Baltimore’s Promise, Fiscally Sponsored by Fund for Educational Excellence
Launched by a diverse group of civic leaders in 2014, Baltimore’s Promise is a collaboration to create a cradle to career pipeline to success for youth in Baltimore City by coordinating strategy, identifying quality programs, establishing shared outcomes, building public will, and advancing good policy. In Year 6, the work will focus on the expanded implementation of the Grads2Careers occupational training scholarships for graduates from Baltimore City Public Schools, a demonstration of the new Youth Data System, a planning and implementation effort around Young Adult Literacy, a landscape analysis of out-of school programming and a continuation of the Summer Funding Collaborative. Baltimore’s Promise also is serving as the backbone for a $4.3 million fund to support food and other needs in Baltimore as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Urban Teachers
With Abell Foundation start-up funding, Urban Teachers launched a new model of teacher preparation in 2009, recruiting outstanding college graduates, training them in a year-long clinical preparation, providing classroom support over four years, and linking their certification to demonstration of effective teaching practices and student learning gains. In summer 2020, Urban Teachers will begin training another 100 new incoming Resident Teachers who co-teach with mentor teachers for the first year of a four-year commitment. This grant will enable Urban Teachers to embark upon a strategic planning process to reaccess and design a new business and financial model that will garner more earned reveue and reduce costs without impacting program quality. This model will further reduce reliance on philanthropy to 20% of the total budget, and reduce the financial burdens on teacher candidates.
In summer 2020, Urban Teachers will begin training another 100 new incoming Resident Teachers who co-teach with mentor teachers for the first year of a four-year commitment.
Fund for Educational Excellence
The Fund for Educational Excellence is a Baltimore-based education intermediary that supports public education through its fundraising and collaboration with Baltimore City Public Schools, community-based research, convening stakeholders, and serving as a fiscal sponsor to education non-profits. This grant will enable the Fund to produce a Transportation report and act on its recommendations in CTE and School Choice, to raise federal and national funding for City Schools, to stewart $25 million as fiscal sponsor to 20 non-profits, and to recognize excellence among school principals.
Digital Harbor Foundation, Fiscally Sponsored by Fund for Educational Excellence
COVID-19 has exposed the lack of both devices, and as importantly, connectivity in the homes of Baltimore City school children. Coordinated by the Fund for Educational Excellence, this grant is part of a City Schools Tech Initiative to pilot the use of mesh-internet installed on the roofs of four high-poverty schools. These cost-effective access nodes tap into school broadband and provide free internet to homes in a four-to-eight-block radius of the school, serving an anticipated 820 students.
The Community School
Certified in 2014 as a small non-public diploma-awarding high school, The Community School in Remington has successfully served struggling students who have failed in Baltimore City Public Schools for over 30 years. This storefront school provides up to 22 14-19 year olds with an interdisciplinary academic and mentoring high school program that reinforces basic skills, while individualized instruction builds knowledge and skills for college, competitive employment, and community contribution. Over 40 volunteers support teachers and work individually with students. The Community School boasts a daily attendance above 95% and a college enrollment rate of 65%.