Last year, Frederick F. Siegel, a history professor at New York’s Cooper Union for the Arts and Sciences, released a somewhat pessimistic book on the fate of America’s cities, The Future Once Happened Here.1 During one of his recent visits to Maryland, the Calvert Institute conducted a lengthy interview with Siegel. In particular, the institute […]
For the vast majority of men, the basic pattern of life has not changed in 3,000 years. As young boys, males play, go to school; later, they get jobs, get married, raise families. Life is now more competitive than it used to be, and the rhythm of life accelerated as students learn computer science and […]
The institute’s Focus on the Facts No. 2 described Marylanders’ relatively low utilization of public schools, compared to other states. And can you blame them? Regardless of all the educrat back-patting following the release last December of the most recent scores on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) test, two recent, independent studies of […]
The Baltimore Academy of Excellence (BAE) is located on the 4200 block of Belair Road in Baltimore, next to Herring Run Park.1 It was founded by Jacqui Gough (see photo 1) almost three years ago, supported by the Greater Grace World Outreach, a nationwide, nondenominational church that places great emphasis on urban outreach projects. Though […]
In the winter 1998 issue of this journal, Robert C. Embry, Jr., president of Baltimore’s Abell Foundation, asked in a letter to the editor, “A graduated voucher [system] would certainly reduce the public cost of existing private school students – but would it be enough to keep or attract the middle class?”1 In part, the […]
Maryland has no legislation authorizing charter schools, nothwithstanding the fact that the charter-school movement is one whose time has undoubtedly come. Regardless of Maryland’s tardiness, there are currently 787 charter schools serving students in 23 states and the District of Columbia.1 One inhibiting factor is that the powerful Maryland State Teachers’ Association is, at best, […]
Last July, the Calvert Institute published a Calvert Issue Brief by Baltimore attorney George Liebmann. Called “The Agreement: How Federal, State and Union Regulations Are Destroying Public Education in Maryland,”1 the study included the first analysis of all 24 teachers’ union contracts currently operative in this state. A summary of the report is reproduced below. […]
Though conservatives have long been aware of it, many of Maryland’s opinion leaders seem blissfully unconcerned about the state’s traditionally casual approach to the cost and size of government. State and local combined personal income taxation is among the very highest in the country, a fact that has elicited remarkably little interest among the intelligentsia. […]
About the Author George W. Liebmann, J.D. George W. Liebmann is a practicing lawyer in Baltimore City. He is the author of two books, The Little Platoons: Sub-Local Governments in Modern History (Praeger, 1995) and The Gallows in the Grove: Civil Society in American Law (Praeger, 1997). He has also authored numerous articles on constitutional […]
About the Author Kantayhanee Whitt is currently an assistant program manager with a Baltimore-based non-profit enterprise that provides training and technical assistance to organizations and institutions involved in community development. She received her master of arts degree in policy studies at the Johns Hopkins University in 1997. In 1995, she received her bachelor of science […]