“As the growing season winds down, one Baltimore City school garden has harvested next to nothing. A project intended to enliven lessons or inspire healthier eating came down to four neglected beds yielding two cinder-block-sized zucchini.” This is the start of a commentary written by UMBC graduate student Bess Keller, public policy, in the Baltimore Sun, about an unsuccessful school-community collaboration and why she believes it failed to reach its potential.
Keller suggests that the problem was one of misplaced incentives. She writes, “Recognition accrues to organizations and the people in them for getting money, starting a project, building something, chalking up partnerships, looking environmentally conscious. The hard work of making a project meaningful in the life of a school — meaningful enough that people on the scene will own the innovation — can easily go unrewarded.” Read the full commentary to learn more.
Tags: CAHSS, PublicPolicy
