collaborate with North Avenue on comprehensive audits of the school system and
make them public.
Harness data to improve the school system.
Operationalize a real partnership between City Hall and North Avenue.
Make the success of Baltimores students a goal for all city agencies.
Ensure public engagement in the future of our schools.
To promote great schools for all of our youth, Elizabeth will:
Invest in community schools.
Support charter schools that work.
Attract, develop, and retain the nations best educational leaders.
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 Support effective STEM education for Baltimores future.

Recognize the importance of arts education and the education of the whole
child.
Expand early college, college preparation, and career training opportunities
for students.
To invest in early childhood development, Elizabeth will:
Advocate for the expansion of access to full day pre-kindergarten
programs.
Professionalize the child care workforce.
Make early childhood education and child care options more accessible and
understandable to parents.
To support our youth after and out of school, Elizabeth will:
Expand access to after school programs.
Invest in programs that provide opportunities for student employment during
the summer.
Provide a safety net for those who drop out of the system.

Introduction
Public education is of critical importance to our City, to our nation, and most of all, to
our children.
And indeed, it was of critical importance to me as a child. From kindergarten through
graduation from City College, I proudly attended Baltimore City Public Schools. My sister is a
special education teacher in the City; my mother has spent her career advocating for arts
education in public schools. When I finished my high school education, I was well prepared for
college, for a career, and for life, so I can personally attest to the many high quality teachers
working day in and day out in city schools throughout Baltimore. These teachers and the many
strong principals and parents who support them, encourage them, and give them the flexibility
and autonomy to become life-changing teachers are the foundation and the future of City
Schools.
And yet, far too many of our students do not receive a top notch, or even a decent,
education in this city. Of the more than 80,000 young people currently enrolled in City Schools,
unacceptable numbers are falling behind too early as documented in test scores for language
arts and math. As they fall behind they become far more likely to drop out of school -- the
graduation rate in Baltimore is now less than 70 percent. Through research, we know more than
ever about how kids learn, and the ways in which a complete education is essential for developing
the sorts of skills necessary for a diverse and engaged workforce for a knowledge economy. And
yet, we are falling far short of this mark. Across the city, children are deprived of the creative
and character building opportunities presented by the arts, physical education, foreign languages,
and even history, geography, and the sciences.
In this blueprint, I propose a variety of reforms to education in Baltimore, some of which
the Mayor can implement herself, others of which require a true collaboration, with
accompanying accountability, between the Mayor and the CEO of City Schools. But, in each of
these roles, for far too long, Baltimores mayors have abdicated their responsibility for our young
peoples education. As Mayor, I will take responsibility for our schools and our 80,000 students.
I will invest in education, the future of our city. I will make the education system transparent,
data-driven and accountable to Baltimores families. I will advance the one aim of a quality
education through a diversity of approaches, providing great schools for all of our youth. And I
will commit to early childhood development initiatives, and programs that support our youth
when they are not in school.
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This is one of several blueprints that I have been releasing throughout my campaign.
And these plans are interwoven. Ours is a city where an estimated 80 percent of children
attending Baltimore City public schools are eligible for free and reduced meals. The quality of
our schools and the education we offer our children is inextricably connected to questions of
poverty and jobs and inequality. No single blueprint can solve all of these entrenched problems
on its own but taken together, they represent my comprehensive plan to unravel these issues
and lift the city.
Today, there is a fundamental disconnect between potential and reality, between what
should be and what is. Current leadership has failed our children we must do better.
I invite you to consider this blueprint to bring better schools to Baltimore, and to contact
me at elizabeth@embry4baltimore.org with your thoughts and comments. For it is only if we
join together, as a city, that we will be able to drive the reforms that provide the next generation
of this city the education they deserve.

Invest in Education, the Future of the City

Where we spend our limited budget dollars is a reflection of our priorities. And although
money is not itself a solution for our schools, it will be an essential ingredient of any solution
depriving our schools of funding will only further injure our already struggling schools. In
Baltimore in recent years, per pupil funding from the State has remained relatively static at
around $11,000 direct aid per pupil per year which means, in real terms, our investment in our
children has been effectively declining as costs have risen. As Mayor, Elizabeth will use all of the
power and influence available to her to ensure that our students and their future receive the
financial support they deserve.
Reflect education as a priority in the City budget. Under state law, the City is
required to commit, on a per student basis, no less than the amount of funding provided the
prior year this is known as maintenance of effort funding. As Mayor, Elizabeth will
exceed maintenance of effort funding each year she is in office to support her vision for
education. Beyond that, she will grow community school and after school funding by $8.2
million, doubling their number.
Fight for state educational funding and reform of the pre-K-12 funding formula.
As Mayor, Elizabeth will advocate to ensure City Schools funding is sufficient to support
equitable education for our students, and that we are not treated worse than other counties
(e.g., Kent, Garrett, and Carroll, which the Governor recently held harmless despite their
declining enrollment). The Mayor sets the Citys agenda in Annapolis and Elizabeth will let
the Governor and legislature know that education is an urgent priority. Additionally, she will
advocate using the recommendations of the Thornton adequacy study and elsewhere for
the reform of those aspects of the Thornton formula that are today disadvantaging the City.
She also stands with the Baltimore Education Coalition and others who right now are
fighting for fair and equitable funding for City children.
Ensure that the city is held harmless for economic development initiatives. Due
to the way in which a state formula calculates school funding, Baltimore loses millions of
dollars each year in state funding for development projects that rely on TIFs and PILOTs to
grow the city. One project alone the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel cost the city
$1.4 million in school funding, even though under a deal with the city, it contributes only $1
each year in property taxes. As Mayor, Elizabeth will advocate for the State to revise the
formula to avoid this preposterous and harmful result. Until the law is changed, she will link

the reliance on TIFs and PILOTs to supplemental funding for City schools, ensuring that
school funding is held harmless.
Press for ongoing support of the 21st Century Buildings program. The mayor
must be a champion and an advocate for City Schools, telling the story of our successes when
we have them, and crying foul when we fall short. In particular, the mayor must continue to
carry the torch for the rehabilitation of our dilapidated schools. As Mayor, Elizabeth will
lead a strong and united front in seeking funding to continue Phase I of the 21st Century
Schools Building Plan, acquire commitments to Phase II of the plan, and carry out long
overdue maintenance and improvements in schools not included in that program.
Partner with the private sector on education initiatives. We need to think big and
think broad. Our private sector partners from banks and investment firms, to tech-based
start-ups and small businesses, to Under Armour, Johns Hopkins University, and the
University of Maryland all have strong and vested interests in Baltimores public school
system. With better schools, they can recruit better talent for their own organizations, retain
that talent when competitors come calling from other cities, and help their employees live
near where they work and be fully contributing citizens of Baltimore. As Mayor, Elizabeth
will work with our businesses and non-profits so that they can partner with a school or
multiple schools to establish programs that help students learn job-ready skills, and lead from
high school or college graduation directly to entry-level jobs. Private sector partners can also
provide professional development for City Schools leaders at the central office and school
levels in areas like financial management and organizational culture.
Support the campaign to bring Say Yes to Education to Baltimore. Say Yes to
Education is a remarkable initiative to guarantee every city school graduate in selected cities
a free college education in the states public universities. The program also provides students
from low-income house holds scholarships to private colleges. Baltimores participation
would require active fundraising and the fusing of a collaborative network of wrap-around
services. As Mayor, Elizabeth would place the full weight and influence of her office behind
the program.

Make the Education System Accountable

to Baltimores Families
For too long, both City and State leadership have abdicated their responsibility for the
students in Baltimore City Schools, instead pointing to the CEO and School Board for blame. It
is time for that approach to end. There is a crisis of confidence in our school system and sadly,
the crisis is not just imagined, but real. When our teachers arent paid on time, and deeply
flawed enrollment figures lead to tens of millions of dollars in lost state funding, there is clearly
something wrong with the administration of our schools. As Mayor, Elizabeth will turn the page
to an era of transparency, accountability and data-driven policy making in our school system.
She will:
Create a culture of transparency. As Mayor, within her first 100 days in office,
Elizabeth will launch a SchoolStat program that publishes in real time school by school data
on attendance, enrollment, and course offerings and compiles and reports other metrics,
including PARCC scores and other student learning indicators, graduation rates, school
climate, referrals for special needs and wellness on at least an annual basis.
Collaborate with North Avenue on comprehensive audits of the school system

and make them public. Our parents, taxpayers, and state government funders have little
faith in how the system handles budgeting and fiscal issues and manages the taxpayers
money. As Mayor, Elizabeth will collaborate with North Avenue on comprehensive joint
annual audits of City Schools in conjunction with the CEO, bringing in outside, independent
experts to take a hard look at how we are using the limited dollars we have to educate our
young people. Elizabeth will use the audit as a tool to determine whether funds are being
spent in the most effective ways to maximize student achievement and when they are not, she
will advocate for more effective financial management and make school board appointment
and re-appointment decisions accordingly.
Harness data to improve the school system. Some schools with almost 100% children
living in poverty have a successful and engaging school climate as well as high test scores. We
need to understand what they are doing and how we replicate that success across the system.
We will review the MSDE school readiness data and data from the States Longitudinal Data
System (LDS) which are tools to evaluate the equity of program opportunities for students,
school by school as well as compared with other schools in Maryland. As Mayor, Elizabeth
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will provide resources to City Schools with the aim of monitoring School Stat, LDS, and
other metrics to make data-driven policy decisions.
Operationalize a real partnership between City Hall and North Avenue. To
ensure that the much needed partnership between City Hall and North Avenue is real and
enduring, Elizabeth will appoint a Deputy Mayor for Education and Youth who reports to
the Mayor while having a second office in City Schools Headquarters and a seat on the
CEOs cabinet. Elizabeth will also have the City Schools CEO participate in Mayoral
cabinet meetings.
Make the success of Baltimores students a goal for all city agencies. Research
shows that concentrated poverty, challenges to physical and mental health, housing
problems, transportation difficulties, and a host of other issues have a direct impact on
student success. As Mayor, Elizabeth will charge all city agencies to develop and report out
on an annual plan about what their agency can do for young people, and make youthoriented efforts a key aspect of each agency Chiefs performance evaluation. And she will
create a Mayors cabinet for children and youth, chaired by her, that will include agencies
responsible for health, public safety, employment, recreation, and others that touch children
and their families.
Ensure public engagement in the future of our schools. There is little or no public
engagement on the question of who should represent parents, students, and taxpayers on the
City Board of School Commissioners, which is a group that holds significant sway over what
happens at each and every one of our neighborhood schools. As Mayor, Elizabeth will
ensure that the nomination and appointment process is transparent and accessible to the
community: before nominating candidates, she will host community forums throughout the
City, and as a condition of nomination, she will require my appointees to commit to twice
monthly office hours open to all City parents and students, so they can share their views
and get their questions answered. And she will make sure that those whom she appoints are
committed to establishing and holding leaders accountable to policies that maximize student
achievement.
Likewise, too often, parents are summoned to a school when there is a problem with their
child rather than welcomed on an ongoing basis. Parents should participate in the schools
goal setting and the achievement of those goals. As a city, we should engage parents as full
partners in educating their children and in creating a positive, vibrant climate in every
school, and engage neighborhoods in decisions about the use and operation of our city school
buildings.
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One Aim, Many Approaches:

Great Schools For All of Our Youth
Every child is entitled to a school that prepares them for college, career and life, but no
single approach is the panacea to our systems problems. We need to be open to specialized
magnet programs, charter schools, and community schools, all the while providing support for
our traditional neighborhood public schools because they help anchor our communities. Where
we see success in one place, we should explore whether it might translate more broadly, or
whether it is unique to that schools individual culture. As Mayor, Elizabeth will:
Invest in community schools. The community school model has emerged as a promising
strategy for improving our schools and strengthening our neighborhoods, with 55 community
schools already in Baltimore. One of the strongest attributes of community schools is the
attention they give to the non-academic factors that impact a childs academic progress
including health, family stability, and the availability of enriching after-school opportunities.
One Baltimore community school is providing childcare for students in high school so that
young mothers can continue their education while their children get high quality care; others
have deployed innovative strategies to enhance out-of-school time and programs, provide
parenting classes, and enhance low-income families access to healthy food. The current
mayor just slashed millions of dollars in funds for these programs from the budget. As
Mayor, Elizabeth will expand funding for community schools and after school programs by
$8.2 million, doubling their number in the process, and engage neighborhoods across the city
in comprehensive planning for the development of additional schools.
Support charter schools that work. Charter schools are an important part of the
equation here in Baltimore, but it is important that we create a framework of policies that
strikes the appropriate balance and sets the right incentives for success: we need innovation
with accountability. Although we should always be examining our laws to see if there are
opportunities for improvement or refinement in how they impact our schools, we need to be
careful about the changes. We have not seen any convincing evidence that the collective
bargaining agreement is impeding the operation of charters in the state, and thus Elizabeth
does not support a change to the law to exempt charter teachers from the CBA. At the same
time, just as the City government could have a much more collaborative and productive
relationship with City Schools, City Schools could have a much more collaborative and
productive relationship with public charter school operators. Elizabeth is committed to
partnering with City Schools, charter schools, and unions to find workable solutions to the
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current lawsuit and other challenges that treat traditional and charter schools fairly and let
our educators get out of the courtroom and back to focusing on the classroom.
Attract, develop, and retain the nations best educational leaders. As Mayor,
Elizabeth will create new incentive programs to attract and retain educational leaders,
including a new housing benefit for teachers who live in Baltimore City, tiered so that the
amount of the benefit is increased for those teachers who live in certain challenged City zip
codes; implement incentive benefits for the highest performing teachers and principals who
commit to serving five years in our most underperforming schools; and press for the adoption
of innovative programs aimed at supporting new teachers, modeled after successful programs
in cities including Cincinnati, Seattle and Boston.
Support effective STEM education for Baltimores future. Quality instruction in
STEM areas can prepare students for the next generation of jobs, whether they are entrylevel positions after high school, or higher level jobs after college or graduate school. Highly
successful STEM schools emphasize project-based learning and the best have strong arts
programs to instill creative approaches to problem solving and capacity for innovation. Our
Citys strength in education, healthcare, biosciences and information technology and the
growing number of jobs available in those fields is even more reason for City Schools to
focus on improving our STEM programs. As Mayor Elizabeth will partner with the CEO
and press for investments and partnerships including with area universities and companies
to advance STEM education in the city.
Recognize the importance of arts education. Elizabeths mother is an artist and
advocate for arts education in public schools, and has ingrained in her the importance of
ensuring that every child is exposed to the arts. Research shows that arts education is
essential for every kind of student success including attendance, academic achievement,
graduation, and social emotional development, and the arts are essential to building skills
such as collaboration, creativity, and effective communication. As Mayor, Elizabeth will
engage City Schools and the arts community in developing a comprehensive strategic plan
for arts education and advocate for City Schools to fully implement the recommendations of
the P20 Governors Task Force on Arts Education in Maryland Schools.
Emphasize the education of the whole child. While Elizabeth has focused on STEM
and Arts education as areas needing strengthening, she is committed to education for all
students that provides foreign language, social studiesgeography, history, economicsas
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well as physical education. All are essential for the health and success of our students in
college and careers.
Expand early college, college preparation, and career training opportunities for

students. While the community college is not under the Mayors purview, as Mayor
Elizabeth would work to build collaborations that enable city students to begin to transition
to college while they are in high school. Further, it is critical that the career training
programs at the community college are effective: Elizabeth will strongly advocate that
MHEC in collaboration with the business community evaluate the career training programs
at BCCC. We need to ensure that our students have on ramps to jobs through internships
and other collaborations with businesses.
Finally, the State Longitudinal Data System will shortly give us information on the pathways of
our students beyond PK-12 enabling us to follow students through higher education and into
the workplace. It will enhance the data that we currently have on the level of preparedness of
our students such as test scores and the success of our individual schools in educating students
to guide policy. With this data and the collaboration of City Government, City Schools, our
institutions of higher education and the business community we can identify the best
interventions and practices to ensure that all of our students achieve the best outcomes
whether in higher education or the workplace.

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Invest in Early Childhood Development

The Chair of her campaign, Susan Levitan, is a hero to Elizabeth. She has advocated
and fought for underprivileged youth for the entirety of her career, and founded the wonderful
non-profit in Baltimore, Advocates for Children and Youth. She is a powerful voice for reform
in public education, but she also consistently points out that by the time a child gets into
kindergarten, already so much has happened that will put a child ahead or behind the curve.
For that reason, any comprehensive plan for education must include a robust suite of policies that
address early childhood education and child care.
The Nobel prize winning economist James Heckman has written about the return on
investment in early childhood education, showing that offering a child a strong start pays off in
greater achievement in school and work, improved health outcomes, and overall economic
benefits for families and communities. The time to turn that research into policy is now. Child
care in Baltimore is unaffordable for many working parents and at the same time, providers are
paid less than a living wage.
As Mayor, Elizabeth will:

Advocate for the expansion of access to full day pre-kindergarten programs.

Thankfully, our 4 year-olds in low-income households now have increased access to prekindergarten programs, whether in school or early childhood educational settings. Elizabeth
welcomes and supports the expansion of these programs, as well as support before a child is
born for the mother and family, and for quality child care. She also recognizes that while
pre-kindergarten programs are important, birth to age 3 is also a critical time, and that the
inadequate federal and state support in this arena means that access to quality early
childhood care remains limited in spite of research showing its significant benefits.

Professionalize the child care workforce. The quality of childcare programming

matters to child development. This means investing in the professional development of
caregivers. We have a number of terrific programs already in place which can be replicated,
but we need to evaluate these programs through a range of qualitative measures informed by
research in neuro- and cognitive science about how children learn. Another way we can
enhance our efforts in this area is to encourage the Baltimore City Community College to
apply for the professional development grant offered by the State.

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Make early childhood education and child care options more accessible and
understandable to parents. Any parent will tell you that it is a challenge to identify
appropriate educational and childcare programs. To address this gap in access and
knowledge, as Mayor, Elizabeth will create an online database for parents to find local
childcare and early childhood education options. She will also work with Maryland Family
Network to establish a rating system for childcare providers so that parents can have some
degree of confidence in where they send their children. This approach would be based on
parent-teacher surveys, similar to how we grade city schools.

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Support Our Youth After and Out of School

Baltimore has some great great after school, out of school, and summer programming for
young people, and many children have thrived in programs like BELL, Young Audiences Arts
for Learning Summer Academies, and Code in the Schools. But we need to do more. For many
young people in Baltimore, time outside of school is when learning slides, hunger increases, and
opportunities to engage in dangerous activities present themselves. As Mayor, Elizabeth will:

Expand access to after school programs. Today, only 6,000, or less than 10 percent,
of City Schools students benefit from an after school program. We need to enhance the
opportunities available to our youth outside of school. As Mayor, Elizabeth will expand
available after school programs, work with businesses and other key stakeholders to expand
job opportunities, and open and invest in recreation centers and out of school programming,
ensuring that those initiatives include not only a safe environment, but also educational
opportunities where students can receive tutoring outside of school.

Invest in programs that provide opportunities for student employment. Last

summer, 7,000 young people had paid work experiences through Youthworks ranging
from painting murals to doing community greening projects to interning in agencies, offices,
and hospitals. This is a great program, and we should continue to invest in it, with
particular attention to the fact that young men are underrepresented in the program. We
should also expand the program beyond only the summer to year round opportunities for
youth, with a goal of 1,000 such jobs.

Provide a safety net for those who drop out of the system. Education and youth
development should not stop when formal schooling ends. According to a report by the Jobs
Opportunities Task Force (JOTF), there are approximately 18,000 young people (16-24) in
Baltimore City who are neither working nor attending school. These young people present
Baltimore with both an opportunity and a risk, and we must take advantage of the
opportunity and eradicate the risk. In that regard, Elizabeth is fully supportive of JOTFs
seven policy recommendations aimed at reengaging and assisting these young people, who
JOTF appropriately calls Opportunity Youth. Baltimore also needs to explore proven
programs that help the most at-risk youth, such as Bostons ROCA program, as well as to
expand support for local efforts such as the Center for Urban Families STRIVE program.

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