Science Education Revisited

Science Education Revisited Once again.the Maryland State Department of Education. which has done virtually nothing to relieve the State’s chronic shortage of qualified high school science teachers. has released its biannual Teacher Staffing Report. Pages 87 through 90 of the Report contains statistics showing that the state’s high schools offer only 355 physics classes. as […]

NOW AVAILABLE – MARION ELIZABETH RODGERS’ BALTIMORE BAR LIBRARY TALK ON “MENCKEN, RITCHIE AND PROHIBITION” – AS PART OF – PROHIBITION IN MARYLAND: A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS

NOW AVAILABLE MARION ELIZABETH RODGERS’ BALTIMORE BAR LIBRARY TALK ON “MENCKEN, RITCHIE AND PROHIBITION” AS PART OF PROHIBITION IN MARYLAND: A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS including speeches and messages by Governor Albert Ritchie, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of Maryland’s prohibition-era congressional delegation, excerpts from the Wickersham report on the prohibition laws, and texts of […]

The youth employment conundrum

George Liebmann talked about his November 22, 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun, The Youth Employment Conundrum, that suggests policy changes to create jobs for young people may be needed to avoid social unrest. http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/11/26/WJE/A/41208/George+Liebmann+Calvert+Institute+for+Policy+Research.aspx

The youth employment conundrum

Policy changes to create jobs for young people may be needed to avoid social unrest The level of youth unemployment, the highest since records began to be kept on the present system in 1978, is the great undiscussed issue in American politics. The numbers for July 2010, a month when youth employment usually reaches a […]

Reform crime laws

Let's hear from the state's attorney candidates on peremptory challenges, drug offenses In a little more than two weeks, Baltimore City voters will participate in a seriously contested election for state’s attorney. There are various suggestions for rendering the criminal justice system more efficient. “Smoking out” the candidates would be useful to city voters next […]

Obama Keynesian Gift Shop

The economists of this administration hold Keynesian beliefs, but their belief is in one-way Keynesianism. The stimulus package has not produced its expected multiplier effects for several reasons, but one of them surely is its superimposition not on a previously balanced budget but upon enormous structural deficits. No credible proposal has been forthcoming for the […]

Baltimore City Pensions: A Worthy Report

The recent report of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s Task Force on Fire and Police Pensions under the Chairmanship of Donald Fry is a worthy effort, and repeats many of the observations in Calvert’s The Baltimore City Retirement Systems: Heading for Trouble report in 2006. Task Force recommendations fall into three broad categories- PLAN MANAGEMENT, FUTURE […]

Policy Wonk’s Guide to the Gubernatorial Election

To the uninitiated, the choice between two remarkably similar candidates, Govs. O’Malley and Ehrlich, must seem like a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Both are candidates whose past appeals have rested on personalities rather than issues. Both have become expert at deferring hard fiscal choices. Neither has been vigorous in cutting budgets. Both have a […]

Terrorism trials: no new issues, no need to panic

The controversy over the upcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial has not enlightened the public. Those who would deny rights to persons denounced by the president and those who automatically reject all alternatives to criminal trials have seen to that. Prisoners of war are persons captured in uniform of whose enemy status there is no doubt. […]

Beyond drug law reform: We need a new Wickersham Commission

Change is in the offing for U.S. drug policy. More than a dozen states, including Maryland, have adopted medical marijuana laws. Attorney General Eric Holder, a decisive member of a sometimes indecisive administration, stated that federal laws against marijuana possession would not be enforced against persons immune under such state laws. Various jurisdictions in California […]