May 1st, 2000
Category: Issue Brief, Urban Affairs
If exodus is a measure of livability, then only a handful of cities are as unlivable as Baltimore. And the people leaving are just the sort of folk Baltimore must keep. They are the ordinary, middle-class types without whom no city can function. But the municipal authority’s response to these individuals’ verdict on the city has been – nothing. Baltimore is home to public employees and welfare recipients a-plenty.
September 1st, 1999
Category: Efficiency in Government, Issue Brief
As Maryland moves toward the 21st century, an expanding population demands ever better services and ever more schools – without more taxes. How to pull it off? The answer is for local governments to pay less for services, leaving funds available for purchasing additional services in other areas. The easiest means of doing this is to subject service providers to the rigors of the market by making them compete with each other.
April 1st, 1999
Category: Fiscal, News Series
The National Taxpayers Union, a watchdog group in Washington, D.C., has just released its annual rating of the “taxpayer friendliness” of all members of Congress. Maryland’s U.S. Senators, Democrats Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, ranked absolute bottom on the NTU scale. Between them, Sarbanes and Mikulski scored a combined average of 8 percent, out of […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: Education, News Series
There is a widespread perception that there is a nationwide shortage of classroom space. Education proved to be an issue of serious voter concern in Maryland’s 1998 election, with both gubernatorial candidates feeling compelled to make promises to hire at state expense over 1,000 new public school teachers (despite spotty evidence that reduced class size […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: Education, News Series
Five minutes into any discussion on the subject of teacher certification you’re bound to hear the analogy: “If you needed heart bypass surgery, wouldn’t you insist on having a licensed surgeon perform the procedure? Well, then, you certainly wouldn’t want an uncertified teacher instructing your child, would you?” But is an uncertified teacher with a […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: Book Review, Education
The French are smart. They have two words for education, not one. One word means “instruction.” It is what people get when they go to Harvard law school or a school for hairdressers. At both places, people are taught facts, concepts and useful skills. The other word means “education.” It suggests the training one gets […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: Miscellaneous, News Series
I was looking for something in my basement the other day. As is so often the case, I did not find what I was looking for. But I did find something better – two photo albums filled with snaps I had taken during a trip to Albania in 1987. This prompted a frantic search for […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: News Series, Urban Affairs
A great swathe of the intellectual establishment has come around to viewing Baltimore through Calvert-colored glasses. Now that he need no longer fear the electoral wrath of the unions, even Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke (D) is making approving noises about adopting privatization as one means of introducing an element of value for money into the […]
April 1st, 1999
Category: News Series, Urban Affairs
As Baltimore’s disappointing Schmoke era draws to a close, Calvert recently attempted to elicit answers from potential 1999 mayoral candidates to some key questions. Surveys were mailed to seven people, either announced candidates or folk whose names have been mentioned as possibilities. These were Lawrence A. Bell III, the city council president; Mary Conaway, the […]
March 1st, 1999
Category: Education, Issue Brief
About the Authors Robert Lerner, Ph.D. Robert Lerner received his B.A. in sociology and economics from Oberlin College and his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. He is the co-author of three books, Giving for Social Change (Praeger, 1994), Molding the Good Citizen (Praeger, 1995) and American Elites (Yale, 1996). He has also […]
