What should we make of the recent survey finding by the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) that 41% of the state’s teacher’s work a second job to make ends meet?
Commentary
MarylandReporter.com celebrates 10th birthday
Happy 10th Birthday to MarylandReporter.com. Ten years ago this Saturday, on November 2, 2009, MarylandReporter.com launched the original nonprofit news website in Maryland covering our state government and politics. We hope you’ll send us a 10th birthday gift to keep us going for another year – and have your gift doubled by four national foundations.
Commentary
Opinion: Kirwan plan is a union cash grab; taxpayers get the tab
The Kirwan Commission’s real aim is hiking teacher pay by $3 billion a year, and it is why the state teachers’ unions are so strongly backing it – more teacher pay. Kirwan aims at “making teacher salaries more competitive with other professions.”
Commentary
Opinion: What students from low-income homes really need
Instead of spending close to $3 million dollars as that is the projected transportation cost associated with Dr. Martirano’s proposal, a prudent way to spend this money would be educating school staff about trauma. No curriculum or instruction provided by the best Howard County teachers will succeed if a student is under chronic stress.
Commentary
Opinion: Moving kids is no shortcut to educational equity
Psychiatrist Shobhit Negi writes that the recommended area adjustment plan for Howard County schools is a shortcut approach to a larger issue that our society faces. It is analogous to applying a Band-Aid over a wound while letting it bleed internally. His concerns are related to the biological and psychological ramifications associated with implementation of the superintendent’s recommendation.
Commentary
Opinion: Howard County is not segregated
The Howard County superintendent’s redistricting plan forces 7,300 students to switch schools, promoting equity by reducing the presence of low-income families at some schools and increasing their presence at other schools. Many of the plan’s proponents cannot defend it in good faith. Consider the example set by the County Council’s own segregation smear.
Environment
Opinion: We need to move more people over the Bay bridges, not more cars
Rather than a new vehicle-oriented Chesapeake Bay Bridge crossing, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy strongly supports the research and immediate implementation of aggressive travel demand management (TDM) strategies to more easily cross the current Chesapeake Bay Bridge spans. Why not make the absolute best of what we currently have using technology and smart infrastructure-based planning, prior to embarking on a project that is literally years and billions of dollars away from happening? We need relief from congestion now.
Commentary
Commentary: Lessons from 9/11
On this anniversary of 9/11, it’s fitting for all Americans to take a deep breath, and remember a few simple things about who we are — ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Commentary
Tom Horton: Leave it to beavers: Their ability to alter land should be revisited
While greening of the Bay’s lands is good, we know that far better would be green and wet; and that’s where we need to reconsider and actively restore the beaver. No creature on Earth, save for modern humans, has more capacity to transform a landscape; and in designing a landscape that produces excellent water quality, the beaver has no equal.
Commentary
Opinion: School funding workgroup is stacked against counties
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Funding Formula Workgroup, has now been created to make recommendations for the distribution of funds by local school districts and between state and local governments. This workgroup will also make recommendations for specific funding formulas. I am greatly troubled by the make-up of the workgroup, which has only two members to represent interests of the county governments that pay the local costs of schools.
Commentary
Opinion: Fatherlessness, violence and political cowardice
With Father’s Day on Sunday, Towson University Professor Rick Vatz returns to his persistent theme about the negative impact of fatherlessness.