Don’t overlook tutoring as a way to fight crime

The Sun has extensively reported on the crisis of crime in Baltimore. Many have expressed their ideas for addressing the crisis, including increased policing, higher prosecution rates and longer sentences.

But fundamentally, we should be trying to change Baltimore’s culture by focusing on the future: its children. Without a strong foundation in education, specifically in reading in their early years, children cannot flourish in later school years, have a chance of successful graduation or foresee a future with a rewarding and sustaining career. If we can keep the city’s children succeeding in school, we may change their perception of their future and help them thrive (“Baltimore City school board approves $1.62B budget with boost from Maryland ‘Blueprint’ funding,” May 13).

One path to giving children a strong foundation in reading has been Experience Corps, a tutoring program that has focused on improving the literacy skills of Baltimore City Public School children since 1998. It matches senior volunteers with young students either one-on-one or in small groups to improve their overall reading ability. The Experience Corps model works with a record that shows the reading levels of 50% of participating students increase by one year or more from the beginning to the end of the school year.

Experience Corps has been sponsored most recently by the AARP Foundation, but we have recently learned that they will cease to support the program in the upcoming school year. Unless AARP can be convinced to continue this program, we will need to find a new community partner to sponsor this critical program. The process of identifying a new sponsor and setting up the needed infrastructure and funding could be lengthy. After the issues that Baltimore’s children have faced during the pandemic, now is not the time to let this program lapse. Concerned citizens and community leaders need to contact AARP asking them not to abandon the program and also to contact city leaders asking them to consider taking up the funding of Experience Corps. We cannot allow this valuable program to disappear.