Changes

It wasn’t until 1963 that the school board tried to make a change by eliminating districts completely. This was the end also of the criticism of the Baltimore City School System. The quality of the schools dropped as the schools became more African-American. It was clear that white parents that remained in the city were sending their children to private institutions. The biracial parent’s group had suggested a list of steps the board could have taken to upgrade schools. If the quality of schools ha improved this would have counteracted white flight. According to Marian Edelman (head of the Children’s Defense Fund) school officials clung to the myth of free choice. Schools officials could not by law (Milliken v. Bradley) get help from the surrounding counties. They had no legal basis for demanding or requiring it. Investment in the schools and political clout left with the wealthy and middle-class parents. So the school system abandoned any attempt to achieve racial balance and concentrated instead on making the schools as equal as possible. This meant of course improvements in the schools and new schools.

· “Public policies also affected the school. By this time the city had lost 13 percent of its population to the suburbs.” By 1974, 70 percent of the public school students in Baltimore were black; by 1980 the figure was close to 80 percent.” Passage of a comprehensive civil rights law in 1964, affected the school system as well. It prohibited discrimination in activities supported by the Federal Government even though it had been aimed at racial discrimination in hiring and firing. The next year Congress passed an aid to education law that supplied local schools districts with federal support. This was a means to supplement teacher’s salaries and build new schools. These laws had nothing to do with Baltimore but it was an advantage for the city. Federal funds became an important part of the school budget but allocation for this money was based on number of poor students in a district. “Forty-two percent of those funds, came from Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965, the largest category was the federal school lunch program.” This is where the city got things twisted. They disagreed with the federal government on how the money should be spent. The bulk of the money was to improve the conditions for African-American students. Instead it became a part of the regular school budget.Federal funds weren’t the only problem faced by the school system. The local property tax decreased because the population declined, so local revenues ceased to be the major source of funding. As the city became dependent on Federal funds, it became dependent on state funding as well between 1970 and 1975. So the city was responsible to the state and the federal governments.