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♪ ♪ Connecting Marylanders to their government... this is "State Circle."

JEFF: Welcome to "State Circle."

We begin this week with the emancipation holiday of Juneteenth coinciding with the starting of Baltimore's 50th AFRAM Festival.

We spoke with Linzy Jackson, Director of Mayor's Office of Arts, Culture and Entertainment.

Mr.

Jackson, thank you very much for joining us.

We know for the citizens of Baltimore that AFRAM is legendary.

We know the importance of Juneteenth.

How cool is it that these things are happening on the same day?

>> AFRAM, we are getting into our 50th year of AFRAM today.

I'm running this whole weekend.

But when the mayor, Brandon Scott became mayor, one of the big things he wanted to do was to make sure that AFRAM had its home, meaning the weekend, it had a home.

And he thought about this, this idea of having it on Juneteenth.

So the last couple of years, AFRAM has been on Juneteenth and it has been a great day of celebration for the city and for the region.

JEFF: Home for the festival is Druid Hill Park.

It has moved around a little bit over the years.

Do you think this is a permanent spot?

>> I don't know if it is a permanent spot but at least as a city planner AFRAM in Druid Hill Park has definitely been a great environment.

It shows people what the second largest municipal park, how you can program spaces and it holds 300,000 people in this festival footprint with a lot of space to expand if it needs to.

So I think currently the place of Druid Hill Park has been great to us.

And it just shows people what park spaces could be activated and what it looks like.

JEFF: How challenging is transportation and parking?

>> I will say transportation has definitely been something on top of our mind for the last couple of years.

And each year we think of ways to improve it.

The good thing about Druid Hill Park is that it is right close to Mondawmin.

So we have the metro station right there and we have a light rate station walking distance as well and our partners at MTA run shuttles from different locations where you can see on the website aframbaltimore.com and we have it circulated as well with the Department of Transportation.

We extend the purple route there.

We have a lot of ways for people to get to the park.

And we have parking in the park.

We can fit about over a thousand cars in the park in our parking locations.

JEFF: For regular attendees, what is new for 2026?

>> I would say for 2026, it's bigger and better for the celebrating the 50th anniversary.

The biggest thing is that the festival is three days.

So we started today.

We have Saturday and we have Sunday.

Today the festival will be from 3 p.m.

to 9 p.m and we have headliners like Mario.

It's all Baltimore-based today.

Tomorrow we have SWV and The Lox and closing it out Sunday with Drew Hill and Charlie Wilson.

A three-day festival for this year, is the biggest change.

I would say that we spent a lot of time on activations around the park.

For the first time in a very long time, the festival has a sponsor that came in for naming rights.

Amazon Music is now sponsoring AFRAM 50 and I think that is a very huge deal for the growth of the festival as well.

JEFF: Hearing you talk about the acts, I'm wondering how you think about providing a venue for local performers versus bringing in the big regional and national names.

>> Yeah, so I think we do a great job here with the mayor as well because that's one of his very top focus is making sure that we use Baltimore-based vendors as well as Baltimore-based talent.

You see that at all of our festivals.

We have a long list of local acts that will get the chance, which is not normal, to share the stage with these national acts.

So I talked about Mario.

And I talked about The Lox and SWV and Charlie Wilson and we have a dance group, a youth dance program.

We have arts every day.

And then we have a lot of different local acts that will also be sharing the stage with this talent.

JEFF: And it's not all music.

I mean people are coming for the arts and certainly for food.

>> Yeah, food has always been my favorite pastime of AFRAM.

When my family used to come down, the first thing we did is stop for a turkey wing-turkey leg.

And then we would find our spot, lay out our blanket and enjoy the show.

We have over 80 vendors, food vendors that will be at the festival this weekend.

And most of them, if not all of them-- I do not know the numbers off the top-- but are local vendors.

And even past the food, we have a lot of merchandise vendors.

Those vendors, we prioritize local.

So we are ready and we are definitely making sure that we are bringing Baltimore with us as the festival grows.

JEFF: As the festival has grown and merged, as you told us with the Juneteenth timing, how do you-- certainly AFRAM is a big party.

Juneteenth a little bit more reflective, maybe.

How do you accommodate that?

>> So one thing we did when we first made the move to Juneteenth weekend, which again all of this credit goes to the mayor here.

When we went to Juneteenth, we realized that a lot of city resources are with AFRAM.

But we did not want that to be at the exchange of community events.

So a lot of community events are still having Juneteenth events and a lot of community events are partnering now with AFRAM.

One of the ones to point out is the seed schools 5K which is a fundraiser for the seed school.

That 5K is now in partnership with AFRAM and it's the official 5K of the festival.

We also have different pop-ups in different communities that are also with the festival.

And some of those pop-ups and some of those community events are even on the footprint.

So if you look at black flea market, that Juneteenth event is a staple in the city.

Now they have an activation on the AFRAM footprint and they're still able to do their event in the community.

So we are partnering.

We provide funding for some organizations that had a tradition of Juneteenth events during this weekend.

And we make sure that everyone is included.

JEFF: And before we go, everybody including me-- you don't have to live in Baltimore.

You can get there by light rail and JFX, and when you hit 50, half century, you start looking ahead, you and your colleagues, the next 50 years, what do you want to accomplish?

>> Yeah, so the good thing about AFRAM 50 is that we were also to able look at the past.

So we have an AFRAM documentary available soon for everybody to view, and we were able to talk to some of the surviving members that started AFRAM and those who produced it or have been a part of it along the way.

We were able to bring back some of the things that were in AFRAM throughout the last 50 years; whether that's the AFRAM fashion show or the new and improved new health and wellness area.

I think as we continue to go forward, to whoever may thank this festival as we get through the next 50 years-- I'm pretty sure it won't be me-- we want to keep those fundamentals involved to the festival as it continues to grow.

And I think one 69 points that you just brought up about it not just being a local festival is very important because we have people from Philly, from the tristate area, New York, and all over the east coast that comes to AFRAM.

And we use this as an opportunity to showcase our music, our talent, our vendors and our city.

So just making sure that fundamentals is a part of it as we continue to grow through the next 50 years.

JEFF: Linzy Jackson is a very busy man, director of the mayor's Office of Arts culture and entertainment.

Good luck this weekend.

Thank you for your time.

>> Thank you for having me.

JEFF: Now our newsmaker this week is Sue Elias, the C.E.O.

of Moveable Feast.

Thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you for having me, Jeff.

JEFF: Tell us about the organization.

You are a non-profit based for decades in Baltimore, right?

>> Yes, for over 35 years we have been in Baltimore.

And we are serving Moveable Feast actually serves Baltimore City and the 14 surrounding counties, including the entire eastern shore.

And we make and deliver medically tailored meals to people who live at the intersection of chronic illness and food insecurity.

JEFF: You have a new partnership with the State Department of Health.

What does that entail?

>> The state has launched a medically tailored meal program.

And we have been making medically tailored meals for decades.

Medically tailored meals are meals designed specifically for somebody's chronic illness or health condition.

So they're designed in conjunction with our chefs and our registered dieticians.

So for people with kidney disease, cancer, heart disease, those meals are specifically for them.

And the State Department of Health has launched a program in six counties in the State of Maryland serving people with diabetes.

JEFF: Which six counties.

>> Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Dorchester County, Somerset County, Prince George's County, and Allegany County and that is served by Food and Fiends.

JEFF: So what is the timing on this?

When do you get started?

>> We have started.

It is a very ambitious program to-- we will be delivering 12 frozen meals that are made freshly right here in our production kitchen in east Baltimore.

And so anyone who is able to sign up receives a home delivery once a week of 12 frozen piece and fresh produce.

So we have started.

We have already brought in close to 100 new clients through this program.

The goal of the program over the next two years is to do one million meals to over 3,000 Marylanders.

JEFF: What would the medical upside of that be?

And how will you measure success?

>> We have data that shows the impact of our services, so six months of services, on the cost of care.

We can show that six months prior to receiving our services and six months after was an average savings of $10,000 per person.

Also reduced hospital visits by 24%.

So that's the impact on, you know, the community as a whole and on the state.

But on a person, it's on their health and it's also on their well-being.

We all know someone who has diabetes, or someone who has come home from the hospital and they're facing those challenges.

And then just imagine if they also don't have a way to cook for themselves or afford food.

So the impact on a person is on their health and health and well-being.

And on the community, it is the reducing of healthcare costs while providing a great alternative for addition to other ways to support people with diabetes.

JEFF: Tell us how your chefs approach this task.

I'm picturing like a hospital meal with, you know, no sodium, no sugar, no fun.

So they kind of have to make it appealing at the same time because you need people to actually rely on this and not head to the corner store.

>> Right.

The food doesn't do its work if it isn't delicious and people want to eat it and I can verify because I test our food often.

It would remind you of something you would buy in the frozen food section of the grocery store but tastes better, I would say.

So you get a frozen meal with, we have Mandarin chicken meatballs with sauce and a side of peas or we have vegetarian options.

We have like a taco bowl.

All of those things that you would expect to eat but, no, we don't use sodium so our dieticians and our chefs are coming up with wonderful sauces, using other flavors and things that are culturally appropriate.

People want to eat.

And so we get lots of great feedback that our food is delicious and also helps people learn portions, right?

They come in these portion meal that is in segments so you have a portion of your protein, your vegetables and your starches and it helps people understand what is the right portions for them to be eating.

JEFF: Interesting history for Moveable Feast.

It dates back to the early aids crisis and so maybe the populations that you serve have changed-- certainly grown.

But it's kind of the same mission.

>> Right, we started in 1989 and it was delivering food to people who were really sick and maybe even dying alone and didn't have someone to provide them with food.

It is a mission of care.

And then realizing that not just food, but the right food, has an impact on the health and well-being of people we are serving.

And then also as people living with H.I.V.

longer but also developing chronic conditions like diabetes and kidney disease, our mission and our approach has grown.

And this is something nationally.

There is a national food is medicine coalition that was really the foundational of these organizations serving people with H.I.V.

that have expanded and developed this idea of medically tailored nutrition.

You can read about it now in health journals and you hear about it on the news how important the right nutrition is for someone's health.

JEFF: If someone is watching and they think they might be eligible for maybe the new diabetes program, also if somebody is watching and they might want to volunteer.

How do people best get in touch you with you?

>> Anybody who may be eligible, you have to be referred to us through the healthcare system.

There is a website on Maryland Department of Health, medically tailored meals program.

You can get to it through our website as well.

And that's also where you would find volunteer opportunities.

It's mfeast.org.

We rely on volunteers.

We are a community-based organization.

Volunteers are at the heart of what we do.

We have volunteers who deliver meals.

We have volunteers who come into our production kitchen and help pack and make the meals.

You can see and smell all of the smells that are part of the food that we produce and send to people.

JEFF: Sue Elias, C.E.O.

of Moveable Feast, we appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you, Jeff.

It has been a pleasure.

JEFF: New data on how the pandemic impacted learning.

We spoke recently with Harvard professor Thomas Kane.

>> It is clear in retrospect that the problems with U.S.

education started before the pandemic.

So the pandemic may have been the mud slide, but the steady erosion had started in the seven years before the pandemic.

JEFF: Stop there.

What was eroding?

>> So, a student achievement.

Especially reading achievement there has been a steady decline.

Actually the decline in the three years before the pandemic and in the two years after the pandemic were just as steep as during the pandemic, which should just make it clear to people, you know, the pandemic is over, but there is more fundamental challenges with U.S.

education that we need to be working on.

JEFF: Let's focus on the pandemic for a minute.

You talked about the recovery being u-shaped.

What does that look like?

>> So by u-shaped, I mean that achievement rose for two groups of districts.

The highest income districts which had lots of financial and social capital to help them recover.

But then the lowest income districts, too, which received a tremendous amount of federal pandemic relief.

It was the districts in between that were like 30 to 70% free and reduced priced lunch that have seen the least recovery on average.

And so that's because, actually, they didn't receive much federal money.

The federal money was very heavily targeted to the highest poverty districts.

And they didn't have their own dollars from, you know,-- to pay for the recovery.

So we just urge states to, as they allocate their own school improvement dollars, to focus on those districts in between that maybe still are far behind from where they were in 2019.

JEFF: Is that evidence of a forgotten middle in education, whether it's high performing kids getting special attention or extra resources for kids that are struggling.

And the kids in the middle maybe don't get as much attention?

>> Well, in this case it had to do with when Congress decided how they were going to distribute the $190 billion in federal aid to schools.

They said well, gosh, what formula can we use for distributing that?

And the one that was available was Title I, which is a program that is really focused at the highest poverty schools.

But it's leaving those moderate income districts and, you know, the high income districts out.

JEFF: Do you feel like the money that was spent was effective?

Were their certain strategies, say tutoring, that clearly worked?

>> Jeff, we spent the last three years trying to measure the efficacy of the program states and districts were implementing.

And there were clearly some things that worked but not as well as the pre-pandemic research suggested that would.

Tutoring had an effect.

Summer learning programs had an effect, but when districts were spending the money, they spent relatively little of it on things like that.

So they spent a lot of money on salary increases and increasing, you know, staff in schools rather than providing students with extra instructional time.

The dollars had an effect.

We see the dollars had about the same effect we would have expected from a general revenue increase.

Because that's what it sort of was like, a general revenue increase rather than a targeted focus on academic recovery.

Districts only had to spend 20% of the federal relief on academic recovery and so those dollars did seem to have an effect.

But not all of the dollars were spent there.

JEFF: Was remote learning a loser and was it a loser for everybody?

>> There is no question that remote learning was a loser, no question at all.

And what we learned were that the costs were particularly large in high poverty districts.

Horace Mann used to say that schools were the balance wheel of the social machinery and we sort of saw that in action.

When schools closed down, the folks that lost the most ground were those in highest poverty because the access to tools outside of school were that much weaker and that just means that high poverty districts that stayed closed for a long time during the pandemic just have a lot mover ground to make up.

JEFF: And I guess that would correlate with the racial-- persistent racial performance great.

High minority population in districts with financial challenges.

>> So, Jeff, that is what is so frustrating about this moment, is that we were actually making progress between 1990 and 2013, that, you know, people-- many of your listeners are probably used to thinking of K-12 as a perennial quagmire.

That's not true.

Between 1990 and 2013, the average student in the U.S.

improved by more than two grade equivalents in fourth grade math and eighth grade math, so the fourth graders in 2013 were scoring-- had math skills equivalent to the sixth and a half graders in 1990.

There has been progress.

And during that period, racial gaps were narrowing.

Racial gaps were narrowing.

But it's just been in the last since 2013, that that progress, that first plateaued and then began declining.

We think it has to do with two things happened around the same time.

One was we let up on test-based accountability.

And a second was there was a big increase in student social media use, which we think particularly affected reading scores.

And so the test-based accountability, we had a smoke alarm system that was set up to warn us about declines in achievement.

And we turned it off just about the same time that the pandemic-- or that the social media and then the pandemic hit.

So that's why we are a decade into this, what we are calling a learning recession, and yet we are just now like, you know, signing the alarm that students are losing ground and we have to do something.

JEFF: Okay, so to pick up on that.

You are thinking there is a learning recession but it goes back a decade or more.

And within that recession, I know you are an economist by training-- within that recession, there was a depression that happened during the pandemic and the kids are not back to where they would have been and we are not sure whether to entirely blame the pandemic or what you see as a lack of commitment to testing a decade ago.

>> Yeah, so that's why I referred to it as a mud slide that followed seven years of erosion.

And the losses have continued.

In reading, actually, reading scores declined further between '22 and '24.

And so after the pandemic was well over, reading achievement continued to decline.

And we see the first sign of a turn around between '24 and '25 in reading but that's following years of losses.

JEFF: Before you go, I'm sure you can't get through a day without being asked about artificial intelligence and what it is all going to mean.

So what is it all going to mean?

Is it a net plus or net negative for the process of educating young people so they graduate high school with good reading skills and good math skills?

>> So, Jeff, there will be A.I.-based tools that will help students learn.

And there will be A.I.-based tools that slow student learning down.

And that what states and school districts ought to be doing and parents ought to be asking their school districts if they're doing this, ought to be tracking student achievement gains for those students who are using these tools.

And we ought to be staying on top of this and making sure only the tools where we actually have evidence that it is improving student's learning, those are the ones that stay in classrooms.

JEFF: Our thanks to professor Kane and that is "State Circle" for this week.

Thank you for watching.

We'll see you back here next Monday evening at 7:00 for