Marjorie lives in Montgomery County, having moved there a number of years ago in part because the reputation of the county’s school system. Marjorie’s daughter, Emily, is what is known as a “GT/LD” student in bureaucratese. That is to say that she is a gifted and talented student, but also learning disabled. The public schools […]
Last fall, Montgomery County activist Sylvia Fubini established a committee within the Montgomery County Council of PTAs to examine serious school-reform ideas – school choice, charter schools and so forth. In other words, she proposed the sort of debate the educracy generally goes to almost any lengths to avoid. Ms. Fubini’s plan got off to […]
Education is particularly relevant at the moment, given Governor Glendening’s plans to shore up support by “spending his way to November,” as the Baltimore Sun puts it. Much of this largess will be focused on the public schools. The high stakes involved in education are also apparent in the gutting and/or dilution of the two […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
One of the easiest ways to ignite a fire storm among a group of inner-city educators is to ask them how best to challenge students. Educators from the slums of Baltimore to the barrios of Los Angeles have cried out that their children cannot achieve unless we reform “the system.” There have been calls for […]